Hulu/AT&T plans for ads in 2019:

Streaming TV services offered by companies like Hulu and AT&T are testing the waters for a new type of advertising called “pause ads” The idea… ads that play when they choose to pause a show…

Nope.

I did three different 2018 tax calculators (Turbotax, eFile, H&R Block). The same numbers gave me three answers with a huge swing. I guess we’ll just wait and see what happens!

It’s that wonderful time of year again when the soft glow of the Christmas tree fills my home with light early in the morning.

Sky clear.

To the scientists who gave us contact lenses: I salute you!

My spot in line to move domain registrations to Cloudflare opened up this morning. $8/year for .com with free WHOIS privacy. Easy decision.

Hello, December! 🎄

“Free shipping” that delivers in 7-10 business days is just as off-putting to customers as paid 3-5 business day shipping.

Lots of stuff in the pantry and refrigerator. Going to work over the next few days to eat all of these extras and get a fresh start.

I love the last day of the month and all of the financial reconciliation that I get to do.

There’s nothing smart about FedEx SmartPost.

Parental controls on iOS12 are way too complicated to set up.

Apple Watch Setup

Crazy slow process,

Hard to back up, long load time.

A bad job, Apple.

The Apple Watch has the worst onboarding experience of any products in their lineup.

How bad is Siri? She can’t figure out that when I ask for “PBS Kids Songs for the Holidays,” I am talking about the album “PBS Kids Music for the Holidays." Sad!

The way that the free market punishes companies for misbehavior is by starving them of business. So if you don’t like what Google or Facebook or Twitter are doing, punish them by deleting your account.

At every turn, I find another Google product or service that I’m using, which really shows how deep they are in the market. I used Google’s Product page to make sure that I had remember all of the services that I used at one point or another. I must say, every passing day, Google gives me a new reason to get them out of my life, forever. This year, I’ve deleted all of my accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Google is next.

Below are the Google services that I use and what I will replace them with.

1. Google Analytics: I never cared about traffic to my websites, and my web design clients don’t really have a need for them either. Our websites are important as they stand, not depending on how many visitors we get. There are use cases, but for the sites that I work on, it’s internet cruft.
2. Google Domains: I used Google Domains because of the wide TLDs available, the low prices, and the free domain privacy feature. I’ve done some research and after considering Hover, I Want My Name, and Cloudflare, I’m going to move all of my domains over to my web host.
3. Google Drive: I didn’t use Drive that much, but it turned out I was keeping a very important spreadsheet in there with listings of all of my blog posts. I moved that spreadsheet to Apple Numbers and will keep it locally.
4. Google Fonts: I used to use these files extensively in my web design projects. I used Font Squirrel’s font webkit creator to generate the necessary files and will now self-host my project fonts.
5. Google My Business: I’ve created a few pages for clients. I’m going to make them admins on those pages and remove my admin role.
6. Google Search: I moved all of my defaults to DuckDuckGo and have synced my preferences across my devices.
7. Google Voice: I tried to use a Google Voice number as a way of keeping my cell phone number semi-private, but it didn’t work. So I’ll just give everyone my cell number and deal with it.
8. Google Wifi: As a fluke on Amazon, I ended up with a free 3 pack of Google Wifi just over a year ago. (I was given their permission to keep them free of charge!) I’m going to replace the routers with a Netgear Orbi system.
9. Nest: I went all-in on Nest before Homekit and have several pieces of their hardware. They were subsequently bought by Google and later folded into the company. I’ve started replacing that hardware, one piece at a time. I’ll be Homekit exclusive moving forward.
10. Waze: I will miss Waze, but I actually prefer Apple Maps since the directions give feedback on my watch while I’m driving. Hopefully Apple will improve traffic and active rerouting in the future.
11. YouTube: I already waste too much time on YouTube, so this should be a net positive. Plus, you don’t need an account to watch videos.

I was never totally in Google’s orbit, but I had gotten myself pretty tangled up. Now the trick will be to wind down my usage and ensure that I’ve gotten everything deleted and closed.