It seems like the average person has about a billion user accounts these days, and remembering the passwords for even a small fraction of these is usually beyond the grasp of most people. So we either a) use the same password for everything, which risks affecting pretty much our whole lives if it it compromised; b) writing each password down somewhere – which is hardly much of an improvement; or c) muddling along and forgetting most of them. Not so bad when all you need to get a new password is clicking on the “I’ve forgotten it” link and awaiting an email; less convenient when it’s the kind of online banking account that required a blood sample and a written excuse from your mother before they’ll deign to change your access details.
So this article on macosxhints.com is worth a look. It has some very useful – and more importantly memorable – tips for creating passwords which are not only easy to remember, but also secure.
Unfortunately it doesn’t have anything to say about memorable account names – one of my abiding pet hates are sites that force you to use their format for account names – particularly if they’re of the timxyz423 variety. But a useful set of tips, nevertheless.
(For Mac users, macosxhints.com is definitely a site that should be in your bookmarks – or better still, your newsreader. A lot of the information is fairly technical, but gems like this one aren’t unusual.)
