Last updated: February 02, 2014

 

Index

  1. Introduction
  2. Quick workflow
  3. Adding GoRandom to Login item list
  4. Launching GoRandom
  5. Making random passwords

         'Make Password' being grayed out
         Password history
         Deleting/Clearing passwords

  6. Saving/Printing history
  7. Preferences

         7a) General settings
         7b) Folder
         7c) Others


 

1. Introduction: Many things we do online involves an account, which in turn requires a password.  Some people still use simple passwords like 123456.  And some people use the same password across different accounts.  That's definitely a no-no pratice in the security point of view.

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-01

 

GoRandom is a status menu application that lets you generate random passwords consisting of alphabetic letters, numbers and special characters.  All you have to do is choose Make Password from its status menu.  And you'll get a random pasword in your clipboard.

 

2. Quick workflow: GoRandom's workflow goes as follows.

 

  1. If necessary, open System Preferences and navigate to Users & Groups to add this application to a login item so that the system will launch GoRandom automatically when you startup your computer.
  2. Set a password length with a horizontal slider under GoRandom's status menu.  Then choose Make Password to generate a random password.

 

3. Adding GoRandom to Login item list: If you want your system to automatically launch GoRandom whenever you start up your computer, open System Preferences and add this application to the login item list.  After opening System Preferences, navigate to the Users & Groups preference pane.  Then click on the Login Items tab.  Finally, click on the + button right below the list.  (See Screenshot 1-01.)  Then you will be prompted to select an application.  So choose GoRandom inside the Applications folder (if that's where GoRandom is installed).  Then you should find GoRandom's icon in the list.  (See Screenshot 1-02.)

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-01

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-02

 

4. Launching GoRandom: When you launch GoRandom for the first time, its main application window will appear at the center of your desktop.  (See Screenshot 1-03.)  Notice that it comes with a status menu icon appearing to the right of the menu bar.  As for the application window, you won't always need it.  If necessary, turn on the checkbox at the bottom-left corner of the application window so that it won't appear whenever you launch GoRandom.  That's up to you.  Exploring the status menu, you can always open that window by choosing Show Application Window.  (See Screenshot 1-04.)

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-03

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-04

 

5. Making random passwords: Before you generate a password, there are three groups of settings that you need to configure.  As you see in Screenshot 1-05, one group consists of four toggle buttons.  Each toggle button represents a character set.  For example, the toggle button at the top-left corner of the first group represents lowercase English alphabetic letters.  If you want to make up passwords with lowercase alphabetic letters, click on On with this toggle button.  Taking a close look at Screenshot 1-05, all four toggle buttons under this section are set to 'on.'  In such case, GoRandom will make up random passwords consisting of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers and special characters.  If you don't want to include special characters in your passwords, simply click on Off with the toggle button at the bottom-right corner of the section.

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-05

 

 

The second section comes with three toggle buttons.  Let's go over the functions of these toggle buttons.  The top one lets you decide what to do with the first character of a password.  If you set this toggle button to 'On,' GoRandom will generate a password that does not start with a number.  The label of the second toggle button says Alphabet at the beginning.  If you set this toggle button to 'On,' GoRandom will make a random password that starts with an alphabetic letter.  The top two toggle buttons are not the same.  Speaking of the no-numbers toggle button, just because a password doesn't start with a number, that doesn't mean the first character will necessarily be an alphabetic letter, right?  The first character might be a special character.  Moreover, the label of the last toggle button says Only use unique elements.  If you set this toggle button to 'On,' no same character will appear twice in a password.  If you leave it off, it's possible that a password contains the same character twice or three times.

The last section consists of just a horizontal slider.  It's used to set the password length.  When you launch GoRandom for the first time, it's set to 8.  The minimum password length is 4 with 100 being the maximum.

By this time, you may have figured out that it's just the matter of choosing Make Password to generate a random password.  This command is not always active.  As you see in Screenshot 1-06, if something is wrong with your password settings, GoRandom will disable this command.  If it's grayed out, that's because you have the unique element toggle button set to 'On.'  Yet, your character basket does not have a sufficient number of unique characters to make a password with the required length.  More specifically, Screenshot 1-06 indicates that only the number toggle button is set to 'On.'  In this scenario, there are only 10 different elements.  So a way around this situation would be to reduce the password length or add one or more character sets.  If something goes wrong, the password length label will turn red.  That's a sign that you need to lower the password length.

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-06

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-07

 

When you finally choose Make Password, GoRandom will send your password to the clipboard.  So you may not know what your password is unless you choose Paste under Edit with another application.  If the main application window is around, GoRandom will display a status message at the bottom-right corner of the window.  (See Screenshot 1-07.)

If you want to see your password every time you choose Make Password, what you can do is the following.  Choose Open Preferences from GoRandom's status menu.  When the Preferences window opens, turn on the top checkbox button labeled Show password in a window.  (See Screenshot 1-08.)  If this checkbox is on, every time you choose Make Password, GoRandom will show it in a small window.  (See Screenshot 1-09.)

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-08

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-09

 

Speaking of the Preferences window, if you turn on the checkbox labeled Remember all passwords being generated, GoRandom will keep track of all passwords you generate.  To see the list of passwords, open the History window by choosing Show Password History.  (See Screenshot 1-10.)  If this application's menu bar is active, you can also choose Show Passoword History under Password for the same purpose.  If you do, another separate window will appear.  (See Screenshot 1-11.)  This window has a list at the top.  The list consists of two columns.  The first column shows the date and the time when the corresponding password was created.  The default date format is such that the value starts with the number indicating the year.  You can set your default date format in Preferences.

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-10

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-11

 

Provided that 'Remember all passwords being generated' is on in Preferences, GoRandom will keep track of all passwords you generate.  So the password list can grow.  If you want to delete any of them, just select ones to delete.  Then right-button-click on one and choose Delete Passwords.  (See Screenshot 1-12.)  You can also choose the same command under Password if GoRandom's menu bar is around.  If you choose this command, you will be prompted for confirmation.  (See Screenshot 1-13.)  So click on Delete to proceed.  If you instead choose Clear Passwords, you'll get to delete all passwords.

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-12

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-13

 

6. Saving/Printing history: Provided that you have history data, you can save the password list as a text file.  To do so, choose Save Passwords As Text under File.  (See Screenshot 1-14.)  Then you will be prompted to name a text file.  (See Screenshot 1-15.)

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-14

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-15

 

Similarly, you can send the same history list to a printer.  To do so, choose Print under File.  Then you will see a printout screen.  (See Screenshot 1-16.)

 

Mac software GoRandom

Screenshot 1-16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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