via Charlie Brooker | Want to read this article? Then enter your password | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Forgotten your password? That’ll be the 58th one you’ve not remembered this year, then.

In days of yore, we’re told, people had less leisure time because ­everything – everything – was a protracted pain in the fundament. Want to clean that smock? Then you’ll have to walk six miles carrying a pail of water back from the village well. And that’s before you’ve tackled the laundering process itself, which consists of three hours laboriously scrubbing your soiled garment against a washboard and wringing it through a mangle. By the time you’ve finished, it’s bedtime. Did you remember to clean your pyjamas? No. Back to the village well for you, then.

No wonder the people in medieval woodcuts look so miserable, even when they aren’t being cleft in twain by knights or dropping dead in a flurry of popping buboes. And oh how we modernites love to chortle at their unsophisticated lives. DARK AGE LOSERS PROBLY USED TURNIPS FOR IPHONES LOL!!!!

But in many ways, the rustic serf of yesteryear had a better quality of life than the skinbag-about-town of space year 2010. Computers have freed us from hours of drudgery with one hand, but introduced an equal amount of slightly different drudgery with the other. No matter how ­advanced civilisation becomes, there’s an unyielding quota of drudgery lurking at the core that can never be completely eradicated.

These days it’s commonplace to do everything online, from designing the layout of your kitchen to locating a stranger prepared to kill and eat you for mutual sexual gratification. Tasks that would have taken years to organise and achieve can now be accomplished in the blink of an icon. Or would be, if you could remember your password. But you can’t remember your password. You can’t remember it because you chose it so very long, long ago – maybe three days afore. In the intervening period you’ve had to dream up another six passwords for another six websites, programs or email addresses.

In this age of rampant identity theft, where it’s just a matter of time before someone works out a way to steal your reflection in the mirror and use it to commit serial bigamy in an alternate dimension, we’re told only a maniac would use the same password for everything. But passwords used to be for speakeasy owners or spies. Once upon a time, you weren’t the sort of person who had to commit hundreds of passwords to memory. Now you are. Part of your identity’s been stolen anyway.

In the meantime: you need a new password. One as individual as a snowflake. And as beautiful, too. Having demanded a brand new password from you for the 28th time this month, His Lordship Your Computer proceeds to snootily critique your efforts. Certain attempts he will disqualify immediately, without even passing judgment. Less than six letters? No numbers? Access denied. This is a complex parlour game, OK? There are rules. So start again. And this time: no recognisable words. No punctuation marks. No hesitation, deviation or repetition. Go.

Pass the qualifying round and it gets worse. Most modern password entrance exams grade each entry as you type, presenting you with an instant one-word review of your efforts. Suppose you glance around your desk and pick the first thing you set eyes on, such as a blue pen. You begrudgingly shove a number on the end, creating the password “bluepen1″. You submit this offering to the Digital Emperor, and he derides it as “Weak”.

You can use it if you want. It’s valid. But still; it’s “weak”. So you try again. This time you replace some of the letters with numbers and jumble the capitalisation a bit, like a chef with limited ingredients trying to jazz up an omelette to impress a restaurant critic. The Computerlord pulls a vaguely respectful face. You’ve jumped a grade, to “OK”. You tingle within.

But you can do better. Admit it: you want HRH Computer to actively admire you. You want him to give you a rosette for creating the most carefully constructed password in history, a password that isn’t merely secure, but is beautiful. A password that sings. A password to make angels weep. You will present His Majesty the Mainframe with a masterpiece of encryption, an ornate lexicographic sonata – a creation whose breathtakingly impressive elegance is magnified by the heartbreaking know ledge that no human other than yourself will ever set eyes upon it. This is your private cryptographic poem, your encoded love letter to the machine. Better be good.

So you take bold made-up words, weave them with numbers, stud the souffle with spicy CaPiTaLs and garnish it with a random string of characters carefully chosen for their memorable unmemorableness. You’ve performed reverse cryptanalysis; been a one-man Enigma machine. And your offering pleases God. He deems it “Very Strong”: his highest accolade.

Still glowing, you try out your hand-crafted key for the first time, typing it into the lock. With a soft click, the mechanism turns. Access granted. You are now part of the smocklaundry.com community. How many of your smocks need laundering? When would you like them returned? No problem. Thanks for your custom. Farewell.

Three weeks later your smocks are returned, late and still plastered with hideous stains. You revisit smocklaundry. com to protest. But you can’t remember your password. You can’t remember it because you chose it so very long, long ago – maybe three weeks afore. And in the intervening period you’ve had to dream up another 42 passwords for ­another 42 websites, programs or email addresses.

Your beautiful password is dead. It was simply too complex and too damned exquisite to live in your humdrum world, your humdrum mind. Now you must face the ignominy of clicking the password reset button for the 58th time this year. And as you trudge dolefully toward your inbox, waiting for the help letter to arrive, the cruel laughter of His Computerised Majesty rings in your ears. You have failed, human. You have failed.

and sometimes you do…

I prefer systems like the first one.

