Around Christmas I discovered Netflix had delivered a gift that I had been wanting for some time now. Not free movies or an even better selection, but the gift of privacy. I have a reputation in my family for awful taste in movies. I prefer to attribute it less to taste and more to an unfortunate combination of a tireless movie appetite and high pain threshold. My low point was probably during law school exams when I procrastinated by watching Leprechaun 3 with my roommate. Also, considering most households share a single Netflix account, shouldn't there be a way to hide your shame and delete your viewing history? And really, I did just "accidentally" click on The Princess Diaries. I mean, why would I watch that - really?

Leprechaun 3 and The Princess Diaries illustrate privacy issues within the walled garden of the company you decided to trust with your information. The stakes get higher when your information is shared with (or leaked to) others. This can be true despite good intentions and anonymization of your information. The proliferation of publicly available databases about you, coupled with the incredible processing power of today's computers, have raised the bar for keeping information truly anonymous. I'm not a data scientist, but you don't need to look far to find articles about why anonymization isn't an iron-clad approach to protecting a person's privacy.

Now you may be asking, "What's the big deal? I've got nothing to hide. What's the harm?" If you like science fiction or pizza, click on the video below for one reason. If you don't like science fiction or pizza, but still want to unwrap your privacy gift from Netflix, skip the video and scroll down.

I think like security, privacy will become more of an imperative to companies going forward. And the best implementations will give you options on how to control your personal information. So kudos to Netflix for giving its users more control. If you want to manage your viewing history, just follow the EZPZ steps below.

Step 1: Go to account settings and click on "Viewing activity"

Step 2: Click on the "X" to remove a video from your viewing History

Note: You can remove all episodes of a show by clicking on "Remove series?"

Step 3: Enjoy your video binging with enhanced privacy!

Thanks, Netflix for giving your users more control over their privacy. Good stuff.

Next post next Saturday, 6:30 a.m.

One of my more questionable characteristics, which I totally own up to, is my stamina for watching copious amounts of television and movies. I never met a good or bad movie I wouldn't watch. Probably my low point came when during law school final exams, my roommate and I watched all of Leprechaun 3, which is a really, really, really bad movie.

So when DVR was introduced it was love at first sight. And streaming services like Netflix and HBO Now are right up my alley. One downside to these streaming services and DVR is that you get so used to not having commercials or being able to Fast Forward (or as Adrian Monk says, "picture go fast") through them that you have a lot less patience with commercials.

I recently binge-watched the first season of Mr. Robot on the USA app. It wasn't available anywhere else and each episode has several commercials throughout. It's free so I can't complain too much about the presence of the commercials, but it seems like they rotate the same two or three commercials all the time and you can't skip them.

My first solution was to simply look away while the commercial plays. This wasn't great because now I felt like I was getting subliminal audio messages. Then I decided to also unplug my headphones. The problem with this approach is that sometimes I lost track of how much time had passed and it would be a pain to backtrack to the right point right after the commercial. Surely there is a better method.

What I ended up discovering is that Apple devices have unintentionally provided the perfect EZPZ commercial neutralizer. So now when the commercial starts, you can just mute the volume and swipe up from the bottom of the iPhone to activate Control Center. What you end up seeing during the commercial is a bunch of silhouettes in the background.

For example, this is a frequently advertised men's product.

This is one for a U.S. cell phone. Can you tell which one by the color at the bottom?

You can usually tell when the show is starting again so at that point, you just swipe down, turn up the volume, and voila, a more EZPZ way to skip through commercials!

Now what if you have terrible timing? Or can't stand the uncertainty? This is where the peekaboo comes in. If you pull down slowly, just a bit, you'll see the edge of the screen, which will give you a better indication of whether the show has started or not. 

There's nothing wrong with watching the commercials and their existence supports the content. But as for me, I can't stand being subjected to the same lame and sometimes, targeted commercials over and over again. Great for the marketers, not so much for me. So next time you want to avoid seeing something on your screen, try the peekabo technique.

Happy watching!

Next post next Saturday, 6:30 a.m.

Have you ever missed an important meeting? Cue feelings of panic and dread...activate excuse-making machinery...then finally comes acceptance. Maybe you were so engrossed in your task that you lost track of time. Maybe another meeting ran over and you didn't realize. And maybe, just maybe, this could have been avoided if the important meeting hadn't been camaflouged among your other meetings by your monochromatic Outlook calendar.

The problem with lists, and your daily calendar view is basically a list, is that without doing anything extra, each appointment has the same appearance, regardless of importance. You could scan each item quickly, but that takes some extra time and mental processing power.

Do you wish there was a way to highlight your most important meetings? Would it be helpful if they stood out with just a glance? And would it be valuable if this all happened automatically?

 The solution is to set up your calendar so your most important meetings are automatically displayed in a different color of your choice. Red is an obvious and fine choice, but any color with the desired impact will do.

I know what you're thinking. This sounds complicated. And will I screw up my existing calendar? Not to worry. I'll hold you hand through the entire process.

EZPZ Calendar Color-coding

1.  In Outlook Calendar, click on the VIEW tab

2. Click on "View Settings"

3. Click on "Conditional Formatting"

4. Click on the "Add" button

5. Name the color-coding rule you are about to make. So for example, "Exec mtgs" for meetings with you boss or senior management. And pick a color that will resonate with you as signifying something special and stand out.

6. Click the "Condition" button

7. No need to go crazy here. If you always want to highlight meetings where the CEO, say Mr. Albus Dumbledore is attending, then clock on the "Attendees" button and insert his name. My advice here is to keep the rule you are making simple. 

And now, according to the "Exec mtgs" rule I just created, any meetings with Albus Dumbledore as an attendee will now magically appear as red in my calendar. One the rule was set, I didn't have to use a single keystroke or think about it to make those meeting stand out from all my other meetings.  

A little background music by Color Me Badd while you set up your calendar...

Next post next Saturday, 6:30 a.m.