Hi its Vanessa here, the same Vanessa as previous, I wiped my computer and it wiped all my saved passwords and didnt seem to be able to receive the email for a new password so started a new account!

My question is - what do you do to remember all your passwords? Im constantly bombarded by them!

HELP
Vanessa45 - yep that my up and coming age and a bit freaked out about it!!!!

Every time I load a password for something I immediately send myself an email with the name of the site, user name and password. I keep the emails in a separate file in my mail account so I can find them when I need them. Obviously not sensitive passwords like bank ones though as this is not very secure.

I have a file for those but I also print off the list just in case something horrible goes wrong with my computer.

My husband learned the hard way to keep a copy of his passwords. As with TPANDAV, the sensitive passwords are not kept on the computer.

Vanessa, as you discovered, sometimes the "I've forgotten my password" can let you down. Even the sensitive question system sometimes has me thinking back as to which animal, child, favourite teacher etc I used. I have sometimes had a text from overseas with a security number before they will allow me to go any further.

At work we had to change our password often.

Ive got soooo many passwords and have been through having to change it to a 'New" one as I had either used it previously, needed to add numbers, or a capital.
Ive a few standard ones but variations too - it drives me crazy!
I have started to keep things in a hard copy book but Id be really stuck if someone dishonest found it and wanted to infiltrate my life!
Ill just have to add "Foodlovers" to my list now...
Vanessa

PS I sometimes take a pic on my phone BUT end up transferring that data to my computer so theres gaps in that method!

I keep the unimportant ones written on a piece of paper (pizza hut, library etc). Anything to do with banking or something I wouldn't want someone getting into doesn't get written down anywhere, ever. There are several password keeper apps/software out there if that is up your alley. My mother uses an index notebook too, works well.

I know ASB as part of their online banking has a "password vault" where you can store your list of passwords online. One would like to think their online security is right up there so it should be safe. However, there are still things I'd never put in there.

Vanessa, A good way to form a data pattern that only you know, say a word, followed by a number, followed by the first 4 letters of the site or the last, or the middle.....it generally works

For work we are doing a change to a new airline booking system. Their password requirements are a nightmare - no 'real' words in your passwords and that includes foreign words as it is a global system. It has to be at least 8 characters long and have numerics. And every 10 weeks you have to change it and it cannot have 3 or more matching characters when you change.

Groan

haha Irene, & if like my work passwords, cannot be any of the past 3 passwords you have used (or too similar), so no chance of say, using "me123" & changing to "me456"

My little brain is filling up with lots of useless info as it gets older & can never remember impt stuff like passwords - so I too have a special book in a secret place. I think too that this should be part of my last will & testament too, as no-one else in our household has any idea of some of these passwords & if/when I am gone, DH wont have any idea of how to pay the bills, haha

Someone recently did suggest that we leave some safe way of instructions for a trusted friend or family, as often, many of us take on roles, be they paying the bills (like me), accessing bank info, family computer site log ons etc etc & we can all be a little complacent to not think of needing to know extra info - until its too late.

This password info from the mid 1980's when I was employed in a Bank's IT Department will give everyone a giggle (I hope). Our individual computers were password protected. None of this characters/numerics we have these days, but it was stressed upon us to not have an obvious password. I was having a bad day once when I had to update my password and I picked the word sh*thead ( replace the asterisk with the letter 'I'.

I was away sick and the IT Head needed to access some docs on my computer. He rang me at home and apologised but said he needed my password to get into my computer. So I answered 'sh*thead'. He replied this is no time for jokes Irene, I urgently need your password. Again I replied 'sh*thead'. It took 3 attempts to let him know I was not berating him. And he was a very serious computer Boffin and lacking in humour somewhatt

Love it, Irene!

Call me a nerd but I use, and have done so for years, a password manager. It used to be Norton Identity Safe until they stopped keeping pace with Firefox updates and it became difficult to manage. So I turned to Cnet to find the best password manager at the time. I now use LastPass. Cnet are always updating their research on password managers and I go there from time to time to see what is currently on offer.

Basically, I have only one password I have to remember, my master password to access LastPass (LP) LP then will generate a unique password for every website that requires one. I can set what sort of characters to use, i.e. upper and lower case, numbers, characters such as $, %, etc, and also I can opt for no ambiguous characters (such a l {lower case L} and I {upper case i}) When I want to access a site which requires my password, I just type my master password into LP and then click on the website I want and LP opens the site, fills in my user name and password and hey presto! I'm logged in.

Basic LP is free and can be used on one device. If you want to be able to sync with all your other devices, it costs $US12 per year, about $NZ17, depending on exchange rate at the time, a small price to pay for hassle-free peace of mind.

Have a look here: [www.cnet.com] and see if there's anything that will suit you. I note that LastPass is no longer in the top 10, but I'm happy with it.

I also use a password manager. I use a program called Secure Safe. It syncs between all my devices too which is great.

Well for the first time ever I got logged off this site, I never log off here so then I had to remember my password from 10 years ago- which was impossible, yes I keep passwords safe but not one this old. Anyhow I am back and with a new password which I will keep in a safe place.

I opened FL today after a couple of days absence and had been logged out too! Even though I still use my original name and password from all those years ago (14, I think), my password manager was able to log me in again in about 3 seconds flat!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2016 11:17PM by Lorna.

Lorna, Helen posted the other day regarding an overnight server fix/update. I too was logged out and it was after the update

I got logged out too, and I hadn't noticed. So I thought there were no new posts for several days, didn't think much of it, and have just realised and logged back in to find dozens!

So try as she might she just can't get rid of we oldies but goodies.

Stephanie D Wrote:
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> So try as she might she just can't get rid of we
> oldies but goodies.



I had been in Brisbane for the weekend and wasn't sure whether I'd logged out, or not. When I saw Helen's post the penny dropped.

Ah not just me then!

I was logged off again this morning.

I also had to log in again and request a new password?