“Hey honey! What’s the password for Redbox?!”
Nicolas and I have each have two computers, and he has a smart phone. In addition to preordering from Redbox, we each need to be able to check our bank accounts, edit websites, check email, pay tuition, order postage, and so forth and so on. There’s no way that either of us can remember to tell each other what passwords we create.
So we came up with a system that will allow us – usually – to know what a password is for any site – without yelling into the other room.
First of all, we developed a ‘root’ password. We start with a word or phrase we will remember
nohack
We replace letters with numbers in this root password so it won’t have a full word in it.
n0ha3k
Then we sandwich it between two symbols
!n0ha3k?
That’s our ‘root’ password. It’s in all lower case letters.
Finally, we sandwich the root password between the capitalized first and last letter of the url we are visiting.
Examples:
gmail.com, that would be G!n0ha3k?L
webmaster.com – W!n0ha3k?R
Redbox.com – R!n0ha3k?X
All you have to remember is the root password.
Until you get to a site that doesn’t allow characters, or requires all lower case letters, or one that forces you to change passwords every three months.
That’s why we use Roboform anywhere. Each of our computers has Roboform Everywhere installed. So last night, when we changed the Redbox password, the new password was automatically passed to all of our computers.
And yes, it’s very, very safe. Much safer than using your pet’s name.
Check out Roboform at www.aldash.com/roboform. You can read about how secure it is and who recommends it (besides us!) on the Roboform page.
They have a free trial. You really should give it a go before someone else rents that Redbox movie.