How many email addresses do you have?

I got 2. 1 AOL account I had since I first got the internet and wish I could get rid of, and 1 yahoo account which is basically used for correspondence with one of my friends. I had a hotmail account once, but it must have gone away due to disuse.

I have about 3 accounts with yahoo, 1 with roadrunner here in Columbus, and 1 in Memphis with whomever my stepson has set internet service up with, which I haven't even used to this date.

Sad thing is I can only check my yahoo emails on my cell phone and none of the others.

I have at least 3 but I really only use 2. One at work and one at home. I've had others but I'm sure they were dropped due to inactivity. When I had dialup years ago, I used to get spammed like crazy after I replied to them to remove me from their mailing list. Didn't realize at the time that was a big mistake. I think I was getting 30 spam messages a day. With DSL, I get none to only 1 to 3 every 2 days or so. It was only about one or two spam messages for almost 2 years though. I automatically delete the spam without even opening it. I still remember when I first used the internet in the 90's, I was excited to get any email.

I have no idea how many edresses I have. I know that there are basically three that I actually use, though... My account at work, which I protect and use for work related emails only. My hotmail account, which is used for 95% of all my non-work-related emails, and is also the address I use when asked for an email address on registration forms, etc. My Yahoo! account, which is used for all of my fantasy sports emails (I'm the commissioner for a bunch of fantasy sports leagues), and also is the email address that I receive communications from a TUSCLer that cannot email my hotmail account for some weird reason.

In addition to those, I've got several dummy hotmail addresses that I used when I used to get on "chat board". I've also got some email addresses that specifically for the domain name... kind of a status thing - for instance, I thought it was cool that I had an email address of [my name]@[my last name].com...

I use Keepass software to store all my passwords and identities. I have, basically, one "adult website" identity (book guy, book_guy, Book Guy, bookguy, etc.). I also have a "real life" but anonymous identity (used for some place like Monster.com, for example). Then of course my real-name identity (which has several manifestations -- kind of like Jonathan, John, Jon, etc. ((but that's not it)) thus making it problematic).

Each of these shows up at various websites, with or without an email address attached.

I guess it adds up to, approximately, fifty ID-plus-PW identities across the internet. They're often kind of standardized -- the ID is the same but the PW is different, for example; or vice versa -- and anyway, Keepass keeps it all straight.

As long as my hard drive doesn't crash. :P

Just as DougS does, I have many emails for different applications- my personal one for family and specific trustworthy friends; on estrictly for business; another for when I order something online (so I can retrieve it quickly if needed); and one that I give to all of those that insist on including everyones email address in the header - which you know someone is going to harvest and spam - and one for those friends that sent giant mpegs and pix that could max out an email account limit. I also have one for software and online registrations-because they always send back the passwords and responders, so I set those up with little or no spam filters to be sure I recieve them.

Thanks for the Keepass tip!

Yah, Keepass is awesome! Since I got it (about a month ago tech installed it for me while he was de-virus-izing my laptop) I've been on this kick to standardize all my IDs and PWs. Then I got on a kick to DEstandardize all my PWs because that way if one account gets compromised the rest of them are still secure. Then I got on a kick to REstandardize in a new way that wouldn't link them together. Then I got on a kick to distribute a variety of IDs across a variety of uses. That's about where I am right now.

Kind of sad, no? Like maybe I need something to do with my time ... :P

Just a bit of a suggestion from at IT person to those choosing passwords... the key is to use "strong passwords" consisting of letters (both upper and lower case), numbers and special characters. I typically use a word that means something to me, then convert certain letters to numbers and usually throw in a few caps...

For example... my last password change for an obscure email account of mine made use of my ATFs name.... r4CH43! (let a password hacker attempt to crack THAT one)

That's very cute, using H4ck3rsp34k (or however you spell "Hacker Speak" in hacker-speak).

In fact, Keepass will generate a password for you in any of a number of pseudo-random ways (including using your mouse-pointer as it travels over a grainy image). And it has an indicator that turns from red to yellow to green as your password's "strength" increases.

For a while, I was using something similar to ...

itwasthebestoftimes56inaholeintheground55

... which is the first sentences of, respectively, "A Tale of Two Cities" and "The Hobbit", plus initial publication years. Sort of. Then I got sick of typing it.

And the thing is, different websites require different things. One website that I'm using has a minimum of 9 characters for a password or user-name while another has a maximum of 8. Some allow the space-character in a user name (such as at TUSCL, where I am "book SPACE guy") and some prevent it. Etc.

I have two. Both Yahoo accounts. One is for these types of boards and one is professional. Strange but I get more spam on the professional address. Years ago when I had dial up, I too requested removal from spam lists. It got so bad that I was getting close to 2000 emails per day.