Photo: Contributed

I owe a big thank you to everyone who wrote about my mouse cursor tip last week. Yes, you can do that in XP. And we’ll wrap up the password discussion … for now. This week I’m tying up loose ends.

Locate your mouse cursor in XP

Last week (http://rlis.com/columns/column374.htm) I showed you how to make it easy to find your mouse cursor. The instructions were, as several readers pointed out, for Windows 7 and Vista.

In Windows XP, you have to go to Control Panel first:

• Click on Start | Control Panel
• If in Classic View, click on Mouse | Pointer options | “Show Location…”
• If in Category View, click on Printers and Other | Mouse | Pointer options | “Show Location…”
• OK your way out

Next time you lose track of your cursor, press the CTRL key, and you’ll see animated concentric circles around the cursor location. Thanks to those of you who reminded me that XP users can do this too.

The last word on passwords

OK, the last word…for now. Here is some of what our Internet Password Organizer (http://www.internetpasswordorganizer.com/Products.html) winners had to say about how they had been managing their passwords:

... I have my favourite stash stuck to the back of my headboard. Bit of a pain to do it that way but I figure if someone wants my old headboard that bad in case of a break in, they may not figure out what the Post-Its are all about or which site they belong to as most of the time I don’t either without scratching my head for a bit too.....

And:

I keep them in little spiral notebooks and in full sized binders, in codes on my email and on scraps of paper. I keep them in my memory and lose them with my lack of memory. I take some of them with me when I travel so I can pay bills. I forget to take some with me when I travel and I pay interest on bills….

Another system:

Our passwords are kept on a spreadsheet and printed off on many sheets of paper and kept in the top drawer of the desk unless, of course, we're away for any length of time and then the whole bunch of papers get squirreled away somewhere safer. They're all done in alphabetical order and quite organized but it is a royal pain to make any changes because the whole thing has to be printed off again and there is no room to make some added notes. Our pages have numerous post-it notes stuck to the sheets with changes semi-legible until we get around to re-doing the whole thing.

Finally:

I keep them everywhere. Mostly I keep them in a notebook, but some I have put on milk containers, and newspapers which I later have to look for through the recycle bin. I have put a few on the back of lottery tickets, only to find out I won a dollar, and cash it in, and oops there goes my BC Hydro password, LOL.

If any of this reminds you of you, please do something about organizing your passwords! The Internet Password Organizer is nice, inexpensive, and a great gift, even to yourself! If you don’t want a book, consider storing your passwords (securely) in the cloud with a service like Roboform (http://www.roboform.com/) or LastPass (http://lastpass.com/). If the cloud makes you uneasy, consider KeePass (http://keepass.info/). Just please create strong passwords and keep good track of them. It’s important.

Do you need help with your computer? I'm here to help you and your home or business computer get along!

Cate Eales runs Computer Care Kelowna (http://computercarekelowna.com/) a mobile service helping home users and businesses get along with their computers. To arrange an appointment phone her at 250-764-7043. Cate also welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send email to help@computercarekelowna.com.

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