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Abstract:
Do you have a special way of organzing your website accounts? If so, please share your ideas!
I must have over 50 username and password accounts out on the World Wide Web with over 10 different combinations. Ugh!!
I looked into buying software to help organize me, but well, for those of you who know me, I'm a bit frugal especially when it comes to paying for something I could easily organize if I just took an hour to do it.
My work account, email accounts, bank accounts, utility accounts, etc. needed some serious attention. As you have probably heard, it isn't advisable to use your birth date, consecutive numbers, or your social security number as part of your username or password so that you don't become a victim of identity theft. According to Bankrate.com, "Identity thieves rob more than 500,000 Americans every year."
Consider a formula to concoct your username and password that is simple for you to remember, but not easy for someone to guess. Although nothing has been standardized across the Web (yet), you can bet that you need a minimum of 4 characters in a username and password without spaces. Some require capital letters and some require numbers. Keep the syntax memorable but nimble.
As for your username, consider something like:
Street Number + Street Name +Capitalize middle initial
If you live at 123 Main Street and your middle name is Paul, your username would be 123MainP
For your password, think about using the same as the username but adding the month and year to the beginning so it would look like:
Year + Street Number + Street Name +Capitalize middle initial
Continuing with the username formula above, your password would be 2005123MainP
This way, you know that at a bear minimum you can change your password annually. It is recommended that you change your password more frequently, such as monthly, but you get the idea now how to set things up in an orderly fashion.
If all else fails, create a table to organize yourself:
| Company |
Website Address |
Username |
Password |
| Bank |
www.MainBank.com |
123MainP |
2005123MainP |
| Email Account 1 |
|
|
|
| Email Account 2 |
|
|
|
| Cell Phone Company |
|
|
|
Should you decide to write everything down, please don't keep your cheat sheet next to your computer. Keep it in a safe place in your house instead of carrying it in a wallet.
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