The Lance J. Technoweb

All "cloud backup" services encrypt data using industry-leading encryption algorithms so that you can trust that your data is secure. Except that's not true.  Although these companies do encrypt your data, the vast majority of these services keep a copy of your encryption key, which they can secretly use at any time to look at all of your data. Sure, these companies likely want to do the right thing for reputational reasons, but the same could be said for Equifax and CapitalOne and Experian and hundreds of other finance and healthcare companies that each spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on their computer systems.  Just taking a look at data theft throughout the industry and we have to ask ourselves: WHY should anyone have confidence in a backup service that has full access to all of my data? To put the nail in the coffin, all these services have legalese that makes it clear that they are not responsible for any data theft caused by their failures.  They si...

A lot of eBay sellers sell stuff with Free Shipping.  It is a bad idea. I don't believe in selling any of my items with "Free Shipping".  Why?  Because shipping costs very real money.  I can be more competitive with my pricing if my shipping expenses are lower. Here are the details: Shipping costs are based on distance.  Shipping costs real money, and shipping cost is almost always based on distance.  It is simply more cost efficient and fair if local people pay less and far away people pay more.  Are you 300 miles away?  You should pay less because my real shipping costs are less.  Are you 1800+ miles away?  Sorry, but shipping that far costs me more money.  I'll ship it to you, but you need to pay more to cover the shipping costs. Taxes.   Some areas do not charge sales tax on shipping.  If a product is $15 + $5 shipping, the customer pays tax on the $15 product.  In contrast, if a product is $20 with "free shippin...