Remember Your Home WiFi Password

One call I get quite frequently from my clients is for help in remembering and/or discovering their WiFi passwords. Typically, they have a guest coming to town who wants to connect to their network, but since the password is stored in their computer, they don't remember it. I call this "speed dial syndrome", where you don't remember phone numbers anymore, because you always just select them from your address book.

So, as a way of addressing this problem, I have taken to carrying around my P-Touch labeler and putting the password right on the router. This seems to be an obvious place to look for password when someone asks. You could be a bit more discrete than my photo above and put the label on the bottom or back of the router, but you also need to be able to remember where it is. I have one client who put it in her rolodex, but doesn't typically remember that it is there.

Routers from the 2WIRE company help to solve this problem by labeling every router with its password. On the underside of the router you should see a 10 digit sequence in square brackets i.e. [1234567890] This is the default wireless password for your specific router.

Additionally, you should also place a sticker for the password for the router itself. This password is required to change the settings of your router. The password should be changed from its default when it is installed, as there are a few exploits which can take advantage of routers with default passwords. Of course, since you use this password so infrequently, most people have no idea what it is.

There is one final fallback you can use, too. If you can't remember your password at all, most routers allow you to reset them back to their factory settings, including default passwords so that you can login and modify the settings back to the way you wish.

Do you have questions about your network, your router, your software? Leave them as comments here on the blog or send them along to techiq@welchwrite.com. I'll be glad to answer them.

Technology Information you should have in the New Year

If you want to make your computing life a little easier in 2009, there are several pieces of information that you should have at hand. Start the New Year right and collect this information before you need it.

The least you should know:

• Name of Internet Service Provider
  
  • Here in Los Angeles this might be Time-Warner Cable AT&T, Verizon, Earthlink or a few others
  
  
• ISP Telephone Support Number
  
• Router information
  
  • Router Address
    
    • Typically this is 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.x
    
    
  • Router User ID
    
    • This is often a default name which is the same for each manufacturers equipment i.e Linksys, Netgear. etc and is often printed on the router
    
    
  • Router Password
    
    • This is often a default password. This should be changed when the router is installed to protect yourself against certain attacks that try to use the default password to break into the router.
  
  
• Wireless Network Password
  
  • You should be using WPA Security on your wireless router, if available. If your wireless network password is something like 0AD1665211, then your router is using the older WEP security which is easily broken by a variety of hacking tools.
  
  
• Computer Information
  
  • Computer Username
    
    • Both Windows and Macintosh computers have computer passwords which are required to login or install software. Losing these passwords can mean a large hassle, so note them in a secure place somewhere
    
    
  • Computer Password
  
  
• Email Information
  
  • Email Address
    
  • Email Password
    
    • Since email passwords are usually stored on your computer we can easily forget them. Of course, if something happens to our computer, or we get a new one, it can really cause problems if you don't have them noted somewhere.
      

So, how do you store this information securely, while still being able to easily access it. Rather than right it down on sticky notes or scraps of paper I use a password protected MS Word or MS Excel file and choose a fairly secure, but easily remembered password for that file.

You can also use a program like 1Password which acts a a Password "vault".

Do you have questions about this information and how to find it? Leave a comment using the comment link below and I will be happy to answer them.