Guilty!

Ok, so I’ve not been posting much.  At all.  Of anything.

That isn’t how I had planned to run this blog, so I’ve decided to set aside 5 minutes every day to just write whatever I’m thinking of, related to tech, even if it’s not a complete thought.

So, today, I wanted to take a moment to tell everyone about LastPass.  I’ve been using it for a few days now, and I really like it.  What is it?

LastPass is a password manager that plugs into your web browser.  It watches the websites you log into and loads up your passwords for you – just like Firefox, Chrome, or IE already do… but what it does extra is that it stores those passwords on the net, and syncs to any machine you’re using.

I have a BUNCH of computers.  I  have a laptop, a desktop, a new(ish) windows tablet, an iPhone, an iPod Touch, etc.  so, even though my web browsers offer to save passwords for  me, I still have to re-enter then on each different machine I use.  But, LastPass lets the automatically sync.

I recently started an online web course for college. (yeah, I'm returning to college after so many years).  Well, I used LastPass to store the passwords, and already every one of my machines knows my password to log onto the college website, so it’s very easy to shift back and forth from machine to machine.

Those of you who might be security conscious might enjoy knowing how the storage works – your passwords are stored in a file that is on your own hard drive.  The LastPass plug-in encrypts your passwords before storing them in the file.  It then syncs that encrypted file to the web.  So, your passwords never actually leave your machine without being encrypted.  Then, when you want to use one, your machine pulls down the encrypted file, you enter your master password, and it decrypts the file once it’s arrived on your machine with your master password.  Thus, the website, even though you can view your passwords online, it never actually sees your passwords themselves – they’re encrypted up there, and you must enter your master password to see them.  Very nice.

Well, that’s my 5 minute thought.  I’ll come back tomorrow with another 5 minute thought.