InfoTeacher

One of the big complications in today’s digital world, is passwords. As an educator, I hear it all the time how “teachers have to keep a password for everything.” It’s also true in any job you work.  Add multiple email accounts, blogs, online accounts, online banking, etc., and you have a lot of passwords to manage.  And by the way, this isn’t going to change.

I’ve used Key Pass for some time now.  I’m pretty sure I downloaded it from CNET. They are a good source of reviews, and they guarantee their downloads have been checked for spyware, etc.    Key Pass runs off my flash drive so it doesn’t have to be installed, I can take it with me from computer to computer, and it stores all of my passwords securely. The security is quite elaborate (DOD grade: basically I’m confident that if anyone got a hold of my flash drive, I could change all of my passwords before they could break the Key Pass encryption), and yet very simple and easy to use.  I keep one master password (very long and secure ) — and Key Pass keeps all of my various passwords for me.  I could make my own passwords at each site, or I can have Key Pass autogenerate one for me (which is best, because then Key Pass will create for you very secure, long and complicated passwords.   Too hard to type them in?  No. I don’t have to enter them into any field — with a couple of clicks they can be autotyped in for me (you could copy and paste, too, but the autotype feature is easier and more secure).

I was driving to the store and had the radio on. On comes Kim Komando (the most widely syndicated computer/digital talk radio show). What is she talking about? Passwords and security. Don’t keep your passwords in IE or in Firefox (anyone with any tech sense can find and know them if they can spend a little time on your computer).  What does she recommend?  Key Pass for one. You can get a free download of it from her show’s page.

Now if you move around to as many computers as I do, the hard part is keeping Key Pass updated (never quite sure that I remember to update Key Pass when I update the password to that one account I just had to change).   You’ll also want a copy of it on one computer just in cast you lose that flash drive (even though it’s secure, you’ll want to change your passwords). That one copy will have all your most recent passwords, so you can go to each account and change the passwords (it’s always good to have a “just in case” plan).

I have a laptop with a fingerprint reader and software to store secure passwords for all sites that require a log in. I swipe my finger and the laptop’s software reads and enters my securely kept passwords instead. Bottom line: I use Key Pass instead because it’s easier to use. I think some day that fingerprint thing may become a standard. But as of now, it’s unreliable, bulky and awkward, Key Pass is pretty simple and easy to use.

Bloomberg News is reporting that Google is considering writing an Operating System to compete with Microsoft Windows.  Link here.  Very interesting.  It looks like they will start with an OS for low cost laptops — and see where the market takes them.

I, for one, think competition is always good. Competition makes public education better, too — but I realize that opens about 144 can of worms for many of my colleagues.

I upgraded to IE8 (actually, the upgrade is nested into the Windows Update, so if you click “Next” too quickly without paying attention, you upgrade to it without realizing it).  IE8 has a couple of new features — nothing that I would write home about; a private browsing feature, but if you really want privacy there’s been portable Firefox around for years). Looks and feels like IE7 (which I thought was a big improvement over 6).  I like IE8, and like to keep up with the security features they bring with updates.  Again, 7 was a giant leap forward, but 8 seems to be mostly cosmetic and hidden updates.

However (and there’s always a however in life), when I upgraded to IE8, I can’t get to this blog. I seem to be able to surf everywhere else fine – except here at Edublogs. My Blogspot blog is fine as well as all other (so far) secure pages. But when I come to this page, it freezes every time. Happened on both my desktop at home and my laptop. I was actually going to only upgrade on one computer and see, but I clicked “Next” too quickly on Windows Update, and both computers got IE8. I didn’t mind, until I went to write a post about finishing school. Both computers, newly upgraded to IE8 freeze. One runs Vista and one is XP — so it’s not the OS.  Well, …..

I’m writing this post in Firefox.  I’ve been wanting to jump on board and see about Firefox anyway, so this gave me the opportunity to try. I’ll be surfing with both browsers for a while and see what the differences are.  Want to see which one I like.  But, unless the BFG (per Roald Dahl’s book the BFG, I refer to Microsoft as the BFG) creates a patch for IE8, I’ll have to use Firefox for this blog.

I’ll get back to my post first semester of Leadership training post by end of day today.  Got a couple of other post ideas I’ve had to skip, too because I haven’t been able to get in for a few days.