I’ve realized for quite some time that I just have too much stuff to remember so things end up falling through the cracks. The latest issue I’ve run into is the fact that so many things out there require so many different passwords that I can’t keep them all straight. Either you end up using the same password for everything or you start forgetting what all the passwords are that you’ve registered places.

To that end, I started investigating different options. At first I liked the idea of this hardware keychain you can get from Mandylion Labs where you just cart the keychain around and look things up on it that way. There were only two problems: first, it only holds 20 passwords and I need it to hold more than that; second, it’s like $65, and I don’t feel like investing that much.

I decided the best way to go was a password management program, but then you run into the problem that you can’t cart your computer all over the place, so you need the thing to be self-contained either on your handheld computer or on a USB keychain drive. Since the keychain drive is more portable (and I happen to have one), I went with that.

What I came up with was Password Manager XP from CP-Lab.com. You can install it on your local machine and then store the database on your USB keychain, or you can create a local copy of the program itself right on the keychain. In my case, I did both - that way, regardless of where I run it from (my computer or the keychain), it’ll connect to the password database.

It also has features like the ability to right-click a password field on a web page and insert your password directly from the database (and then copy your username to the clipboard so you can paste that in, too).

And it only costs $20. Which is just about right for my pocketbook. Er, wallet. Whatever.

I’m digging it. Now I can actually change all of the passwords I have everywhere and not have to worry about forgetting - I’ll just look them up.