A guide to LastPass on the BlackBerry PlayBook

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LastPass should be easier to use on the BlackBerry PlayBook. LastPass, if you haven't read before, is an online password management service. More than that, LastPass has taught me to make better passwords. Each of my websites has a different, randomly-generated password. About the only thing I do know is my LastPass master password (incidently, one that would take 54 quadrillion years to crack using a brute-force attack).

So when I visit my various websites, I need LastPass to tell me what my password is. On the PlayBook, the only way to do this is through the LastPass website; and I must say, it's a cumbersome process.

Begin by opening the PlayBook's web browser and navigating to www.LastPass.com. Enter your login credentials. Find the site you are planning to visit and touch edit. Make sure you select the Edit button for your site. You may need to zoom in to make sure you select the site you want. Hmmm... the design of the site makes that difficult. Well, good luck anyway.

Clicking edit will open the site information window. Next to the password box, touch [show]. Now that the password is visible, touch and hold to select the text for copying. Move the selecting bars around so that the entire password is highlighted. This may take several tries. Once selected, touch Copy. Now open the website you would like to visit in another tab. In the password field for that website, touch and then hold until the paste option appears. Repeat as necessary to copy the username.

There needs to be a better way.

The closest I got to using a bookmarklet on the BlackBerry PlayBook

I, and many like me, depend on LastPass to keep up with the multitude of my online identities. LastPass is so integral to my online life, that I upgraded my account from free to premium just so I could get the BlackBerry application for my Torch. We need a LastPass app for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Of course, others have asked for an app; and LastPass has responded that they don't have concrete plans to build one. As a workaround, they suggest using the Bookmarklets feature. For browsers that don't support the LastPass plugin, bookmarklets allow for that same one-click-to-login experience you'd get with a plugin. Problem is, bookmarklets aren't supported on the PlayBook. The absolute closest I got (and I spent half an hour searching for a solution) to using a bookmarklet produced the error you see above.

I have heard second-hand from someone who loves LastPass as much as I do that the folks in charge are wary of devoting significant resources to developing a PlayBook app. Did they miss the WebWorks demo at BlackBerry World? You know, the one where they built an app in less than three minutes. Seems to me that LastPass is a perfect candidate for a WebWorks app. It doesn't have to be gorgeous; it doesn't have to integrate into the stock browser. It just has to work.

I've warned others against the dangers of password reuse. I've promoted LastPass to my friends, family, and readers; touting its virtues and ease of use. I've praised LastPass for its fast response to a recent possibility of an intrusion. Rather than hide, LastPass did exactly what it should have in overreacting and alerting its users immediately.

And now I ask something in return. LastPass, I and the rest your loyal following asks - no begs - of you to make us a PlayBook application. We who use your website daily on our PlayBooks wish we didn't have to. It's far too cumbersome a process. We don't need a fancy app (though that would be nice); just something simple so we don't have to go through the rigamarole of copy and pasting from the website.

Surely that's not too difficult.