Creating a secure password

To create a secure password that is easy for you to remember, follow these simple steps:

Do not use personal information. You should never use personal information as a part of your password. It is very easy for someone to guess things like your last name, pet's name, child's birth date and other similar details.

Dont use real words. There are tools available to help attackers guess your password. With today's computing power, it doesn't take long to try every word in the dictionary and find your password, so it is best if you avoid real words.

Mix different character types. You can make a password much more secure by mixing different types of characters. Use some uppercase letters along with lowercase letters, numbers and even special characters such as '&' or '%'. You can substitute some letters for numbers e.g. i = 1 e = 3, L = 7.

Use a passphrase. Rather than trying to remember a password created using various character types which is also not a word from the dictionary, you can use a passphrase. Think up a sentence or a line from a song or poem that you like and create a password using the first letter from each word.

For example, rather than just having a password like 'yr$1Hes', you could take a sentence such as "I like to read the news" and convert it to a password like '1l2rttn3w5". By substituting the number '2' for the word 'to' and using a 1 to replace I, you can use a variety of character types and create a secure password that is hard to crack, but much easier for you to remember.

How to show filename extensions in Windows

Windows is designed to be user-friendly, to the point where filename extensions (the bit of the filename that Windows uses to decide which program should open a file) are by default hidden.

This can have serious repercussions, where some viruses attempt to disguise themselves as an innocuous spreadsheet or word document. Double clicking on the filename does not open Word or Excel as expected, but executes the virus.

There is a simple way to ensure that filename extensions are shown however;

Double click on My Computer from the Windows Start menu. (You can use any method for launching Explorer.)

Choose Folder Options from the Tools menu. Then, click the View tab.

In the Folder Options dialog box, uncheck the Hide Extensions for Known File Types option.

Click OK.

Now when you view filenames, you can see exactly what sort of file you are about to open.