Date: 2010-01-22
To: "OPEN SESAME"
Miles today: 0.0

Darn. "OPEN SESEME"? "OPEN SESSEMME??" "OPEN SEZME"??? "OPEN SAYSME"???? #*@!!!!! Do you have ANY IDEA how much I hate computer passwords?Yesterday, Erin set up the ATTenners Yahoo Group, and sent us all an invitation to join. "GREAT", I think. Just like in '05. This is gonna be so cool." So I get home last night, and try to log on to Yahoo so I can join the group. Only I can't remember my password. I had one once, but I forgot it. So I got another one, and that time I wrote it down, only I couldn't find the piece of paper I'd written it down on. I tried what I thought it might be, and then several variations on what I thought it might be, but none of those variations worked. "What the heck," I thought, "I'll just register a new account". Which I did, and got a new password. But then they had a problem with registering my home e-mail address, I think because they had it associated with some other account (probably my ealier one). So I managed to get that straightened out, only then I still coundn't sign in, and just kept going through this same loop of trying to log on unsuccessfully, until I finally gave up in total frustration with their system, and total disgust with my lack of computer savy.I know it's partly a generational thing. My kids have lived with computers almost since the womb. When I was born, there was no such thing as a computer. (Hell, we were lucky to have wombs!) So I've had to try to adjust to computers "on the fly" so to speak. I know they're necessary, and they allow us to do incredible things, but why is it that every time I want to make use of some program, I have to come up with a new word??? And not just come up with one, but MEMORIZE IT? And writing it down doesn't help that much, because then I have to remember where I put that particular piece of paper. Don't they realize that I'm losing those cells that allow you to memorize stuff??? And it just keeps getting worse. At the office, I have to have three different passwords -- one each for three different systems. Over time, however, they keep adding on all these new requirements. First, I had to change them once a year.   Bummer! Then it was every six months. Now they're down to every three months. It's only a matter of time and I'll have to come up with a new password every morning when I want to log on. Trust me, I'll be GONE before that happens, off in some lunny bin somewhere!And as if that weren't bad enough, now they never seem to be satisfied with the words I make up! The Yahoo system last night had, like, a "degree of difficulty" scale for passwords. I have no idea what the "downstream" labels were, 'cause I stopped just as soon as I had the miniumum number of characters. The degree of difficulty for mine was "weak", which was just one up from "pathetic" and two up from "you gotta be kiddin' me!). At the office, my passwords have to have 8-13 characters, at least one capital letter, at least one number, and it can't be even remotely similar to any password I've used in the last 24 years. Fortunately, they keep track of the ones I've used in the past, because I'm lucky to remember the ones I came up with three months ago. Still, in addition to the three for the office, I need two for my SAR group web sites, another for the Rescue Squad, one for my Face Book Page, and now one more for my Yahoo ATTenners Group. So tell me: if these computers are so darn smart, how is it that they can't figure out it's ME when I log on? Huh? I'm just sayin'. Things are so much simpler on the trail. 49 more days!P.S. My thanks to Erin for the "work around". She skipped past the invitation and signed me up herself. P.S.S. For a similar rant against technology -- this time involving the new watch I got for my '05 hike, see Preparation Entry #27 of that year's journal.