Handy Computer Tips

If you think you have some handy computer tips, please put them here.

My first tip is going to be about Usernames and Passwords.

I dunno about you, but I have dozens of sites and applications that require these. How many of us have forgotten their Username or Password to access a site. I know I have, it used to be a regular occurence and caused no end of grief and wasted time. I think, that it is possibly the most common computer problem that we have all suffered at some time or another. We need these things for everything, Internet account, Banking, websites, even to access some software.

My advice is to set yourself up with a complete alter ego, yep,... just like the spies do in the movies. You have probably already started this when you joined this Jamestownevents forum, in that you adopted a screen name to avoid being identified. All this subject merely involves is carrying this process one step further in that you make a complete person of this name complete with fictional address, family, hobbies, or whatever you wish.

I can hear you all saying, "He's nuts, why in God's name would I want to do that" Well, the answer is because if you use this imaginary person's identity all the time, you become very familiar with it and you use these familiar details to create your Usernames and passwords.

For this example I will use the example of our fellow member "Utegirl70" she is in fact (in my example only)

Ms, Ute Girl, born on 01/01/1970.
She lives at: 123 Alameda Terrace, Ridgehaven, Knott County, Pennsylvania, USA
Etc,.. etc.

All of these details can be used when registering for membership on various sites, the advantage being that if you use the same details all of the time, you are far less likely to forget them.

Some of you who are more nosey, have possibly noticed that my Photobucket account has the name Username "ozzirt" this is in fact, T. Rizzo, in reverse without capitals, spaces or punctuation. The reason for this being that many usernames etc., do not recognise them anyway. Thomas Rizzo was in fact a real person with whom I corresponded for some time, so I used his details to create an alter ego. I use Tom's home town as a password. In the front room of Tom's house is a a 12x12rug this used to be a password for sites that needed both letters and numbers to be used. His Wife is Genevieve, another passwords were the names and birth dates of his children. I can tell you this safely now, as this alter ego has been dropped by me for nearly all publicly accessible sites. My current one is Ray Cheshire, hence my Username "Ray" on this site.

If you attempt to register on a site, and find that the Username is already taken you can add his middle name and/or his family name, either forwards or in reverse. There is any number of possible combinations, but you must have a method of selecting them so that you can duplicate it when you forget a particular password.

It's been a long time since I found myself locked out of a site, or forgotten my Banking details, which for example use the details of a long past Bank Officer in my family.

Use your imagination, this system works well. NEVER use your own details, they are too easily compromised.