Here’s the text that generated it:

user->form: provides feedback
activate form
form->form: validate
form-->user: request amends
alt if 'content' selected
    form->dept: email dept
    note right of dept
        left with dept
        to sort out?
    end note
else if 'other' selected
    form->service desk: raise ticket
    service desk->web support: ticket
end
form->user: send message received (if email left)
deactivate form
web support -> service desk: resolve ticket
service desk -> user: email resolution message

Here’s a link to the page where it all happens.

This is the first stage of some restructuring for IS. I’m looking forward to working with everyone that will part of this new grouping. It’s going to get quite busy over the next few months but hopefully we can make some good changes.

I decided to update my profiles with this new info. In my online life this has so far involved changes to LinkedIn, Twitter, and this blog’s About page. Not touched Facebook yet and I’m sure there’s a few more…

View Larger Map

Östersund is described as ‘the number one winter city’ and it was certainly picturesque – covered in snow and fairly chilly outside. Yesterday was a beautiful crisp and sunny day so we got to see it at its best (although my taxi-based iPhone image might not convince).

We were guests of Kristen Snyder who was fantastically enthusiastic, knowledgeable and a very welcoming host. Along with her colleagues and Magnus Berger from Avedas they showed us their implementation of Converis - which you can see in action on Kristen’s profile page.

Kristen had also kindly arranged for an early evening meal so that we had time to catch our plane back to Stockholm. It was a good chance to sample the local cuisine so I went for the reindeer – which I can heartily recommend.

RT @markgr: #highered peeps – Come help make the video to demonstrate the ROI of social media in higher edhttp://bit.ly/aVYj8m #hesmroi

Based on this idea…

The main difference is the template, since WordPress.com didn’t have the one I was using. I suppose I lose some control, but I sleep easier at night…

Hope there aren’t too many holes. Let me know if you find some!

Dear Mr Wilcox

In recent months, there has been a steady worsening of the economic environment making it necessary for us to review our customer’s accounts. As part of this review we’ve taken the difficult decision to increase some of our rates.

Is it just me or is that a bit of a non sequitur?

On the reverse side of the letter, a Questions and Answers section includes: “How do I opt out?”. It’s not completely hidden, but it’s not that obvious either.

I’m sure there will be Ts and Cs to this opt out, but I think this is one “difficult decision” that I will also have to take….

Schwarzenegger’s ebook plans are not a greener option

California’s plans to drop traditional textbooks in favour of online material will no doubt spare a few trees – but Arnie should be choosing the greenest option by rolling out dedicated e-reader devices at the same time, says Duncan Graham-Rowe

via Schwarzenegger’s ebook plans are not a greener option | Duncan Graham-Rowe | Environment | guardian.co.uk .

…plus a conversation with colleagues at coffee this morning has me thinking. If the Guardian article’s references are to be believed, I can deliver you a whole range of statistical snippets. Did you know that:

• the pulping industry is the third largest consumer of fossil fuels;
• it takes 10 litres of water to make one A4 piece of paper;
• in the US alone, half a million trees are felled every week just for Sunday newspapers; 
• reading an online newspaper for 30 minutes a day produces more emissions than reading a paper version;
• the reverse is true if you read them for just 10 minutes;
• Amazon’s Kindle DX uses electronic-paper displays which use hardly any energy to maintain an image (or text) on a screen.

I’d like to know how my team can quantify it’s output. We work hard, and produce, hopefully, some good web developments.

But the team uses energy to do the development work, and then the developed systems sit on servers consuming energy, and are delivered (over a network which consumes electricity) to users on PCs which also consume energy.  

Again, I wonder, can we work in IT in a Hannover Principles (PDF) kind of way? Anyone doing this? 

For those not in the know, The Hannover Principles (Design for Sustainability) are:

1. Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist
2. Recognize interdependence.
3. Respect relationships between spirit and matter.
4. Accept responsibility for the consequences of design.
5. Create safe objects of long-term value.
6. Eliminate the concept of waste.
7. Rely on natural energy flows.
8. Understand the limitations of design.
9. Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. 

Some sound airy-fairy, but check the detail. Can you argue with number 6, or 4, or 9?

First off a few weeks ago I started getting our data backed up via Humyo. Seems pretty competitive on space/price. £5 per month for 100GB. Works in a fairly windows-centric way, and so far all our photos and non-music files are now ‘safely’ synced into the cloud. 10GB for free.

Also trying out Dropbox. Much simpler than Humyo, and nicer interfacing: very web2.0 unlike Humyo which is quite windows-like. $10 per month for 50GB, $20 for 100GB. Is it worth twice the price? 2GB for free as a taster (or 2.25GB if you use my referral link above).

Also enjoying very much Evernote. Much like OneNote in approach, but nicer media options (include audio, images, etc). Works off the web, or via an installed desktop client. A client is also available for many mobiles and the version on my HTC Touch HD works great. Also it OCRs any text it can see in screengrabs or uploaded images – including handwriting! Syncs across all instances and ‘just works’. 40MB upload per month for free.

So, to get this Netbook working – I’m going to install F-Secure, and then see if these various apps will play with Windows 7.