Kathy’s Tech Blog

After more than 10 years of using the Web, I’ve finally reached the point where I have too many passwords to remember.

I tried using the same password on all of the different sites — not the most security-conscious thing to do, I know, but I have a good standard password. The problem is I just can’t please everyone. One web site says I need to have at least eight characters in my password. Another says I have to have at least one capital letter. Another says I need one number, one Chinese character, and an umlaut. You get the picture.

I finally bought password management software for my Mac. It saves my passwords (encrypted, of course) and can autofill them when I return to their respective web sites. What’s more, it works across a ton of browsers: Safari, Firefox, Flock, Camino, and more. (But no Opera?) And I bought the add-on that synchronizes saved passwords to my Palm device. The software is 1Passwd from Agile Web Solutions.

There’s also a solution for Windows users. Actually, I’m sure there are several, but popular is Roboform. You can save a limited number of passwords with the free version. I don’t use Windows as intensely as I do Mac, but I found Roboform a little more complicated to use than 1Passwd. But for Windows users whose brains are running out of space, there’s hope in this product.

If you are an experienced photographer, or even an enthusiastic amateur, you’re probably aware that your depth of field (the part of the scene that’s in sharp focus) depends on the aperture size and the focal length.  I’ve always wished I could figure out exactly what my depth of field is without having to experiment, especially when I have to use manual focus — like when autofocus is broken.  I just heard about DOFMaster, a web site with Windows software you can download for calculating depth of field.  There’s even free software for Palm devices, and an online calculator.  I just tried out the online calculator, and you can determine your depth of field specific to your camera.