Here is a tip that should dramatically improve your on-line life. Managing passwords for dozens of sites can be a dreadful chore – so must of us just break down and use a common password. The problem with this, of course, is that once a site is hacked (such as LinkedIn in 2012), that username and password can be used on all your accounts.
The key is to create a common password that meets the requirements of the most rigid sites that has a variable unique to each site.
So here is what to do:
1) Find a base password. It is best if this is not something common, but let’s face it, you will probably ignore this piece of advice and skip to #2 below. However, if you are up for doing things right, pick two unrelated names and slap them together, so Virginia Bark would be virginiabark.
2) Determine a capitalization scheme – pick a random letter that is always capitalized. So in the above example, I will choose the “B”.
3) Determine your common symbol (e.g. find a symbol like # @ $ % ^ & * that you always use)
4) Password variable (explained below)
5) Determine a number scheme (such as the last two numbers of your address)
So here is the trick: #4 above mentions a password variable – make this the first two letters of the site’s URL. So using the above example, my password for Facebook would be virginiabark^fa05. For Bank of America, it wold be virginiabark^ba05. If you work for a company that requires you to change your password every month, just increment the last number by one. So an Apple employee would change her password from virginiabark^ap05 to virginiabark^ap06.
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