Google's mission seems to be to gather data on everything about everything (and everyone). Gmail is never deleted. Why would I give them all my notes? I trust Evernote with my privacy more.

Agreed. Passwords are problematic. Two factor authentication and OAuth are improvements and we should use these when we can. However, 97% of the places I authenticate don't support these. So my question is, what's the best way to create a memorable password for all the rest?

You are right about leet. Leet was used in my example to make it human readable, so people would understand my comment. I would use different rules for character substitution and insertion. My rules would stay the same and therefor be easy to remember from one passphrase to the next. This has been the best way I've found to create relatively secure passwords I can change every few months and which I can remember off the top of my head.

Ultimately passwords are problematic. Password vault software helps, but for those passwords I use 15 times a day this method works pretty well. From what I've seen its waaaaay more secure than what other people are using.

My point is that you can make up a few rules which you can remember, think of a *long* phrase which you can remember, and have a passphrase which is easy to recall and better than 99% of the passwords in use today. This is good enough for most password situations.

And yes... I do find that password easy to remember.

Do you have a better solution for memorable passwords?

It helps, but if that's all you noticed about my password then you failed at understanding that it strikes a balance between memorable and secure. This password includes numbers, symbols, upper and lower case, and is longer than most while still easy to remember.

You said: Users should be advised to "pick strong passwords and change them regularly". Two contradictory statements, no-one can remember a new complex password that changes regularly unless they write it down. I di$agr33WithY0uWh0leH3art3dly&&.

The keyboard of the future is the microphone. A new layout is too little too late.

My 30+ year career path as a software engineer:

1976 : PL/1 --> TRS-80 Basic --> RPG II --> Basic Four Basic --> COBOL --> PowerHouse 4GL --> Visual Basic --> C++ --> C# --> Java --> Objective C : Today

Many smaller steps omitted around file systems, DB, and Web markup languages. It has been a TON of fun! Now what about HTML5 next...

Use a recorder and then you can re-listen at the gym or car to get the points you missed.

I guess cell phones just weren't radiating close enough to our heads.

I got a good chuckle at this comment, but just to set the record straight Shatner is more like a 10 trick show horse. Kirk, Hooker, Denny Crane, talk show host, accomplished writer, business man, comedian, philanthropist, martial artist, father, equestrian, and probably more. Even if you deduct points for singing and poor driving, he's much more accomplished than most in Hollywood.

Although I am a big fan of James. T. Kirk and Denny Crane I am a bigger fan of William Shatner, the person. You are always doing something new and interesting. (Love the ShatnerVision vids!) I can see that you keep very busy and have a passion for the work and the people you work with. My question is... What is your secret to keeping such a passion or zest for life going?

William Shatner made a career out of being a wonderful entertainer. In addition, he has a lot of talent in other areas and a great sense of humor, including not taking himself too seriously. What I appreciate most about him is his zest for life. I bet he was like a kid in a candy shop getting to do this for the Discovery guys. I used to get a real kick out of his ShatnerVision videos he and his daughter made. Check them out.

> It's a lot easier to connect to an Oracle database using Java than it is with .NET

Connecting to Oracle with .Net is cake. I don't see the "a lot" harder part you are talking about.

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