T21-2 Management

Next week we will be exploring some web 2.0 tools and they normally require you to register for a username and password. Sometimes the username is your email address. For some sites you need to choose a username yourself, and you may find that your preferred username is already taken. If you use web 2.0 services and a variety of other online services, it can become quite tricky to remember all the usernames and passwords. Some people simplify the task by using the same password for all their online accounts but that poses a huge risk for online safety and identity theft.

The bottom line is that you need a good system for recording your account details. If you choose a good secure method, you can use the one system for storing details of web 2.0 accounts and even your online banking access details. KeePass is an example of such a system. It is a small computer program that stores usernames, passwords and any comments you wish to add. The whole database is encrypted to provide advanced security. Of course you need to provide a secure password to access KeePass. Read this page for more information and make sure you download your KeePass from the keepass.info and keepassx.org sites linked below. If you do a web search, you risk finding a download site with a modified version containing spyware.

If you use Windows go to http://keepass.info/download.html. There are a number of options, but for our purposes, the Classic Edition Portable Keepass would be fine. A "portable" application does not need to be installed and can even be run from a flash drive if you move from one computer to another.

If you use MacOS or Linux go to http://www.keepassx.org/downloads.

You can even get KeePass for portable devices such as Blackberry, Android and Palm, and for the iPhone. Links are provided on this page http://keepass.info/download.html, just scroll down below the Windows versions.

Please note that KeyPass is not the only application for securely storing passwords. It is used here as an example.

Obviously, regardless of where you install it, you will need a good, strong password for your KeePass, that you can remember easily. Note that if you use KeePass regularly, you are less likely to have problems remembering the password. If you are one of those people who do have problems remembering passwords, you should write your KeePass password on a piece of paper and hide it in a secure place.