Computers

Is Your Password Secure?

How secure is your online life? Are your passwords easy to hack? Are you using a password that could be easily guessed or discovered?

Even having a great password is no guarantee of security if you leave copies of your passwords near your computer. If someone was in your home or office would they find it fairly easy to discover your passwords? Do you use the old hiding spots of under the keyboard or under your desk?

SplashData, a well-known provider of password management applications. has revealed its 25 worst passwords for 2011 with their article, When “Most Popular” Isn’t A Good Thing: Worst Passwords of the Year – And How to Fix Them.

The top five are all fairly simple passswords which would prove no match for even the most basic online hackers.

password
123456
12345678
qwerty
abc123

The rest of the passwords on the list are fairly simple with people expecting passwords like ‘iloveyou’ and ‘trustno1′ to offer them some security. It’s worth checking out the original list to see if any of your passwords are featured. If they are, change them right away. (We should all be changing our passwords regularly any way.)

On Wednesday during my Morning Café radio program on 98.5 Sonshine FM I chatted with our technology expert, David Cook. We discussed passwords and looked at the best ways to create good passwords or passphrases. If you want to stay safe online you can listen to our chat by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

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I Blame Google

Jul 15th, 2011

by Rodney Olsen.

4 comments

Are you finding it harder to remember things? I know that I’ve noticed myself searching harder for a word or name a little more often recently.

I thought it was just that I was getting older but I’ve found out that I can blame it all on Google. I thought Google was my friend, the keeper of all knowledge, but a study, led by psychologist Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor from Columbia University, has found that while the internet gives us immediate and constant access to information, we’re becoming more dependent on it as our own personal memory.

Apparently we don’t feel we have to remember things any more because it’s all at our fingertips on our computers, smart phones, iPads or other devices.

Sparrow’s research reveals that we forget things we are confident we can find on the Internet. We are more likely to remember things we think are not available online. And we are better able to remember where to find something on the Internet than we are at remembering the information itself. This is believed to be the first research of its kind into the impact of search engines on human memory organization.

Sparrow’s paper in Science is titled, “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips.” With colleagues Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University, Sparrow explains that the Internet has become a primary form of what psychologists call transactive memory—recollections that are external to us but that we know when and how to access. – Colombia Research

The idea of relying on an external ‘memory’ isn’t new. A lot of people can’t remember birthdays and anniversaries because they know that their spouse has taken care of all that information. When we believe that access to the information we require is readily available we tend not to commit the details to memory.

I wonder if you’ve noticed that yourself. Are you forgetting things a little more often? Have you perhaps discovered ways to keep your memory active? Who remembers birthdays at your place? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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The world's greatest inventions

Mar 9th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

I saw a news article today talking about the world’s top ten inventions. It displayed a number of inventions which the story claims have changed the world.

The internet, television, computers, telephones, they were all there. I decided to look for a few other lists of the world’s greatest inventions and found several. Not many of them agreed with each other. I certainly liked the English list that put the bicycle at the top of the list. After all, there is no more energy efficient mode of transport in the world.

So what do you think are the greatest inventions? What do you think has changed the world we live in?

What would be in your list of the world’s greatest inventions? The printing press? Has there been a particular breakthrough in medical science that would be on your list? What about aircraft or the automobile? Would you choose the microchip? How about the camera or the light bulb? What else is there that I haven’t even mentioned?

Whether you think there’s just one invention that you think should be on the list or you want to try to come up with your own top ten, I’d really enjoy getting your point of view. Add your favourite invention or inventions in the comments section of this post.

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So what does this all mean?

Dec 4th, 2008

by Rodney Olsen.

9 comments

This video is pretty mind blowing.

What does it mean for us and for the generations to come? What does it mean for business? What does it mean for community? What does it mean for churches?

Thanks to Shane at Caffeinated Thoughts for pointing me to the video.