what's better than a secure password vault

A recent BBC news item covered password security following on from a recent security fail on a piece of web software.


BBC tech mentions a "Secure password vault" - but what's better?


Mark Hopgood, Director of Hopgood Marketing and consultancy has helped develop a one off key password generator which can be used to create a strong password, but doesn't store it anywhere, making it less vulnerable.


Here's how it works.

Firstly go to http://hopgood.eu/password

access to your email account is crucial. Make sure you have 2 step authentication or your mail provider allows you to recover by text message to your mobile phone

enter your email address and a secret word or pin - for extra security change this every month.

your unique strong passwords are displayed. Copy and use them in your fave websites, however they will only stay on screen for 20 seconds, so you will have to remember your email / PIN combination.

You can copy paste your passwords if you need to.

happy using the password generator at 

http://hopgood.eu/password

[answered] How to keep my favourite apps going now that XP has been discontinued. What's the alternative?

If you were wondering what to do now that Microsoft has stopped support for Windows XP, here's a couple of ideas.

Recently I've been asked by business owners not happy about the stop on support for XP. Well what does it mean to you as a business or home user and what can you do about it.

An alternative to using XP is to run your Microsoft Office on a secure and free platform like Ubuntu
(see below for details on how)

Here are some impacts on XP support being withdrawn.

1. XP will now be a target for hackers. Basically without patches being applied any more, vulnerabilities that are exposed will not be patched. Your machine will be controlled by bots.

2. Some business owners are furious as their XP work just fine - why should they change?

3. You might have to buy new software and hardware for everyone in your organisation if you want to stay safe.

Or do you?

Here's an alternative solution which I have been working on with business owners for a while.


1. Move to cloud where possible.
Already many businesses are using cloud based email and CRM systems. Often these are on a low cost subscription, but some are free. This takes out the need for local servers and running outlook. If you would like to speak to me about how to achieve this, my contact details are below.

2. Install an operating system that will work with your hardware. Even 5, 10 year old hardware is good for the usual business applications like word processing, spreadsheets, browsing, database. The problem with later versions of windows after XP is that they use more and more disk space, graphics and hardware. I've been running Ubuntu on my desktop PC for a couple of years now and haven't looked back.

3. Use distributed computing and storage for backups. I've been configuring online storage for backups, coupled with peer to peer file sharing which negates the need for power hungry servers.

4. Run essential apps in Ubuntu Linux. Yes, running microsoft office on anything other than XP is possible with a few tweaks. I've been doing it for a couple of years now and it means that I can be sure that my pc will be supportable for the future without having to worry about microsoft deciding when I should buy new hardware or software.

If you would like to speak with a consultant who can advise and test your applications with a view to moving to a no cost alternative to Microsoft / XP, here are my contact details.

Mark Hopgood
mark@hopgood.eu
tel: 07767 875 550 (UK)
tel: 904 638 9046 (USA)

Happy times ahead!

[best answer] How to automatically highlight the entire row when a cell is selected

If you are working on a large spreadsheet and moving between sheets, sometimes its difficult to see where the selected cell is.

This excel hack automatically draws a highlight "cross hairs" for the entire row and the column.

Here's how I achieved it...

Unlike other methods this doesn't interfere with cell contents.
What I do is draw 2 rectangles on the sheet and make them transparent. These will act as my cross hairs.
Then in the active sheet I add the following code in VBA...

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)

With ActiveSheet.Shapes("Rectangle 1")

.Left = 0

.Top = Target.Top

.Height = Target.Height

.Width = 19638

End With

With ActiveSheet.Shapes("Rectangle 2")

.Left = Target.Left

.Top = 0

.Height = 19638

.Width = Target.Width

End With

End Sub