All Your Base Are Belong To Us...

     I like Google. I really do. I see what they are trying to do and it's pretty cool. I like the idea of a Star Trek computer. I actually chose an android OS tablet because of the interconnections of Google products.

     I was an early adopter of Gmail and have relied heavily on it for years. Recently though, I decided that it was time to change my email address after 8 years. Seriously, how many advertisement emails do you need for hair, a larger naughty bit, a hot Russian bride,  or any number of discount medicines? Besides, the email address was a little longer than I wanted to drag around for however many years I have left on earth. It seems a simple thing, so I decided to change it.

     This is where the pervasiveness of Google comes into play. I really like Google Drive in that it lets me work on projects anywhere, and at any time, on any platform. Unfortunately when you change your email you lose everything on your Drive account. Yes, I know you can move it, but it's something that people don't generally think about.

     Not only do you have to let everyone in your email circle know that you are moving to new email digs, but you have to let them know about your new G+ profile, and you have to re-follow anyone you are interested in. On the upside: the numb skull from Pittsburgh who believes he is the worlds greatest guitarist no longer sends me sophomoric emails with insults and links to him gratuitously failing at playing guitar, so there is that.

     Another thing that is really lame and should be well thought out before moving is Blogger. You can pass editing rights to your new profile, but you cannot transfer ownership to the new profile. In some ways this is bad. I lost A lot of work on the sailboat blog. Everything except the most recent post -- which has been updated to the new site. I also lost my other blog "View From The Gutter", which isn't terrible. I started this one in its place. Fresh starts and all that...

     The one part thought that I didn't think about, and is probably the worst effect of moving was my contact list. I can do without a lot of email addresses since they are on people's profiles usually anyway. No, the part I did not foresee is that all of the contacts on your phone that are tied to your gmail profile will be deleted as well. Many of these contacts were from a long time ago. Now I have no idea who is calling me, who is sending me redonkulous text messages. It's sad really.

     So before you move, and maybe even if you don't plan to change profiles anytime soon, make a hard copy backup of all your contact data. I didn't but I sure wish I had.

     Here's a recreation of what it's like getting mystery calls. Don't let it happen to you!