Seems no way to win.

Before I get completely outed as a closet Luddite, I have to defend myself.

Firstly, I have some sort of instinctive (and half-thought out political) aversion to logging into blogs to comment. On the rare occasions that I think I have something to say that’s worth putting in a comment I’ve usually thought better of it before I’ve gone through a log-in process. I tend to think signing up to comment restricts expression.

Secondly, I have an equal aversion to handing over any information about me to online identity things. So, whenever I feel I need a temporary email address, I come up with a new user name and password, just as they tell you in all the PC magazines.

Unfortunately this means that I have lost track of the almost all the dozens of login names and passwords that I have accumulated over the past 15 years of being on tinternet. But Firefox & Google have a dangerous memory, so I find that they now resist my attempts to invent new noms de net and send me back to whichever was the last one. Which usually comes with its own password but won’t let me replace it easily.

At the same time I can’t log in to any of the multiple ancient accounts that I have because they always ask fro soem personally identifying information to check that I’m me, before they’ll let me change the password. Of course, following the best paranoid practice, I have no idea which date of birth, country of origin or mother’s maiden name I used when I set the account up..

I can keep on top of this crap for crucial things – like accessing the blog – but I feel that life’s too short to do it every time I want to say “good post” to another blogger.

So, whatever my IT ineptitude, I still think that people should just allow comments at will. And use Akismet to keep out the spam. And just ban persistent trolls, if they really feel the need, although that’s never been a problem here.

The fact that Heather can produce posts here is nothing short of a miracle (dont let AiG ever find out about that though…) but it truly pales in comparison with the fact she can log on to her computer at work (skipping through dozens of esoteric security layers).

Despite all this, her Gmail accounts have a life expectancy of about six hours before she loses the password and needs to make a new account.

Its hard to explain in words just how IT-Challenged Heather actually is. Anything involving passwords is a recipe for disaster. There is no point trying to email Heather, despite her having about 14 million email accounts, because she can never, ever, log in to them.

I know I can. I must have some. And I must know the passwords to at least one of them.

I’ll try again this evening.

Thank you for the very kind and flattering mention. I still can’t really post a comment on your blog but I will try to find an identity that works