password-creator

COOL (REGULAR-text enabled )CELL PHONE TOOLS

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:10:12 +0100

Turn Your Cell Phone Into a Cool Tool

October 5, 2009 in Awesome Apps

Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

This post was originally my column for this week in my school newspaper, The Cavalier Daily. But it’s too appropriate for The 2.0 Life to not put up here.

The one thing I have with me at all times isn’t a notebook, or my laptop, or underwear – it’s my cell phone. It lives in my pocket at all times, and if I’m without it for more than about 10 minutes, I begin to slowly lose my mind.

My phone’s not an iPhone, or even a particularly cool smartphone; it’s just a regular old phone. I have, though, learned a few cool tips and tricks for how to get the most out of my phone, and I’m going to share a bunch of them with you. If you’ve got a phone that makes calls and sends text messages, these tips are for you. (If your phone can’t do those things, I’m not saying you definitely got ripped off, but if the shoe fits…)

If you text GOOGLE (466453) phrases like “Sushi Charlottesville” or “Score Yankees,” you can get all kinds of cool information back via text message. There are a ton of things you can check with a simple text, from weather, to flight status, to shopping price checks. My favorite? “Directions,” followed by where you are and where you’re going, to get you home in a pinch. Here’s the whole list of things you can search for.

If you’re a Google Calendar user, you can set up your phone to add or retrieve events from Google by texting to GVENT (48368). If you send a message to GVENT with “next,” Google will text you back with the next thing on your calendar. Or text “lunch with Jim tomorrow 12:30,” and it’ll get added to your calendar. There’s a bunch of things you can do – here’s the list.

If you’re in the mood for a movie, text your zip code and a movie title to Fandango at 36436, and you’ll get a message back with today’s move times. Some cell carriers will even let you buy tickets – try it next time you’re standing in a long line at the theater.

Text messages are also an awesome way to send quick emails. Text just like you normally would, enter an email address instead of a phone number. You’re still limited to the 160 characters of all text messages, but it’s a great solution for the non text-savvy people in your life – also known as most people over 30.

My favorite service that’s just a text away, though, is ChaCha. ChaCha is essentially the arbitrator of all bar bets and the solver of all “oh man, what movie have I seen him in?” moments. Text just about any question to CHACHA (242242), and in a couple of minutes, you’ll get the answer back from a real live person.

If you’re not a texter, there’s hope for you yet. Using a service called Dial2Do, you can do all kinds of useful things just by picking up the phone. By speaking a couple of commands and a few words or sentences, you can do everything from have the New York Times read to you, to adding an event to your calendar. It’s free, simple, and intuitive to use, though you will look odd saying “Calendar. Lunch with Jim. 12. PM. PM!”

This next tip’s a little devious, but someday might just be your saving grace. Calling 267-759-3425, and then dialing a phone number, connects you directly to that person’s voicemail thanks to Slydial. Leave a message, and enjoy having a built-in excuse for not calling. Because you totally called, you even left a message!

While we’re using our phones for evil, give Get MOOH! a look. Get MOOH stands for “Get Me Out of Here!” and is a service that you can set up to automatically dial your phone at a certain time. It’s a perfect way to have, say, Alec Baldwin’s voice call you and give you a way out of a blind date, or even to get step-by-step instructions on how to sell the fact that you have to leave because the FBI’s looking for you.

Whether you choose to use your cell phone for noble and productive purposes, or just to mess with your friends by having Get MOOH call them at 3:30am every single day, is up to you. But with a few clever tricks and numbers in your contact book, your phone can do a whole lot more than just call your friends.

COOL PASSWORD TRICK from AskTheAdmin.com

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:26:35 +0100

Cool Password Trick

Written by kerry on April 28, 2009 – 8:02 am -

More and more applications. More and more websites. They all ask for your password. Password security has become more of an issue now. You read news stories of how hackers broke into XXX website and stole people’s passwords — in fact it happened to me as well. Unfortunately, many people use the same password in all applications which creates a sticky situation. These hackers then tried to use the same username and password to login to other high-profile websites like facebook, hotmail, etc…

How can you create a good, well written, and secure password that you can remember — yet avoids the situation above? Here’s a simple, cool password trick.

1) Find a password you like, for example my dog’s name Barkie

2) Replace one or two letters with a number or character. In this case Barkie becomes B@rk1e <– here’s your primary password. I used the replacement characters @=a and 1=i, but you can do any other combination.

3) Make your custom password. Any time you visit a new website where you need to register and create a password, use the website’s name as a prefix to your password. My preference is the first 5 characters of the website name is its easy to remember, but you can use any number of characters. For example, if I register at AskTheAdmin.com, I would use as a password askth_B@rk1e.

And so you have it, a custom password for every website.

Kerry enjoys writing about a variety of topics. Her favorite website is CallCatalog.com which is a reverse phone directory website. You can also read her blog which discusses personal privacy issues.

How can i come up with passwords that are complex and easy to remember? My short term memory is shot Help!

Written by Karl L. Gechlik | AskTheAdmin.com on July 24, 2007 – 7:07 am -

Unique and complex passwords are great and easy to come up with but remembering them – Now that’s a totally different story! Have you ever considered using password phrases instead? Full sentences are easier to remember than obscure characters and have many benefits. Keep on reading grasshopper…

Did you know that Windows allows you to use passwords with up to 127 characters?

How does that help you Young Admin with a bad memory?

Its quite simple actually. I don’t use passwords anymore. I will wait for the gasps to stop.

Yes, I have phased passwords out in favor of password phrases.

Why would you want to remember a password like BeDffd123cSwsspO0s129 when you could just remember a sentence like “suck giant monkey balls”,”Piss Off Wanker!” or “How much does this job suck!” (Well maybe not that last one if you need to document it!)

You can use uppercase, lowercase, special characters, or even spaces… but you are using them in context, which makes it much more natural to remember.

Post-it notes on your monitor are not secure and very 1999. Sorry Buddy.

It turns out that it is very difficult for a computer to break a password string containing more than 20 characters. It certainly couldn’t be done on the fly. Most windows passwords can be cracked in no more than a few minutes and in most cases seconds.

If a skilled hacker can get physical access to your machine, they can boot to Knoppix or Ubuntu, and have your password in seconds. Even with multiple machines running brute force cracking programs, there is no possible way that someone could crack a password that long in a reasonable amount of time. Even if somebody had the super computing power to do so hopefully you change your password every few months or so.

It may be difficult to use password phrases on other operating systems, or especially on websites, because they don’t properly handle spaces in the password, or have a small password length limit. One of the tricks that I usually do is use a password phrase without the spaces, if I possibly can.

Ok I’ll wait while you go change your password ;)

_TheSecureAdmiN_

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