Friday, March 2, 2007

Arrgh, Computers



Computers are like women…can’t live with them and can’t live without them. What’s a fellow supposed to do?

Having REALLY, SERIOUSLY, ABSOLUTELY gotten everyone’s attention and probably ensured that I will not have a peaceful weekend as well, I will now “touch” on a subject that both men and women will most likely agree on.

My number one computer rant is Passwords! Passwords work. They do keep my data secure. If I can’t get to the data it is secure because I can’t screw it up or leave it unprotected so someone else can screw it up, and I can’t get to it because it is humanly impossible to remember all the damn passwords that are required in our computer age!

Let’s see, I have passwords for:

Banking account
Credit union account
Insurance account
Retirement fund
Trailer forum
Metal detecting forum
College classmates forum
Yahoo
Google
Sitemeter
Adsense
Blogger
Orbitz
Cheap Tickets
eBay
Amazon
National parks reservations
State parks reservations
Computer network at work
Computer at home
3 different outside sites I use at work
Probably 5 other miscellaneous sites that require “protection”

That’s 28 passwords. Now, I’m no fool. I’m a college graduate. In grade school I memorized all the state names and capitols in alphabetical order. Yeah, yeah I know there were only 48 states then.

I memorized all of the presidents in chronological order and the periodic element chart and the Hail Mary and the Pledge of Allegiance and all kinds of dirty limericks. I can recite the Table of Organization and Equipment of a combat Infantry Brigade.

I CANNOT, however, keep up with 28 passwords. Even my well tuned ability to “cheat the system” doesn’t work because the rules for passwords are different and no matter how I try, I can’t find one password to cover to cover everything.

My brain has more important things to do than try to keep these 28 things burned indelibly on a few of it’s cells. It has to remember what I had for dinner last night. It better damn well remember my wife’s birthday or I won’t need the computer anyhow. It has to remember what pills I need to take in the morning and which ones I need to take at night. It needs to remind me to check the position of the toilet seat when I go to the bathroom at 2 am in the dark….THIS is where I need to be protected.

Thanks for visiting!

2 comments:

Tisha! said...

Looks like we may have a solution with the OpenID (one ID and password) but I am not sure how many people would feel comfortable using it.

Thanks for coming by my blog and I'd love to hear more about Berlin back in 1970!

Scooter said...

Good luck in remembering the passwords. I hate it when I forget one. :)

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