Password master

I enjoyed Davey Winder’s excellent piece on passphrases ( see issue 314, p20), but couldn’t help but read with alarm his approach to remembering his master password: using the first few characters then relying on muscle memory to type the rest!

I think I first developed an innate fear of forgetting passwords after enjoying a lovely, relaxing two-week holiday away from computers and the internet, then returning home to realise I’d changed my Windows 7 password before the trip and… well, you can guess the rest. Still, it was a good excuse to reinstall Windows.

Ever since, I’ve used the long XKCD method, using a line of an address that’s memorable but couldn’t be directly associated to me. Chris Green

It’s a mid-range miracle: most of our readers would eschew a shiny new high-end model for a flagship that gets the job done.

So it’s no surprise that the response to our second question – “If you’re thinking of buying a foldable phone, which one and why?” – was lukewarm, to say the least. “I will not buy a foldable phone: it’s gimmicky and far too expensive,” wrote Antonios K. “I’d much rather invest the difference in other quality business tools.”

Meanwhile Stu S is holding out for an iFold: “I’m not interested in foldable until there’s an Apple offering, I’m totally integrated into the ecosystem.”

Perhaps Jon Honeyball’s review of the Microsoft Surface Duo on p42 will win the naysayers over…