life without facebook

Last week I said that I was taking a facebook break, and I am still going to limit the time that I am on here for a while.

Facebook is awesome, but too much of a good thing is blah blah you get it.

This is what happened.

I realized last week that I checked facebook multiple times in one day. Realizing that this was a horrible waste of time I decided to take a break. I used my phone to update my status to say that I was taking a break. I wasn't trying to prove a point, and I am not trying to prove a point now.

So with that out of the way here are five points lol. I have learned a few interesting things about facebook that maybe you haven't thought about . . . 

1) You're profile gets a lot more attention than you probably think it does. Just over the past week I have just been talking to friends or family and they will say "oh yeah I read that on your status last week." What really? People who aren't even on facebook find out about what you do and all of your life's happenings because of your facebook page! Several people have reported things to my mother that I have said online. My mom! This brings me to another interesting tidbit.

2) It is written in ink. I am friends on facebook with the following people: My boss's wife, my Mission President, people who I taught on my mission in Mexico, and parents of some of my friends. I'm just saying that I have to keep in mind that whatever I post will be read by these people. You probably have to filter what you say as well.

3) Facebook allows you to be in the middle of everyone else's business. Pretty much anytime I talk to my mom she will tell me about something that happened to a family member, or somebody from Richfield etc. Almost every single time she says something like that I say "yeah I knew that." She asks how and I say "facebook." Isn't this strange?? Isn't it weird that I know so much about the people around me even if I haven't talked to that person directly in years! I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.

4) There is nothing better than facebook for getting together with people going to the same event/party.  It is very nice to be able to check who else is going to something, and you can get together. The old way was texting/calling everybody you know so yeah that is not very effective. I realized this during the past couple days.

5) Facebook affects your brain. I am going out on a limb here. Have you ever witnessed something interesting or funny and instantly thought "How can I post this on facebook?" I bet you have. Is there anything wrong with this? Probably not, but isn't it interesting that you might consider posting something online before telling someone in person?

So yeah. That is what has been on my mind the past few days. As a white middle-class 20-something college student, it turns out that facebook has a pretty big impact on my life. I encourage any fellow facebook-addicts to take a some time off and see what you think. Please give me some feedback on anything I have written here, and feel free to tear apart any of my off-the-top-of-my-head false logic.

 - Dallas

TL;DR I stopped using facebook for a few days, and I noticed that facebook has a bigger impact on my life than I thought.

P.S. Thanks again for all the B-Day wishes!

Did You Know?

If you have 5 minutes check out this cool video about our world and what is happening with technology.

remembering passwords sucks . . try this!

How many passwords do you have? Just think about it.

I have a ton of usernames and passwords for all kinds of things. It isn't good to have the same password for everything, but it sucks having to remember a lot of different passwords.

I came across this article a while back that recommends downloading a really small really simple password managing program called KeePass.

I have used this program to store all of my passwords and usernames and it is great! Now I only have to remember one master password that opens the program, and all of my usernames and passwords are right there! This is so much better than writing down a list of passwords and risk losing the paper, or creating some .doc or excel file with passwords in it.

Ok so all you have to do is click here and install KeePass. You set your master password, and KeePass creates a file that ends in .kdb. (I personally use two .kdb files - one for work and one for everything else) So just think of this .kdb file as your little KeePass database of passwords that can only be looked at by entering your master password.


Using the program is stupid easy. Just add entries with usernames and passwords. It starts you off with folders for  email passwords, network passwords, internet site passwords, and more. You can also create more folders. After you add entries you can also copy any username or password to the clipboard for signing into things quickly. (It clears the clipboard after 10 seconds by default.) Just close the program after you look up the password you need. The next time you open the program it will require your master password.

To prevent losing your KeePass .kdb file, you should back it up on a flash drive or something else. The BEST option, I think, is to save your .kdb file in your dropbox. (dropbox is a tool that allows you to save up to 2gb of data for free on the web and it syncs the files in your dropbox across all of your computers.) To set up your dropbox in about 30 seconds, just CLICK HERE.

So if you hate remembering passwords as much as I do, try this out! Now you can rip up those post-it notes that you had so cleverly hidden under your keyboard :)