>I am using one of my Gmail accounts as an SMTP server in a monitor application that I have. It all works really well until it stopped working (isn't that how if always is). I logged into the Gmail account though the website and in addition to putting in my username and password I had to enter the 6 goofy looking characters.
>Does anyone know if there is a setting in Gmail where I can prevent the email account to have to be looged into manually?
>Do you know if Yahoo or any of the other free email clients offer SMTP services and do not have this restriction?

It sounds like your Gmail account got locked for some reason. It does not require myself to enter anything but user name and password.