Brian Maki’s “Little Black Book” offers a common sense approach to dealing with the difficulties that technology has introduced into our lives. As a computer instructor and consultant for more than twenty years, Maki has seen how technology has made rapid changes in our lives to the point where we are addicted to being constantly “connected”, we lack patience when we are not connected, and have been bombarded with spam emails, computer frustrations, and worst of all, the threat of identity theft.
The title of the book refers to the need for us to keep a record of our digital life through an outdated and non-digital medium, preferably a paper book in which we write all our usernames and passwords, in addition to keeping a record of any changes we make. do to our accounts. While Maki also admits that a flash drive can serve this purpose, he cautions that flash drives are themselves subject to viruses, and keeping track of passwords on a computer makes them available to hackers and viruses.
Through numerous short and concise chapters, Maki explains the concerns we all must have about leaving our fingerprint behind. It advocates “Googling us” regularly, how to update us regularly so we have fewer headaches in the future, how to deal with spam, the added dangers of identity theft if you have a cell phone, and the real power. that social networking sites have. about our lives and how we can protect ourselves from the information these sites collect about us.
But what sets this book apart the most is that it relates to the importance of end-of-life planning. After telling the story of William Weber, a man Maki helped organize his digital life before his death, Maki highlights how few of us think about what will happen to our digital lives and our online identity after we die. It offers practical tips for monitoring our digital lives and planning for account closings to protect against identity theft even after our deaths.
This short book is valuable for focusing on a topic that most people never think about. Maki covers numerous topics that will result in helping us protect our identities, our possessions, our freedom, and our happiness in general. As Maki says:
“You must reexamine how you interact with the Internet, what you share, why you share it, and learn never to follow the path of Internet trust again. It is your digital life to control.”
As Maki points out, technology will be with us for the rest of our lives, it will not disappear, so we must actively learn to control it and protect ourselves from it, putting it in its proper place as needed just to help us. instead of letting it continue to control our lives. I certainly feel the importance of this need and I hope other readers feel it too.
