Backing Up

Using a computer without a backup is like driving a car without a seatbelt. You don’t need it all the time, but when you need it, you really need it.

Fortunately, automated backups are simple.

They’re about $60 a year, so if someone steals your house, nothing left but a concrete slab, no problem. Your data’s safe. You can even access it remotely, a form of cloud storage.

For the Mac: Time Machine, possibly in tandem with BackBlaze.

For Windows: Carbonite.

Password Guidelines

Basically, passwords are broken. To be safe, you really need a password manager, and the three big players are LastPass.com, 1Password.com and Dashlane.com.

However, if you’re determined to do it yourself, a few tips:

1. Nothing from a dictionary, including names.
2. No dictionary words with 1, 2 or 3 at the beginning or end.
3. Nothing easily associated with you; e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

Most password hacks are automated, so no one’s out there typing away, one try at a time. The tools start with a dictionary and common passwords, then move on to brute force. They try every combination, so to a tool there’s no difference between “bananas” and “mrtppkx.” They’re both just six lower‑case letters, so randomness only seems secure.

How can you out‑smart that? Complexity. A long password with numbers, varying cases and special characters; e.g.:

password123
Not good.

Pa22w44D
Better; it’s not in a dictionary and has numbers and uppercase letters.

Paaw%d44rz$
Better yet — longer with special characters — albeit hard to remember.

IrrationalCarpDanceW/3fish&aDog
Much better. It’s long, mixes characters, is hard to guess and is still memorable.