Tech Tip: Too Many Online Passwords? Consider a Secure Password Manager

All Internet-based accounts require a password to secure your personal or financial data. Security experts say Internet account users should have different and unique passwords for every online account. That requires tracking numerous, sometimes countless passwords.

Consider an online password manager.

These types of applications keep your passwords safely locked, among other features that create more efficiency when trolling online accounts.

A master password protects the data, so you only need to remember one password. All data stored inside the application is encrypted to protect against those who gain unauthorized access to your computer or mobile device. Most versions cost between $10 and $20 per year.

Here’s a list of top 9 password managers, courtesy of Information Week: LastPass; Password Genie; SplashID; Roboform; Dashlane; Security Everywhere; KeePass; DirectPass; and Identity Safe.

By the Numbers: 24,309

The number of foreclosure actions opened in Wisconsin in 2012, the most recent reporting year.

More foreclosure actions were filed than any other type of civil case. Compare that to 11,162 foreclosure actions filed in 2004. However, foreclosure actions stayed below the 25,000 mark for the second year in a row, a good sign after three straight years above that number in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Foreclosure actions topped out at close to 31,000 in 2008.

Good Ideas: The Risk-Free J.D.?

The Cleveland-Marshall College of Law has announced a “risk free” J.D. program that allows people to obtain a Master of Legal Studies degree if they go through one year of law school and decide to call it quits.

“There are many good reasons why a law student may decide not to continue to pursue a J.D.,” law school dean Craig Boise told the National Law Journal. “They might have financial concerns, family or personal issues, or they may realize that though they still have an interest in law, a career in traditional legal practice is not right for them.”

What can you do with a Master of Legal Studies? Apparently, the value of that degree is hotly debated, but the school hopes some legal education can help students earn jobs in human resources, compliance, health care, or other fields where some legal knowledge would be viewed as an asset.

Out There: No Person Shall Willfully Annoy Another Person

This was a law in Grand Rapids, Michigan, until recently. The 38-year-old city ordinance was repealed, along with other antiquated laws.

Thus, things like walking into an elevator before others can walk out of it, or using the express lane when you have more than 10 grocery store items, are no longer chargeable offenses in Michigan.

And in an age of cell phones and photo bombs, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass may have a point when he jokes that annoyance laws may not be a bad thing.

From the Archives: Levi Hubbell: The Luckless Justice

April marks the birthday of Levi Hubbell, perhaps the most luckless justice Wisconsin has ever had. Hubbell was born in New York in 1808. He moved to Milwaukee in the 1840s, was elected a circuit judge and served briefly on the supreme court (1848-1853). 

In 1853 Edward Ryan, a prominent lawyer and future supreme court justice, accused Hubbell of lax judicial ethics and the legislature impeached him – the only Wisconsin judge ever to be impeached. Hubbell was acquitted, but his career was ruined; he died in 1876. In the words of Ryan’s biographer, “thereafter Wisconsin judges paused before they acted, and the crudities of frontier morality gradually disappeared from the courtroom.” 

Source: Jay Ranney, Madison lawyer and legal historian

Quotable: “If the weather continues like this in April, we’ll consider our legal options.”

– The lawyer for a class of Wisconsin citizens who are fed up with all this cold weather (no fooling).