In addition to dealing with my other half\u2019s affairs. I\u2019ve also been reviewing joint accounts and subscriptions that we both were using and that now, only I will be using.<\/p>\n
One of those subscriptions is for Microsoft Office 365. We had a family membership that covered all of our respective devices and computers. That cost us $99 bucks a year. I\u2019ve not been using Microsoft products as much as I used to. Apple\u2019s Pages works just fine, allows export to Word format, and is faster than Word.<\/p>\n
On a Mac you don\u2019t have as much available with your office subscription and honestly the applications are bloated beyond belief. 2 Gigabytes for Word??? Really? That\u2019s a lot of disk space, I\u2019ve used full on desktop publishing software that occupied less space!<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t use any Microsoft applications except Excel and Word. I\u2019ve been using those less and less because Apple Pages and Numbers do a fine job for my needs.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care for Outlook, and generally have no use for PowerPoint, or OneNote, Skype, or much of the remainder of the MS Office Suite.<\/p>\n
I maintained the Office subscription for the other half. He needed to have more of the suite and hated having to remember to save documents in MS formats so that he could share them with colleagues. Now that he\u2019s gone, I found myself reevaluating my relationship with Microsoft.<\/p>\n
This reevaluation was spurred by my receipt of a Word Document. When I opened the document, Word started. This was typical and expected. Then Word demanded that I be connected to the internet so that it could validate my access to the program. I wasn\u2019t connected to the internet at the time, (I\u2019d gotten the document prior to leaving the house but hadn\u2019t had time to open it.) I had no intention of signing onto the \u201cFree\u201d WiFi at the Starbucks for only one document. So I could open the document in view mode with Word,\u00a0OR<\/strong> open it in Pages, do what I needed to do, and not be annoyed any further.<\/p>\n I chose Pages and did what I needed to do.<\/p>\n But this got me thinking\u2026<\/p>\n When I got home, I opened Word. After a minute of validation and whatever else Word thought it needed to do, I was treated with a template screen. Oh for the days when Word just opened to a blank page without my having to choose a template. I seem to recall being able to choose a template after the fact. I could be wrong.<\/p>\n I opened the Microsoft web site so that I could look at my plan and when it was going to renew, The renewal is in July\u2026 I\u2019d have changed it from the family plan to an individual plan right then except that Microsoft would have made the changes instantly and any other stuff that I needed to access via the family plan would have been lost instantly too.<\/p>\n Stuff like any documents in my other half\u2019s one drive folder.<\/p>\n Oh No Microsoft\u2026 I paid you for a year and by golly you\u2019re going to provide a full year of services!<\/p>\n I made a note in my calendar to make the changes to the account in July.<\/p>\n I went back to the blank document now displayed in Word. Hmm, autosave is off, that\u2019s odd. When I try to turn it on, I\u2019m directed to save the document to my OneDrive storage thereby uploading the document.<\/p>\n Why? Why does Microsoft insist that AutoSave be sent to online resources when I have a perfectly good hard drive in my local computer?<\/p>\n Pages doesn\u2019t care. I can save stuff to my local drive or to iCloud.<\/p>\n Could it be that Microsoft is scanning all documents uploaded to their OneDrive resources for specific information?<\/p>\n Is it possible that Microsoft is colluding with various government(s) to locate and keep a watchful eye on people who may be writing things that government(s) might not like?<\/p>\n I know it sounds like conspiracy theory but if you think about it it\u2019s a super simple way to monitor anyone that\u2019s using Office 365. Lots of folks would say that having AutoSave and being able to access their documents from anywhere is worth it and they\u2019d start pumping their stuff into OneDrive without thinking too much about the ramifications.<\/p>\n I was thinking about the recent TikTok hearings and wondered if our wonderful Congressional folks would even stop to consider that between OneDrive, Google Drive, Drop Box, iCloud, and any of the rest of \u201cCloud\u201d storage facilities tons of Americans information is at risk. For that matter the EU should probably have a go at investigating just how secure all that cloud data really is.<\/p>\n Should any of us really trust these services to stay out of our data? And how do we know? All we have is these corporations promises.<\/p>\n I logged into OneDrive and deleted everything. Yes I know that MicroSoft has copies, and that all my stuff has been scanned and shared with China or the US government if indeed that is happening. But I don\u2019t have to make it easy for them.<\/p>\n AutoSave will remain off in my version of Word and Excel. Come July, I\u2019ll make a decision about continuing with Office 365 too. If I bail on Office 365 then my Outlook email address will be gone. I\u2019m wondering if that would be such a bad thing, or would I find that I\u2019m dealing with less SPAM on a daily basis.<\/p>\n Think about it folks, what information do you have in some cloud account and is that information sensitive? It may be that all this cloud storage stuff is worse than TicToc because it\u2019s slid in quietly under our noses.<\/p>\n They say if you don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to like an answer, then you shouldn\u2019t ask the question.<\/p>\n Inadvertently, I asked a couple of questions that I kinda wish I\u2019d just ignored.<\/p>\n I will have to get a new computer in the near future, you can bet I\u2019ll be thinking about security as I\u2019m setting it up.<\/p>\n I wonder if there\u2019s a way to just never connect the new machine to the internet\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In addition to dealing with my other half\u2019s affairs. I\u2019ve also been reviewing joint accounts and subscriptions that we both were using and that now, only I will be using. One of those subscriptions is for Microsoft Office 365. We had a family membership that covered all of our respective devices and computers. That cost … <\/p>\n