After installing Android on my HD2 I quickly became challenged with the task of recalling passwords for frequently used applications like Last.fm, Mint, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Foursquare, et cetera. While recalling passwords for all of these apps might be painful for some, it’s a cinch for those managing their passwords using one of the many available ports of the open-source KeePass Password Safe. For Android, the KeePass port I’m using is KeePassDroid.
After recently losing a USB flash drive with all my passwords on it, I was grateful for the precaution I took by storing my password data encrypted using Brad Greenlee’s PassKeeper password manager.
PassKeeper is a Windows utility that allows you to keep a list of accounts with usernames, passwords, and notes. This list is stored encrypted.
The utility is freeware and has been available for public download since the mid-90’s. Data are encrypted using the 56-bit DES cipher and stored in an DAT file in the application’s root directory. The size of the application (189 kilobytes) and the data file (~400 bytes/entry) are lightweight and can easily be carried around on any USB flash drive.
iTunes users opting not to allow the program to automatically keep their folders organized (the default setting) may be well aware that iTunes does not respond well after changing locations of or renaming files. In fact, any change in the file name or path renders the item inaccessible from within iTunes. To make matters worse, there’s no easy way to have iTunes relocate files moved. iTunes prompts the user to relocate missing files but only one at a time with a dialog that says:
The song|movie “name” could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?
Not so useful when a lot of files are moved at once. But if a directory containing hundreds of files needs to be moved, to a larger hard drive for example, locating files individually becomes too much work.