Users are always telling us that they can't think of a good password to use.  So we've provide a few links here for you to select a password (see left side "Password help links".  In general strong passwords are:

• At least 8 characters long
• Have at mix of upper and lower case alpha characters
• Have at least one number and at least one symbol
• Can be remembered without writing it down
• The longer your password is, the larger the mix of numbers, symbols and characters, the better
• Use punctuation characters as well as symbols.

One way to do this is to use a passphrase and substitute "l33t 5p34k" or "Leet Speak" as the teenagers call it to substitue for the characters in at least some of the words.

Let's say your passphrase is:

I love playing paintball with all my friends!

Take the first characters of the passphrase:

ILPPWAMF

Now let's do some substitution:

I1ppw@mf

We'll add in punctuation:

I1ppw@mf!

Ta da! You now have a password that Microsoft rates as a "strong" password. You have to remember the passphrase (I love playing paintball with all my friends!), to cap the first letter, and substitute a 1 for the L and and @ for the a. A mnemonic and substitution works great!

Another tactic I use is to have people encode a meaningful number - by just holding down the shift key as they type it:

Let's say your password is going to be a relatives first and middle initial (John D. Rockefeller), followed by their birthday (8/8/39), and your age (29) 

JD883929 becomes:

Jd**#(29

Has the First initial capped - second initial lower case.  Press and HOLD the shift key and type 8839 (turns into **#( but you don't have to remember that). and then lift your finger form the shift key and type the 29.  Again a strong password but easy to remember.

Try these out the next time you need to create a password - it should give you an easy to remember, but strong and useful password.

Lee Drake