Saturday, April 20, 2013

Yellams: Roaming Gnomes Are No More

Since I started using Blogger in 2009, and even before that when I used the old Good Sam's Trip Journal, Wayne and I have been identified as "Yellams: Roaming Gnomes".

I purposely used only our first names on the blog.  Additionally, I've always identified others in our blog only by first name.  I never consciously used a last name.  That just gave us all a little anonymity and gave a bit of protection to our identity.  There are some nuts out there, as we know.

All that changed this week when Blogger, somehow through that stupid Google+ thing, took liberties with our identity.  By accepting the terms of Google+, our old name of "Yellams: Roaming Gnomes" was replaced by my full name for all to see.  No other option.

Over the years, a few friends inquired as to the reason and origin of the name "Yellams".  It's not a big deal -- just our last name spelled backward.

And so we are who we are... for all the world to see. 

I will continue to identify friends only by first name. That will never change, unless some of that horrendous face recognition technology changes it and will not allow me to "skip" the tagging process. 

Is this really "big brother" looking over my shoulder and snooping into our old folks retirement activities?  I hope not. 

Good grief.

April 20th update:  Yellams: Roaming Gnomes makes a comeback! Realizing a whole host of problems associated with Google+, I made the all supreme sacrafice to leave Google+, which I think I was able to do with some measure of success, thankfully.  As a result, our old name, Yellams: Roaming Gnomes shows up again.  Looks like I'll suffer through not having all those "Circles" and all my photos will stop loading automatically onto the world wide web without even asking.   As a bonus, the pictures I've been trying to use on the next post have miraculously gone where I want them to go!  Hooray!

8 comments:

  1. The real name requirement of Google+ is causing concern with a number of bloggers. The only option available, unfortunately, is to revert back to your original Blogger Profile. Here's what Google says:

    You have the option of reverting to your Blogger profile for up to 30 days after you make the switch. After 30 days, your Blogger profile will be deleted and if you want to switch back, you will need to create a new Blogger profile.

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    1. Rick, you're good at this stuff, I can tell. So help me with this problem: I can't select a size to the photos I'm inserting in a new blog. Once I insert the photo, it's placed and will not let me do anything with it. This surely isn't caused by my change to Google+ is it?

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    2. Rick, I was successful in switching back! My photo problem (in the reply above) is resolved. And Yellams: Roaming Gnomes has returned!

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  2. Interesting point. I try to just use first names also, except for our own. Sometimes I feel like there is way too much information out there for the whole world to see, but then I realize our profile is pretty inconsequential in the big picture of "old folks retirement activities."

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    1. Yea, occasionally I worry about how much of us is online. I just realized this week that every photo I take with the smartphone automatically goes online (another Google+ innovation). That's scary! Now, my pictures are pretty lame, I know, but if we can be tracked by the GPS 24/7 and my pictures are not my own and then if our government goes bezerk, what happens if I'm of a different political persuasion? I know, that's a little radical but it is a tad worrisome to me.

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  3. I am so confused. Where do my pictures from my phone show up online? I hate all this stuff. I wish Google would just leave it alone. At least until I'm too old to care.

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  4. Mine were showing up on Google+ because I had clicked on the "Get Google+ Mobile" button, I think. Somebody better at this stuff (like Rick Doyle above) is better to answer this I think though. I just wanted to be able to post from remote locations when I am away from the laptop. Fortunately, I was able (with relative ease) to leave Google+ and go back to plain ole Google. I never understood those "circles" either.

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    1. Photos from your smartphone will only show up online (i.e. Google+ or iCloud if a user specifically turns on that feature in their phone settings - quite often the default is yes so folks don't even realize it).

      I'll deal with this in an upcoming blog, o.k. and show how to manage photo sharing while using a smartphone.

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