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Guess from the title what the post is about? Hmmmm, well ....
Incorrect, try again, only 3 attempts allowed !
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Yeah, its all about those secret little alpha-numeric-symbolic strings those are safeguarding large amounts of sensitive information from prying eyes .. passwords. Debit cards, HPINs, IPINs, mobile phones, bank lockers, suitcases and finally those innumerable e-mail accounts, and online forums.. Phew ! It takes some amount of effort and panache to handle them all.

One can choose to have a single password for all accounts of one category. But easy on the memory as it is, it is a single point of failure and hence a dangerous option if it gets compromised.
Better to keep different/crazy/nonsensical :) passwords and keep a secret list of all of them either in encrypted/unencrypted form both digitally and on paper. Else, trust those grey cells to fetch them for you under all circumstances.

Here are a few expert tips on the net about choosing an intelligent password :

Tips
MoreTips
StillMoreTips

And if one wants to fathom the strength of his/her password this password-checker from Microsoft is a good way to do so .
As seen, most advise a good blend of upper-case, lower-case, numeric,special keyboard and even control characters.

This is definitely an area where one gets to see a lot of creativity. (Similar creativity is seen in naming race-horses. If you've noticed, those horses have lovely names :). But that apart .. )
Some passwords that I've come across :

LemonTrousers36
KawasakiCaliber12
LifeSucks
1Mango
only2me
daintyfeet19
)(*098
strrev(ones_name)
TamarindTree
rumball99
mickey_minnie
FairyGodmother33

Its amusing to see the variety in thinking and creativity of people. One of the most easy passwords I've seen was of a friend who had used it for unlocking her computer, a plain simple "Enter" keystroke !

I suppose hacking must be easier for a person who understands human psychology and traits and likes/dislikes of the hacked person.

The following thing works for me to create and use numeric [parts of] passwords. Choose a favourite maths formula and the numbers associated with you say a b'date or vehicle license number. Put the numbers in RHS according to your way and LHS is the numeric password . And if one doesn't remember the number when needed, still one can always calculate it on the fly, provided the formula and operands are not forgotten.

Yahoo has come up with additional security against password compromise to phishing sites. The new "Sign-In Seal" Feature helps stay away from phishing sites and open only yahoo's authentic site. The picture you choose gets opened in the Sign-In box when you open (only the authentic) "mail.yahoo.com" from the computer you choose the pic. (This sounds like a handshake protocol between the user and the yahoo site :) Can't help remembering Alice-Bob handshake protocols in N/W king)

With newer techniques of hacking everyday it is better to regularly keep on changing one's password. I better stop preaching now and get busy instead in revamping my (age-old) passwords. :)