After the break up, life’s always a little difficult. You come across all sorts of things that unexpectedly remind you of happier times: the photograph, the T-shirt, the present you were given, … When you find these ‘trophies’, several reactions race through your mind: fond remembrance, anger, disappointment, … etc.. This is what happens when break-ups occur.

So it’s essential to plan how to get through the initial break up period successfully. Snoskred has some great advice on this at Snoskred – Life in the Country

Goodbye To Google There’s a lot of people very unhappy with Google right now, and rightly so. We gave them too much power, and it is time to take it back. This post gives you everything you need to STOP using Google today, completely.

And this is what I’m plotting, too.

Round #1: Five easy things to do right now:

1. Reset your Search Engine in Firefox and IE. It’s easy to do. Just set your default search engine to one of any number of good alternatives.

2. It’s not easy to dump Gmail at the moment, but you can dump attending services, such as Google Reader. I’m now using Bloglines. Just export your OPML file, and import to BlogLines.

3. Install AdBlockPlus to block those annoying Adsense Ads. Yes, you can simply block all Adsense Ads, denying Google money.

4. Remove Adsense from your blog. I’m seriously considering this, but I’m waiting for the end of the month first, to see what happens. I don’t have a substitute yet for Adsense.

5. Start retrieving your data, esp. photos and emails just in case, your ex gets snarky, too. So back up your emails to another service pronto, and download any unique photographs you have.

Once you realize you have taken back the power, freeing yourself from Google will become much easier in the future. But it will take time, just make sure that you are ready for Round #2.

Campaign: Google vs Kenneth – Round 1: Google #1 – Kenneth #1.