Wednesday, December 05, 2007

My computer knows more about me than I do

Sunday I had a bit of a mishap with my computer. I'm not sure who pushed which buttons when or in what order, but my computer decided to "restore" itself to the factory shipped state. Which is thankfully different than having the hard drive re-formatted. But a pain nonetheless.

I am having to re-install most of the programs I installed since getting my computer. And I have had to un-install most of the crap and trial programs that came with the computer.

For many software packages, this means checking your account on their website, or checking your e-mail for some key, since there are very few install CDs sent out anymore.

Do you know how many different passwords you have? I don't. I have had to request so many new passwords, and change so many passwords, and rifle through papers for information to restore everything to its previous state (which wasn't perfect, but at least I knew where everything was).

When I think about that too much, I worry. How many websites know how many things about me that I don't even remember anymore? It's mind boggling.

I'm lucky that at work we have single-use sign-on (or whatever it's called). I sign into my account and every program that is web-based uses that same password. It works nicely at work because of firewalls and security and all that. I hope the outside world never comes to that, because then surely my computer would know more about me than I do.

Which I fear may already be the case.

5 comments:

Leah's Crafty Life said...

It makes it nice in corporations. They usually just use the sign in on your computer for everything else to work. Glad you are getting your computer back under control.

Chris said...

What I hate about my computer at work is that they make me change my password periodically. And it can't be anything sequential to previous passwords. Blech. I HATE changing my work password. I spend about a week afterwards entering the wrong one.

Good luck getting yours back to "normal".

Sarah Rice said...

Im sorry about your computer. That would seriously suck. I dont know how many passwords I have either.... probably 5 or 6. I dont know what Id do if netscape didnt remember them for me.

Anonymous said...

Omg, I seriously broke out in hives reading this...I don't know what I'd do if my computer decided to reboot or just crash. I'd lose SO MUCH STUFF! Pictures, favorites, music...tons of things! At least I only have 2 or 3 passwords...but maybe I should start backing up some of my assorted stuff, huh?

Bonita Rose said...

wow that is scary!!!!!