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People are asking if that last post was a joke.

I don’t think so. 

But even if it was, it wasn’t. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, many times, either as hate mail that came in on the FAQ line over at neilgaiman.com, or in other corners of the web — the saddest of which was a letter from a young, female Iranian fan, who loved my books all the way from Iran and wanted to warn me about Jews, because they were all over America, and they came from Israel and ran America secretly, and I needed to be warned to watch out for them. The funniest-scariest was a link I was sent to a Holocaust-denying site that also had a grand list of Jews in Showbiz on it, so they would know who to send to the gas-chambers Next Time (and yes, my name was on it).

The Holocaust was not that long ago. Not really - I have relatives still living who were Holocaust survivors. Six million people were murdered by people who had the beliefs and attitudes of that last questioner. And while I wish that those attitudes had ended along with World War 2, they didn’t.

Anyway. Here’s something inspirational, to take the nasty taste away.

you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you.

Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called Mirror’s Edge. The youngest was pretty excited about the game, and then he specifically asked me.. “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have which includes pink and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE.

The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands there repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items.

That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his Dad “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him, if it’s what he wants I’m getting it for him, and if your going to hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gives his oldest son a strong stern stare down, and then leaves the store. Little brother is crying quietly, I walk over and ruffle his hair (yes this happened all in front of me.) I say “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smile, he smiles back (my heart melts!) Big brother then leans down, kisses little brother on the head, and says “Don’t worry dude.” They check out and leave, and all I can think is how awesome big brother is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.

Chances are you probably haven’t heard of the amazing app 1Password. Chances are also that you either use the same password for everything, or a very slight variation on the same password for everything. It may even be something as simple as a childs name, a birth year, the actual word “password”, or the numbers 12345.

The very cautious might use a different password for everything, but chances are even if you are one of those few people that has unique passwords you find them so difficult to remember that there is probably either a document on your computer, or handwritten and placed somewhere near your computer that contains all of your passwords written on it.

You may have convinced yourself that this is ok. Maybe you’re told yourself you’re not a multi-millionaire and identity theives wouldn’t care about stealing your identity. Maybe you’ve told yourself that you don’t do enough online to have to worry about security. I’m sure all your friends and relatives will agree when unbeknownst to you your email is sending them links to viruses and scams from deposed Nigerian princes. I’m sure you’ll still be singing the same tune when an unexpected $2000.00 purchase from Georgia appears on your debit card even though you live in North Dakota, and this causes you to overdraft on your next mortgage payment.

As we continue to move more and more of our lives online, and as hackers, identity theives, spammers, and miscreants continue to get more and more tech savvy (and the tools they use continue to become more accessible) proper security while online becomes even more important than it always was. (Hint: It was always important.) Having simple, and often repeated passwords is too big of a risk. Having passwords that are the names of pets or children? Not enough. Ideally most of your passwords should look like this:

4.bZjq!Z4=#AeIjn4t.wr.+R93n3eh

And every single one of them should be different!

And they shouldn’t be written down in an unsecured document (or printed)

This isn’t something that most people don’t know.

It’s just something that most people don’t do.

And honestly, they don’t do it with good reason. There is no possible way that you should be expected to remember a sequence of 30 random characters, numbers, and symbols that don’t track back to something tangible. There is no possible way that you should be expected to remember which 30 random sequence of characters, numbers, and symbols you randomly decided to use with the 20th random online account you signed up for at L.L.Bean’s website, or wherever you happen to be. It’s impossible, but it’s also, if you care about security, required.

So basically it boils down to this:

1. You should care about protecting yourself online
2. Doing so is far too complex for most people to handle alone

So with that in mind, that’s where 1Password comes in.

1Password might not be my most used application, but it certainly is my most appreciated. It, essentially, is a repository for all of your passwords, a secured version of that peice of paper that you have in the filing cabinet somewhere, but it does so much more than that.

• It allows you to generate hyper encrypted passwords Tell 1Password what the site will allow, and what it requires, (symbols, numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters) and 1Password will generate a completely random and hyper encrypted password.

• Shields all your passwords behind a single password Instead of remembering 400 different passwords, how does just remembering a single password sound? You can very easily use the app to copy and paste the new hyper encrypted password into whatever other software requires it.

• Stores more than just passwords Do you have some information you want accessible, but need kept secret or secured? 1Password has a Secure Notes Field, which allows you to put pretty much anything behind the security of your existing 1Password database

• Syncs across all your devices I’ve only used this on Apple devices, but 1Password is available on other systems as well, but if you have an iPad or iPhone in addition to your computer, 1Password uses another great software called Dropbox to synchronize your secured password file across all your devices, make a change on your computer? It’s already on your phone, waiting for you. I know a lot of people, myself included are hoping that iCloud support will be coming soon, as that would really simplify this step (right now it requires some setting up) but it’s worth the few minutes to set up on Dropbox now.

• It has a brilliant browser extension A browser extension is a little piece of software that you can add to your web browser to add more functionality to it. (Note: This doesn’t work on the iPad and iPhone, only the computer, 1Password still works, of course, but the extension will not.) The extension goes one step past 1Passwords basic job of storing all your passwords and it allows 1Password to become the best way of navigating password protected sites on the internet. If you want to check your email for example, or look at Facebook, rather then going to the site, typing in your username, and copying and pasting your new secure password from 1Password, you just use a keyboard shortcut (Command, Option and the \ key) enter your single remembered password, and select the website. It automatically takes you to the site, plugs in your username and password, and logs you in! You can also use this trick for plugging in credit card or personal information, if you’ve chosen to store that in 1Password.

• It makes life easier And that’s what this site is all about. Rather than having to worry about remembering passwords, or taking the time to look them up, or worrying about whether your system is secure enough, you can simply use 1Password to take care of all that stuff for you. Yes there is some setup, and yes, changing your passwords on all the websites you frequent to new and secure ones can take some time and be a little annoying, but it’s something you have to do once. Once it’s done, it’s done, and you’re left with more security, less hassle, and an amazingly useful application.

It’s worth it

Client: “I can’t log in to my account! I need to know my username.”

Me: “Ok… your username is ‘yourfirstname.yourlastname’”

Client: “Can you spell that for me?”