As we become more and more reliant on technology, the convenience of managing our lives electronically can be negated by the mass of passwords, user names, and interface systems we have to get through.

"It totally annoys the crap out of me," said Jessica Hendricks, a University of Colorado junior. "The amount of passwords and user names that I have to use every day is ridiculous. I have a different one for everything from my Flatirons meal plan to my bank account."

In addition to separate accounts for each of her three credit cards, Hendricks, like most students, also has a school e-mail account, a personal e-mail account, and a MySpace account that she uses to stay in touch with friends, family, fellow students, and professors.

As the number of Internet accounts needed goes up, so does the amount of time spent managing all of them. Thanks to recent efforts by one Boulder-based company, however, a free solution to this problem is at hand.

Fuser.com, founded by area entrepreneur, education activist and Congressional candidate Jared Polis, is a Web-based tool that allows its users to manage all of their e-mail and social networking accounts in one easy-to-use in-box.

"People are overwhelmed by the number of places they have to go to see their messaging and understand what's going on with their lives online," said Jeff Herman, president of Fuser.com. "Most people have three to five places they have to go to get those messages -- but now they can just go to one."

For those who have become frustrated with surfing back and forth between applications, Herman says that Fuser.com offers a powerful way to maximize one’s communication potential by integrating them.

Once an individual’s account information is loaded into Fuser.com, everything from e-mails to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter information can be fully accessed in real time as soon as log-in takes place. For e-mails, this means receiving, responding, and even composing new mail. For social networking sites such as Facebook, this means receiving and replying to messages and wall-postings. For students such as Hendricks, the Web site sounds promising.

“Pretty much all I do when I get online is check and respond to messages,” said Hendricks. “It would be pretty sweet to save that time and not have to worry about forgetting passwords.”

As is the case with most new software, however, it may take some time to prove itself to skeptics.

“I don’t know if I would use it because I have to think about the security,” said Ben Haugen, a recent CU graduate. “If all of those accounts are automatically logged on, then that’s basically allowing a hacker to gain access to all of your information.”

Haugen went on to say that because a large part of his new job involves e-mail communication, Fuser.com’s potential to simplify things sounds appealing.

According to Herman, Fuser.com has done everything on their end to ensure private information stays private.

“We have undergone a third-party security audit of the site to make sure it was built according to best practices,” stated Herman, who noted the security-oriented nature of several core members of the Fuser.com team who previously worked at Webroot — an anti-spyware company. “We developed the site infrastructure to encrypt and protect all account information.”

With a new version of Fuser to be launched Tuesday, the Boulder-based company hopes to see an increase in users eager to test its convenience capabilities. While some, such as Haugen, may be tentative at first, others might just have too much to gain to pass it up.