Privacy.com - create single merchant credit cards

January 03, 2021 by Omar Shahine in newsletter, life hacks

A few months ago, I learned about a service called Privacy.com from my trusty password manager, 1Password (review).

For the past few years, I've become increasingly annoyed with companies' shoddy practices to secure personal information such as credit card data. It's become far too often that I would find fraud on my main card, and then I would have to change and update many merchants where I have automatic billing established. The credit card companies could make this all more manageable, but they do not.

There was a period of time where it felt like every four months, I would find fraud on my card - always due to my card being used without the security code or chip defeating the whole purpose of these security measures. I decided that if possible, I would swap my recurring bills to use PayPal.

PayPal offers a handy way to manage all your subscriptions in one interface. You can then determine which credit card pays for these, and most importantly, you can change that card when you want. This is wonderful as it protects me from the hassle of changing things when my card number changes for any reason (such as expired).

However, there was still a category of charges where PayPal does not work that I found myself still using my main credit card.

Enter Privacy.com. With Privacy, you can create a single-use card or a single merchant card. This creates a unique credit card number for that merchant. It's locked to that merchant and cannot be used anywhere else. You can set a spending limit on that merchant as well. The card number is backed by your bank debit card, similar to Venmo.

The best part is that it's built right into 1Password. All I have to do to create a new card is click, and it's automatically created. Later on, I can delete that card or track spending on it. Without this integration, I’m not sure I would use it as much!

Check out this video from 1Password to learn how this works.

Masks

December 27, 2020 by Omar Shahine in newsletter

By now you probably own a few masks. So do I! Masks are not all created equal and I thought I would share what I have found to be the best masks for different purposes.

This article in the New York Times is very well written and goes into some of the important differences between all the masks.

There are three classes of masks:

N95 or KN95 Respirators
Surgical Masks
Everything else

N95 and KN95

The best mask period is an N95 or KN95 mask. These are respirators and serve an important function. They protect you from inhaling particles by filtering them out. The 95 means they filter 95% of the medium particles such as those that can carry the coronavirus.

Early on in the pandemic, we were advised not to buy or use N95 masks which lead to a lot of the market being flooded with KN95 masks that generally come from China and are certified there. Technically they do the same thing but there are many form factors available. I personally find most around the ear N95 and KN95 masks to be unbearable to wear.

You can read about what these numbers mean and the various certifications here.

3M is probably one of the most popular brands for N95 masks and they make them for different purposes. They have products that are designed for the medical industry and products for other industries (such as painting). If you want to geek out here is a PDF comparing all of the 3M products.

While you won’t find any 3M N95 masks on Amazon you will find TONs of KN95 masks. You can get the 3M 9205+ on eBay.

My favorite mask in this category is the 3M Aura 9205+. It has a very clever design that folds flat and wears very comfortable. This is not the same as the mask designed for health care workers - that is the 3M Aura 1870+. So if you can find and purchase the 9205+ you will know it’s designated for people like you and me to purchase.