The password. It really gives you power doesn't it? You're the only one that has the "key" to the workstation or something else that has to be kept away from prying eyes. If you're using a password than there must be something worth protecting, so why not make this protection a good one?

Choosing a good password

There are two ways to choose a password. You can either use a password generation utility or you can make a password by yourself. If you're going to do it by yourself than there are several things you have to keep in mind.

Some of the things you should not use include: your name (as well as names of family members, friends, etc.), phone number, address, nickname, computer name, words from a dictionary, name of the company you work for, etc. The idea is to basically not use any kind of information that may be linked with you directly.

A good password includes the following: upper-case and lower-case letters mixed together with special characters, and is at least six characters long. Also, never repeat the same character within a password. Example of a good password: y_R6t*n!b

Using a password generator and safekeeping


A random password generator utility is a wise choice when making hard-to-crack passwords. Also, when you generate a good password, it will be pretty hard to remember so a password manager is a good thing to use. There are many software titles that do this job and two of them are presented below - one for Linux and one for Windows.



Figaro's Password Manager - [ Download ]

Figaro's Password Manager is a GNOME application that allows you to securely store your passwords which are encrypted with the blowfish algorithm. If the password is for a website, FPM can keep track of the URLs of your login screens and can automatically launch your browser. In this capacity, FPM acts as a kind of bookmark manager. The program is extremely easy to use and is open source free software.



Included with the program comes a nifty password generator, here's how it looks:





myPasswords Professional - [ Download ]