… you have been warned…
How do you manage your passwords and what-nots?
I initially hesitated to sign up for a Blogger’s Choice Awards account when I realized that my login details were not the same with those of my PayPerPost account because I knew it was going to be a one-time thingy. I mean, the nominating and voting will end on June 2nd, so what do you think will happen to the login details I had earlier created just for this?
The same goes to my PayPerPost forum account. At first I thought I could use the same login details but no. I had to register for a new account, which means an additional set of login details to remember.
So I recently wrote down all my online accounts in a cute little notebook. I have a category for emails because I have a few Gmail accounts, a Jaring account which I had abandoned because I was feeding on a LOT of SPAMS, a Streamyx account that I had never used because the email interface is as ugly as Jaring’s, a Yahoo account which I was actively using before I got my first GMail account, and a grad-student account which uses my alphanumeric-matric-number as the username that I used only once in a while because I sooo dislike the username. I mean, how many of us fancy emails such as gsk0203@pps.umt.edu.my??!!
And then I have a category for blogs — how many of you remember that I have a Blogger and a WordPress.com blog? And then I have this chenpn.com and my spanking-new-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-them-yet charity and turtle sites. There is also a category for photo sharing — I have a Shutterfly account which I am still using on-and-off and a Flickr PRO account which was my last year’s surprise Christmas gift :) Read my Shutterfly-Flickr review here.
Ouh, and I haven’t told you about the forums that I actively (and otherwise) participate in — the PayPerPost forum, especially whenever I needed help as somebody from the developer team is always on standby to answer our questions; the MalaysiaBloggers forum which I recently joined; the Jom makan! forum because I was invited by the most obnoxious blogger and the PostCrossing forum (anybody still remember Postcrossing, the Postcard Crossing project?!). PHEW.
Plus, I also have my Bloglines and Feedburner accounts, my Technorati, Digg, HighFivez accounts that I don’t normally watch because, well.. Oh yea, and I got myself a NEW 9rules account! And this is highly recommended! I mean, it has been quite some time since I last chanced upon a blogger who uses grammatically-correct English, and blogs about stuff that I find interesting.
If you have as many online accounts as I do (or probably more), I hope you find this article written by Justin Kistner — Digital life management — useful. He shares how he manages and uses his passwords and emails, and how he guards against identity theft. He organizes his “digital life” very systematically and perhaps, perhaps I shall learn to do that one day.
One day.
But for now, I will still use my cute little notebook :)
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I used to write down all my passwords in a notebook too ~ until I lost the notebook!! It was a nightmare trying to to retrieve my passwords and changing them! :(
From then onwards, I memorize every single password in my mind. :D So far, my memory still serve me well.
pelf: Oh my.. I’m sure that was horrible!!
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Phew! Just reading about all of your accounts has exhausted me! I suppose if I stop to think about it, I probably have the same amount myself… I keep all of my accounts and their passwords in my address book software. If anything ever happened to my computer I’d be completely lost, but it’s worked quite well for the last 5 years or so…
pelf: Address book software? I was trying to look for one, but ended up writing stuff down :)
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Thanks for the mention! I use a notebook in addition to my 4 tiered system because not all systems allow me to use my passwords (due to restrictions like number of characters and required mixes of numbers and letters, etc.).
pelf: No problem, I benefited from that article, and hope that some of my readers will, too :)
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Hi, I used to have the same problem, keeping track of passwords is quite difficult, I ended up recycling mine for various accounts, but that is not the right way to go, how I prayed I had someone to keep track of my accounts. I discovered a Tool called “Free Password Manager Plus,”by Billeo. This came with lots of neat features.
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Pelf,
you definitely need a password manager!Using a password manager is not merely convenient, it’s an effective way to adopt better security practices without too much stress. It basically sums up to: 1) never re-use the same password, 2) use strong passwords.
Software products are certainly an option, but you could also consider a web based solution.
(Yes, I’m a tad biased …)Clipperz is an online password manager that can do much more than simply storing your passwords.
- ubiquitous access
- direct login to online services
- offline version
- bookmarklet for quick data entry
- nothing to install or backup
- …It’s free and completely anonymous.
Clipperz lets you submit confidential information into your browser, but your data are locally encrypted by the browser itself before being uploaded.
The key for the encryption process is a passphrase known only to you.
Clipperz simply hosts your sensitive data in encrypted form and could never actually access the data in its plain form.For any further information refer to our website:
http://www.clipperz.com.Marco
Clipperz co-founder -
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frankly, what all you have mentioned, half of it i’m totally oblivious off and take no notice – eg. the feedburner & bloglines. i have accounts but dunno how to use. i even joined that blogshare but now like dormant only. so i really blur about all this and i don’t blame myself la – actually, i cant be bothered!! lol sometimes i think maybe i should take an interest la – what say u? u so rajin join the ppp forum? what u ask them lar? everything quite straight forward what…
pelf: Err.. You’re smart ma, I’m not. And sometimes when I needed an answer quickly, I’d post a question and get immediate response. Saves time reading the lengthy TOS :)