Password Madness

It's bad enough that my employer makes me change my password every six weeks and I can't use the same password within a 12 month period. But, to have to deal with the dreaded password for blogs, Hello, Photo Pages, Flickr, online connection, cell phone, PDA, email accounts, etc. is just maddening and too damned confusing!

Am I the only one suffering in Password Hell? Is there a manageable solution? If so, please, please share. I've used passwords that utilize random letters and punctuation, but it's too much. I even tried assigning the same password to all email accounts, photo sites, etc., but then obsessed over the what if scenario.

What if one photo site password was cracked and they subsequently tried it on others. They'd have access to them. I reverted to individual passwords for each account and hence, my predicament. I couldn't remember my password today, so the I.T. department erased the old one and told me to pick a new one.

Boop told me to "write it down and tape it underneath your keyboard." Uh, yea, like no one would ever think to look there! That's a well known trick and probably the first place someone would look. When she went to lunch, I moseyed to her cube, lifted the keyboard and sure as shit, there was Boop's password!

The older we get the harder it becomes to remember things. I'm seriously considering getting one of those biometric security login devices. The kind that attaches via USB to your computer and uses your thumbprint to lock/unlock your computer. It sure would be a lot easier and less stressful. I lost a Yahoo email account back in the day because I forgot the password.