"Please key in your password"

"Please key in your password". We are bombarded with this phrase on a daily basis. I don't think this phrase was quite as widely used previously as it is now. This is just one of the ways how our world has changed compared to our fore father days.

I come across this phrase several times daily. I encounter "Please key in your password" when I sign in for my several emails and blog, websites for which I have signed up for some services or newsletters, when doing my online banking, at the ATM machines, when commenting on blogs, participating in forum discussions etc. Its driving me crazy!

In my previous job, I had to change my password every three months to access my computer screen to do stock trades. When the stock market was languishing, I played truant and sometimes when I finally turned up at the office, I had forgotten my password! (I was a constant visitor to the IT department to get my computer reactivated). I had trouble keeping up with and coming up with more and more passwords. After a while it became tiring to come up with new and different passwords that won't be easily figured out by others.

Remembering new passwords has become a chore which is why I probably would not password protect my blog posts. I think that defeats the purpose of having a public blog. However it would be useful I suppose for those who want to make use of the blogging platform to have their own private journal for their eyes only. Otherwise, your poor readers would have another password to remember in addition to keying in some other word verification nonsense. (which is required to save us from Spam). For example, to save this post, I have to key in "zwbuaak". Hmm..... to the spammers who made this necessary, well, all I can say is "zwbuaak" to you!

So tell me everyone. How do you manage your passwords? Use the same for everything? (That would be pretty dangerous. Someone who can manage to figure out your password would get access to everything!). Using birthdates, pet names etc could all easily be figured out too. While, in some instances (to prevent others from accessing your private information) you come up with such a unique password that even you cannot remember it!

While I leave you to ponder that, I'm off to key in my new password to login to my ReviewMe account to check if I have any new writing or Reviewing Assignments. Now that is one password I will happily remember for now. After earning my first US30 from the previous post, I can't wait for more. Lol!