Some Russians stole a whole bunch of personal information again recently, including passwords, usernames, and login info. For those of us who work in the tech world, this kind of shit just produces a big “Really? Again?” It’s super annoying to have to go through and change all of your information just because someone might have it and might do something really shitty (like steal all our money) with it.
I find myself almost throwing my phone across the room on a daily basis because I can’t remember which @$^%@ Apple ID password I’m using this week. My memory is terrible and Apple is a picky bitch who makes me come up with something I haven’t used in the past year. Considering I have to change it every time I try to use it (no joke) I decided that I really needed to figure out a better system.
Add this latest security breach on top and it’s way past time for me to work this shit out.
Have you heard of password managers?
I hadn’t, until recently. Password managers help you generate new, uncrackable passwords and store them all in one place for you. Instead of having to wrack your brain for the latest version every time you want to sign into you LinkedIn, you can just enter one password for access to all of your password. Click on the one you need and, voila! The app does it for you.
While you have lots of options when it comes to which password manager you want to use, I’d like to recommend 1Password, mainly because I like its explainer video.
1Password – No More Sticky Notes from AgileBits on Vimeo.
Not true. I like it for other reasons.
1Password is like an impenetrable vault where you can store all of your sensitive online info, in addition to your passwords for the 8,245 sites you’ve signed up for since you got a smartphone and therefore are online 24/7 with the rest of us. You can also keep other top secret things in there, like all of those sexy pictures your girlfriend sent you and your plans on how to take over the world.
But oh, right, we were talking about passwords.
1Password also generate passwords for you, letting your brain take a break from figure out exactly which numbers can stand in for which letters. It’s basically my new best friend because the price of a license just for me is still less than what it would cost to replace my iPhone after I threw it across the room in password remembering frustration.
