Your first line of defence online is your accounts password(s), (You do use more than one, right?)

Check how secure your password(s) are here > http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx
You might be unpleasantly surprised at your results.

the best advice is to incorporate characters into your password, such as * + £ ^, etc.

Don't make it easy for the bar-stewards!

When you sign-up for sites, offers, Nigerian Lotteries .......

Set-up and use one email account purely for this purpose.
Most of those sites will use or sell on your email address to spammers, (aka: business partners).
Despite what their terms and conditions might imply.

Use an entirely unique password for this email account than you do for your primary email and definitely from any you use for your; banking, paypal or credit card accounts.

Apart from the security advantage, this system has the added bonus of directing the generated spam to an email account you rarely even bother to look at.

If you really absolutely MUST display your email address on a public forum, genealogy site, guest book etc.
Never type it out in this form > "PleaseSendMeSpamAnd Viruses@Gullible.com"

Spammers and hackers use bots to trawl the internet and harvest email addresses laid out in that format.
Use this type of layout instead > "PleaseSendMeSpamAndVirusesGulliblecom"

Humans will understand it, the bots will ignore it.

No download required GP.
You just type a password into the box to get it's security rating.

SWEET... Effen !! ThaMks ... Even !! ... I Done-did it now ... then ... Computers
SUCK ... Big-Time ... Ebben !!

I don't think I'm willing to go to a site to type in my passwords just to see if they think they can use them later. [img]/domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/wink.gif[/img] I know my passwords aren't the strongest...I can't remember them when I make them better, which is why I always have to call the help desk and work to have them reset my passwords on some of those accounts that enforce rules to strengthen passwords. Oh, and yes, I do have more than one password. That gets me into trouble too. I can't remember which one goes to which site after a while, and when you have more than three passwords, you run out of chances to guess which it is before your account gets automatically locked down. *sigh* Everyone at the help desk knows my name, I'm sure. They probably just roll their eyes, "Oh, her again."

"I don't think I'm willing to go to a site to type in my passwords just to see if they think they can use them later."

If Microsoft ever felt the desire to take your passwords dear, they'd have them, (without stopping to ask you to type them out).
The objective of this type of thread is to help people be more secure online, not more insecure.

As far as your own password management issues are concerned:
Type them all into a Word document and zip or winrar the file using a unique password, (e.g. Your boyfriends phone number).
[If your boyfriend changes his phone number often, get a new boyfriend]
Send that zipped file to your email accounts for easy access.

Helplines will thank you for easing their workloads.

Nah, I enjoy torturing the help desk too much to change anything about how I do things. It's their fault for requiring a different password for everything and then requiring us to change them ridiculously often. If I keep torturing them, maybe they'll change their policies to something more reasonable. I keep telling them there's no need to change my password every 90 days for the parking website...if someone really wants to steal my password and pay for my parking permit or citations for me (that's all you can do from that site), they are more than welcome to do so! In fact, they don't have to steal my password, I'll give it to them. Their policies make no sense. The site for parking fees changes passwords every 90 days, the sites where I can access student grades have never changed in the 5 years since I came to the university...surely it should be the other way around. If the tight security was on sites that tight security makes sense, I'd stop torturing them. [img]/domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/wink.gif[/img]

What is your current Password and as an aside ... can you name at least three 3 boners ... er ... Bones that do not articulate with the human Red Skel(e)ton as seen in a Chiropractor's office ...

Name Dem three Bones ... LOLOL ... Even !!