Super General Advice (the thread for advice without making a thread)

i somehow managed to do a thing to my shoulder at work today. no idea how - i guess there was an invisible limit for supporting and spinning a stop paddle and i hit it. now it hurts to move my arm forward or up unless i’m really careful. does anyone know a good way to wrap your shoulder just using an ace bandage, or other simple supplies? i don’t have a brace but i want to immobilize the joint at least a little for work tomorrow. REALLY don’t want this to get worse.

 

how do people with common names even make email addresses?

my birth name is very unusual, and i've never had problems getting usernames with it. however, my chosen name Adam is significantly more popular, and combined with my last name (which isn't VERY common but i know is out there) i definitely am not getting any gmail accounts with it.
... out of curiosity i just looked it up-- there are 7859 people with my surname in the US, and 10 with my first name + surname combo. so not actually that common but enough that all the good usernames are taken.

so how do you handle this? just adamlastname with a bunch of numbers after it? i always wanted a less unusual name but i hadn't considered this issue, lol.

 

Do you have a middle name? You can use that (or just the initial).

 

I have 3 incredibly common names (first middle and last!), so I feel this.

What I do:

• Use a variety of separators (underscores, periods, dashes) to delimit the separate parts of the name (if you wanna use like a first.mi.last.number or something)
• Choose a number that has some sort of significance to you (I often use 28 because of birthdate, or 0728 if I need something longer) to append - less likely to forget it, and though other people won't know, it's not just a random number
• vary the position of components (i've done lastname-firstname sometimes)

 

First initial or first and middle initial, last name, last two digits of your birth year - any of these additions help

 

gmail doesn't accept any punctuation except periods... and they consider namelastname and name.lastname to be the same thing. (if you have a namename@gmail address, you also have the name.name@gmail address, and vice versa! i only found this out recently.) so that doesn't help. lastname.firstname and initials are also taken. i don't want to use the full middle name, since i am (so far) keeping my femme middle name and i don't want to out myself every time i give someone my email.

i guess it's gotta be numbers. i don't like using my birth dates for things like that, and i don't actually have any favorite/lucky/significant numbers... guess i'll have to pick some!

 

i can't figure out any name+initials combob that isn't already taken :/ my surname is not all that common as a last name, but is a pretty common first name, so that's probably the issue here. everyone is out there using their first and middle names as their gmail address. i looked it up on howmanyofme.com and there are apparently only 10 people in the US with my first name last name combo, so hopefully one of those folks got lucky and locked down the good ones. (there is "1 or less" person with my birth name!)

thanks for all the input folks. time to figure out a number i like!

 

If my name itself is taken, I'll put 03 at the end because i'm the third child, so it's an addition less likely to have come up before, but also memorable for myself

 

I know one person who just used a random letter in place of their middle initial.

 

Doubling up the middle innitial is also an option!

 

x.firstname.lastname.x

facetiousness aside, i had a similar issue this yr (tho i finally settled on firstname.mi.lastname, which was at least available.)

but i still very much regret that, in high school, i changed from my old email — a silly one that was my Guild Wars character’s name — to a “more professional” email of firstnamelastname style, which i then used for everything... aaaaand then i realized i was trans and so my Main Email still has my deadname all over it.

and even tho i now have the New Email with my chosen name... moving everything to that email would be just... a real hassle. so... it’s whatever, i guess. i just wish i had stuck with the old guild-wars-name email in the first place :/

 

related... does anyone know what the best method for changing your "user" on windows? (windows 10, that is). not your microsoft account or whatever, that's already the right name.

but my current filepath might look something like C:/Users/Deadname/Documents/filename.doc

and i'd like to change Deadname to something else. the folder itself (in the filepath) isn't rename-able, which i assume is because it's read-only, but will temporarily unchecking read-only 1) let me rename the file, 2) fuck anything up? also, is there a better way to rename this user? i have yet to find it in settings.

 

@garden You want to go to your microsoft account, on the internet, assuming you're using a PC and not a Mac. Don't know about Macs but I think you have to be using a PC to be using Microsoft anyway?? Don't know about any of this. They'll make you jump through verification hoops like using your email and stuff but it should work after a computer reset.

I only know this much because I recently was forced to change my name on my microsoft account to my real name, after having kept "Glorious Ruler" as my name for 3 years. It was pretty upsetting.

 

just as a minor point of computer pedantry, a mac CAN run windows but it works exactly the same as on any other computer, so the advice would still stand :)

 

@leitstern my microsoft account already has my chosen name, though? i already changed that, and when i log into my computer it says "Welcome, [Chosen name]" and everything. it's just that the computer's account/filepath still says Deadname. do you know if you can change that via your microsoft account?

 

@hyrax does it HAVE to be firstnamelastname or could it be eg first inital + pun on your last name? or other formats

i saw a paleotologist on tumblr mention that she'd changed her email to the "more professional" "haleyozoic" so puns on your name etc appear to be professional

 

@garden huh... I thought that that would change that. Hm... I wonder what I did then. I've forgotten? Let me try to look into that.

 

hahah GOD. i should. it would be like my star trek text alert noise: anyone who notices it's a nerd thing also outs themself as a nerd. i love it.

oh hmm! i was hoping to get some variant on just my name, for professional appearance, but if puns are on the table that opens up possibilities! thank you!