What's My Password Again?

If you're like me, you've got a password for everything. Your online bank account, Google, Hotmail, FedEx, UPS, forums, and on and on and on. Some want six digits, some want eight digits, some want letters, some want capitals. It's almost impossible to keep it all straight. So you keep your passwords as simple as possible (translation: easy for someone else to guess) and write them all down somewhere (and hope it doesn't end up in the wrong hands).

Maximum PC recently published their sixth annual Softy Awards ( softy = software). One of the winners was KeePass, a program that not only safely stores and manages your passwords, but can also generate highly secure random passwords. The passwords are protected by a master password (the only password you'll have to remember) and can even be stored on a USB key. It's easy to set up (as long as you print out the two page getting started instructions from the help drop down) and took me about 30 minutes to transfer my passwords. My next step is to change all my passwords to randomly generated numbers and letters which can only be revealed by accessing KeePass. KeePass won't display the password. Instead, it allows you to copy it to your Clipboard and paste it into Word (you have 10 seconds). You can also add URLs so KeePass can take you straight to your login page. It's a nice little program.