I don't know who thought up the concept of using both numbers and letters for computer passwords, but if I ever meet that person or persons, I'm going to have a field day on a skull or two. It gets to the point sometimes where I just start using the same password for everything I possibly can. So if I'm using the same password for everything, why do all these websites keep telling me I'm using the wrong one? I try to use the same user name as often as possible too, because otherwise I'll never remember who I'm supposed to be when I visit which site. This is yet another problem for the writers of the book, “Internet for Dummies” to solve. I guess it's a good thing that there are ways to simply program your password into the computer so it will do the remembering for you. All you have to do is type the first letter of your user name and the computer does the rest. Now all I have to do is recall all my user names.
I created my own email address on a computer that already had one email address programmed into it, only to discover that I had no clue where my incoming email was going. Yeah, I know. What an idiot. Not only that, but I could not recall my password, which meant that I could not open my email even if I did know where it was hiding. I even tried to cancel my new email address since I couldn't use it anyway, and what happened? A window popped up asking me for my password. Since I still couldn't fathom for the life of me what it might be, I simply clicked on the little bar that said, “forgot password? Click here.”
So after I clicked there, I sat and waited and then the computer informed me that it would be glad to remind me what my password was, if I would only be so kind as to tell it my password. What? Sorry, couldn't do that, so I clicked on the bar that said, “Change password? Click here.” I clicked, and they said they would be delighted to make the change if I would only provide them with my old password. After that, I decided that my new email address was better off hidden because obviously I had not one clue as to what I was doing. I had to bring in a family member who is an internet expert to help me find out that my password was the same six letter one I'd been using right along for everything else.
Okay, so that was a duh moment in a long line of them, but at least I was finally able to open my very own email, only to discover the 400 spam mails that perfect strangers had deposited in my inbox. I asked the internet expert how all these morons got my email address. He answered my question with one of his own: “Have you joined any web-sites recently with your new address?” The answer was, “uh, well, yeah.” Yes I know, the doofus gave out an email address she couldn't open in the first place. But that's all in the past. I am so on top of things now, it's amazing. Why just this morning I had to send the same email twice because the first time I spelled the receiving address wrong. Not only that, but I inserted the incorrect spelling into my “address book” so the computer would remember it for me. I had to re-insert the correction and delete the old one. But hey, I'm good to go now.
Knowing my computer talents as well as I do, I think it would be a really good idea if I went back to school to become a computer programmer, don't you? Please don't answer that. I'm just pleased when the computer actually does what I want it to do, even if it does have to sort of read my mind to do it. That takes me back several years, to a time when I was back in school learning about computers. Back then they taught everyone BASIC, and I actually did a little bit of fluff programming in those days on the school's computers. I could make funny sayings run repeatedly across the screen until they drove the viewer nuts, good stuff like that. All these years later I can still recall the very first lesson my computer teacher taught us. Want to hear it? GI-GO. That was it. The first thing she taught us. Know what it meant? Garbage In-Garbage Out. Oh well, I guess that philosophy still works today. I have to go now, it's time to delete my trash.
