You can trust "The Cloud"

[Bob H]

[Terry Coombs]

  Really ! I've been criticized by a few because I do what I can to minimize my online footprint , avoid tracking bots , and my refusal to use cloud storage for stuff . I'd much rather store that stuff right here at home on one (or more) of my own computers . Including the 500Gb 2,5" drive I ordered today (with carrier that will work in both of our Lenovo laptops) we'll have over 6Tb of storage . I'm keepin' all my shit right here where I have physical control of the devices it's stored on .

[Ralph Mowery]

I keep multiple backups at home for the pictures and other important data. Usually burn stuff to a DVD disc. Then the computer is usually backed up to an external hard drive, plus I have 2 or 3 computers with much of the same data on them. The computers are some I bought off ebay for about $ 100 to $ 150 each. Not much more than the extermal hard drives at the time.

I remember listing to a CPA and he told one of his clients to keep a backup of his data. This was back when a 10 meg hard drvie was big. He said he would have to spend about 5 or 10 dollars a week to do the backups. His hard drive crashed and he had to hire some outside people for a few weeks just to type all that data back to his computer. My first computer was a RAdio Shack Model 3. ust floppy drives, but I kept several disks that were duplicates.

[Terry Coombs]

  I do pretty much like you , but put the same stuff on at least 3 different computers . All of our desktop computers are home built by me . Laptops would be too if it were feasible . Our first computer was a CoCo 64k . That had to be around 1983 or 84 ... and I still have that thing up in the attic at our house down in Memphis .

[Meanie]

A big +1

All my stuff is also on an external HD which I back up on another HD as an extra measure of security.

[Terry Coombs]

  I think we're the only people I know that don't have smart phones . The wife and I live where there's no cell service (or OTA TV either) and our only cellular device is a flip phone that lives out in the car . Sadly , we'll have to get a new device soon since they're killing 3G .

[Dean Hoffman]

There are 4g lte flip phones if you don't want a conventional smart phone.

[Biff Tannen]

Yes, blame the victim of the crime.

The problem is that we live in a permissive society.  When we catch a telemarketer/scammer, we should just put a bullet in their head.  Crime would taper off to near zero.

The ~90-10 rule applies here, ~90% of the crime is performed by ~10% of the people.  We just need to euthanize that ~10%.

[Terry Coombs]

  My wife says there are ... she sells cell phones at Walmart . We can't complain , this phone is several years old now and it wasn't expensive to begin with . I've started to wonder if smart phones are really The Number of the Beast ...

[Terry Coombs]

  We know , my wife sells 'em at Walmart .

[invalid unparseable]

It has been a couple of years but Tracfone gave users free new flip phones when they upgraded.

[trader_4]

Good luck with that when the perp is in Russia or Uganda.

[trader_4]

IDK how much you spend on minutes, but MintMobile, you can get unlimited V/T, 3GB of data a month for $25 a month if you buy 3 months at a time or $15 a month, $180 for a year if you buy a year of service. After 3GB, the data speed slows down, but it's unlimited. Hotspot is included. They ride on Tmobile, so how well it works depends on Tmobile coverage wherever you are. I think they have a referral deal going where you can get $20 and I get $20 with their refer a friend deal. It's the best deal I've found out there and excellent coverage too. I get 170MB/sec data here.

[Ralph Mowery]

I have a smart phone,but do not use it very much. The advantage of the service I have is that it locks on to the WIFI service and if out of range it will go to a cell tower. Works well around the house as I get a good signal off my internet box. When on the regular phone tower service I do not have internet service. However the cost is less than $ 15 a month. I do not normally use the phone on the internet.

[Frank]

I buy for the time too. I have a ton of minutes and renew for a year at about $100. My wife got a cheap smart Tracfone with some data and minutes for a year for $125. Been a few months and she is yet to use any data but connects through wifi which does not use phone data up. I consider a smart phone too but like the little flipper which I can carry in a shirt pocket.

[Biff Tannen]

Gotta start somewhere.

[rbowman]

I've got 1974 minutes, like I'm going to talk to anyone for 33 hours. The $100 a year and whatever minutes comes with it is still the cheapest option for something I very rarely use. I never did like phones and being mobile devices didn't change that.

otoh, I've had a Verizon MiFi for several years. If I really want a smart phone experience I use a tablet.

[rbowman]

In one of the extra videos on a 'Sons of Anarchy' DVD the producer said they'd specifically went with flips because the idea of a 1%er pulling out an iPhone just didn't seem right.

[rbowman]

I had a candybar that was bricked by an OTA update gone wrong. In one of my smarter moves I took the dead thing to a RadioShack where a woman I knew from the ham club worked and played very dumb. It took her about an hour on the phone with someone whose first language was Spanish to get the minutes transferred. Apparently they couldn't tell how many minutes/days was on the phone and it wasn't talking.

Toward the end she said 'this has been such a pain in the ass with the poor guy standing here, how about you throw in some extra minutes?' so I thing I got 200 or 300 more. That was back when you had to enter about

32 hex numbers.

Anyway it's the cheapest way I've found. I would think Verizon would recognize the niche market and grab it but their plans don't even come close.

[invalid unparseable]

I think I have a good ear for accents. With Google translate I learned a few interesting words in Hindi, "भाड़ में जाओ तुम, योनी" "bhaad mein jao tum, yonee". I used them on a lady Microsoft caller scammer one day and she actually called me back and said I should not use bad words.