I think I’ve officially “resolved” the data portability drama with Facebook, and this post (more or less) will serve as my catharsis regarding my dispute with what I consider to be my biggest regrets in geek hood.

Vanity Of Vanities

When I joined Facebook many years ago, I did it for the sole purpose of forming closer relationships with friends I’ve met in person or communicated with extensively over email, twitter, blogs, etc.

I’ve never been fond of their chat programs, or even their spammy games like Farmville, Mafia wars, and the zillion clones that popped no matter how hard I tried filtering them out.

But I tolerated it because I wanted to connect with my friends as all of them were using it.

Until that is…

Rage Against The Machine

…Facebook decided to make everyone’s private profiles public.

Outraged, many of my friends threatened deletion (some actually did), while others abandoned Facebook altogether.

I debated against either option and still kept Facebooking on.

At least until I discovered that the social network lacked true data portability, which is geek speak for “all your contacts, images and videos belong to Facebook!”

Exodus And The Digital Death

I quickly discovered that all of the legal ways of removing your data off of Facebook’s servers were “mysteriously” not working, after becoming too popular.

After trying dozens of services (freemium, premium and free) to legally export my data off of Facebook’s servers for safe keeping (at least according to their API), I became frustrated and almost deleted my account (I actually found the one click button after a long search).

A wiser friend talked me out of doing that (30 seconds before I was going to click the button too), so instead I removed 99% of my personal data from the site & temporarily disconnected every service from Facebook (which pissed off my friend, hence this long post).

The Back Door

Later on my friend kept bugging me on when I would return to Facebook (as I had already deleted the app off of my iPhone) which I replied “when they allow me to export my images off site” (I had already given up on videos being exported).

I later agreed I would return if I could export my images off site.

After an hour of us Googling, we discovered a WordPress plugin that Facebook “broke,” but the author had figured out a way to download our images in high quality (you can contact me for more info regarding the plugin as I’m not sure how long it will remain functional).

The plugin worked like a charm and now I have all of my images on my own server.

Left Overs For Facebook

After this whole dilemma my trust of Facebook is at a all time low, and while I did rejoin the Facecult, I’m no longer uploading my primary data (images, videos, etc.) to the site, but instead will push data to Facebook from other platforms (so my friend can stop bugging me).

I purchased a Flickr premium account to host my images and short videos, while YouTube will host the longer ones over 90 seconds.

My private Twitter account will update my statices while Tumblr will fill in the gap.

As far as social goes, I’m now becoming a more active member of iRovr, which has a hyper active community (I’ll post my thoughts about them later).

So while Facebook will still be able to collect info regarding my geek habits (unless I’m on iRovr), they will no longer be privileged to receive primary access to my data (key words are “my data”), but instead view them through the lens of rival third party clients.

< /catharsis >

–Posted from my iPhone

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So if you haven’t heard, it looks like Sean Kovacs Google Voice app has returned to the app store in full glory!

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Apple was upset to see Google third party apps dominate the app store (when it was much smaller) and decided to throw a tantrum by banning the app from the app store then lying to the public about why it was thrown out.

Soon after I jail broke my iPhone only to discover later on the disadvantage of jailbroken iPhone’s (i.e. Skype, etc. stop working). Since then I’ve had a high mistrust for Apple, despite their quality products.

Fast forward to today and now GV Mobile (now known as GV Mobile +) is back in the app store again, which means I can save more minuets and texts.

The GV Mobile still has to propagate around iTunes servers (as I still have yet to access it, even though I can see it).

Despite paying 299 pennies for it previously, I’ve decided to pay the fee again in order to support Sean (who was caught in the middle of this iSaga unfortunately).

Once that happens, I’m going to have Google take over my voicemails, that way I can actually archive them off of my iPhone.

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It took some time, but I finished removing Facebook from every blogging site, social network, reference page, etc.

The site was becoming too spammy for my taste, and was turning into gossip central.

I actually thought about deleting my account…

…buy my siblings (& their kids) would haunt me to the grave if I did that.

So instead I’ll no longer use it and cast it aside like I did MySpace earlier.

I’m now using About Me as my central hub for everything, which you can check out at about.me/Darnell (note: it’s still in Alpha mode).

For those wondering where I’ll post entries to my private life, you can subscribe to @DarnellClayton or visit flic.kr/DarnellClayton for photos & short videos (most which will be private).

Note: Unlike last time, many of my friends have deleted their accounts or have stopped using the service, so saying goodbye to Facebook is now much easier.

–Posted from my iPhone

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So after my sites went down I decided to once again renew the search for a new host. Although I appreciate HostMonster’s customer service (which has been rather awesome), their server(s) seem to be maxing out more often which is making me nervous.

If it were only this blog that needed moving I’d would have switched ages ago. Unfortunately its more like 6 that I have to move (4 that I own and 2 others that I manage for a friend overseas and another for a relative).

I honestly was thinking about switching to MediaTemple (their Grid Service plan) and may eventually at the end of the month (despite the fact that I still have several months left on my HostMonster plan).

So why haven’t I switched yet?

Well, basically I’ve been spending the last couple of days preparing to review WordPress only hosting sites (for the Blog Herald) and after talking to 5 companies over twitter, Skype, twitter, email, twitter, and some random chat program (theirs not mine) I am slowly considering the possibility of a WordPress only host instead.

While the folks at MediaTemple won’t like me saying this (as I’ve been in contact with them about switching), a WordPress only hosting solution might be the wiser choice for me, as well as for my “I need a blog” friends (who I usually encourage to start one upon WordPress.com).

After quality, my biggest concern is cost as I will have little geek cash to spare after securing VaultPress for all of my blogs (2 sites which I’ll upgrade to VaultPress premium later on).

I still have not made a final decision on the matter yet, but either way there is no way I’m going back to cheap hosting plans in order to save a dime as (like the old saying goes) you get what you pay for.

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Hmmm….perhaps I should not have shaved off the mustache/beard off of my face?

Oh well, the deed is done I guess. The only thing left is to tame the fro (or shave it off).

And get some sleep as it’s past 1AM already.

I know my friends (plus the kids at church) will probably freak out about this.

Fortunately they’ll find out Sunday since very few of them read my blog.

Unless Jerry, Josh or David stop by of course.

Hmmmmmmm indeed.

–Posted from my iPhone

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