(I apologize for the implied explitives in the title of this post, they were, however, necessary.)
Admittedly, a better title might have been "Simplify, Simplify, Simplify", but either way - my point is it's time for me to rein in some things in my life and "trim off the fat". I'm all over the place, so much so that a friend on Twitter made a comment about my far-reaching social networking appearance (not influence), and asked how I manage to maintain it all. The truth is, I don't maintain much of anything, anymore, or ever have. I need to close a few accounts, delete a ton of email addresses and K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).
At one point in time I had the grand idea of creating an email address, for every account, everywhere on the internet (the unnecessary commas have been added for an intentional...momentary, but rather obnoxiously...long...pause). I chose to use the prefix "i83." to begin each address, for example: i83.facebook@gmail.com. This email, of course would be used as my login/contact email address for...you guessed it - Facebook! I also had, among others, i83.itunes, i83.redbox, etc. (You don't even want to know how many there actually are...nearly 2 dozen.)
I admit, I'm a little OCD and I'm having a hard time coming to grips with actually deleting, and discontinuing the use of these email addresses. It feels "clean", and it made sense to me when I did it, albeit I can't remember why, but I'd like to think it was a reasonable idea. It is, however difficult to remember whether or not I'm using a custom address, or stephen@bruington.com, which is my personal, 'everything else' email address.
In order to simplify I feel it's necessary to cut down on the number of accounts I have, but do not (for many reasons) maintain. I have written about, and even tried this before: http://blog.stephenbruington.com/tag/migration, but this time will be different, right? ;)
Here's the thing, I have accounts at places I know nothing about. Yep, little old me has probably already been to your website and established a username/password, etc. I've been on, logged into and/or used these, and many more: blip.fm, last.fm, facebook.com, twitter.com, bebo.com, orkut,com, linkedin.com, friendfeed.com, posterous.com (Haha! Thanks for hosting my blog.), wordpress.com, tumblr.com, livejournal.com, typepad.com, typingweb.com, plaxo.com, rememberthemilk.com, stikkit.com (which, by the way was the BEST ever note, memo, sticky message website...ever), gmail.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, flickr.com, photoshop.com, gmx.com, meebo.com, AIM, Skype, ICQ, myspace.com, and many, many others. Wow!
Do I really need all that stuff? No, I don't. I know I don't, but I think I have a problem...an addiction. I would like to keep the following:
Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, tumblr, posterous, flickr, Skype, Photoshop.com, and maybe a few others. I could write a book about all these sites and why I've used them, but I don't think anyone would read it. In fact, if you've made it this far you're either my wife (thank you Sweetheart), or crazy!
C.Y.A. - yes, the 'A' stands for what you think it stands for. I don't have a real good reason for using it as part of my title other than the fact that the internet is filled with identity-stealing goons and...quite frankly, I'm exposed. I need to CYA and get rid of a lot of these sites with my information. If you've made it *this far, please do not SPAM my email inbox. I realize I posted my email address to the world, but I don't believe anyone will use it to contact me anyway, so what the heck.
That's it. I need to consolidate and do away with a lot of useless accounts, and unused (by ME) websites. Thanks for reading, I'll let you know, at a later date what I decide to do, and how the cleanup is going, and/or turns out.
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