Do not choose your password hastily. Choice of a poor password can result in your account being accessed by someone else and/or deactivated by the College Computing Staff. First, let's see what you should not use while choosing your password. 1 Do not use any words in a dictionary, in any language. 2 Do not use familiar names such as your spouse's, children's or pets and especially your own. 3 Avoid using any personal information such as your birthday, your social security number, student ID number, street address, phone number, passport number, license plate number. 4 Do not use any information that can be gathered from your records such as your mother's phone number, your mother's maiden name, the adddress where you were born. 5 Passwords should never be derived from applying a simple algorithms against common strings. [E.g. Substituting numbers for vowels r1ch2rd for richard, appending or prefixing characters/digits to common words apple 638 or $klingon] 6 Avoid using any mythological or fictional characters or race or legendary characters. 7 Do not use titles of movies, books, compositions, names of authors, actors, musicians ro composers. Now, tips on creating a good password. 1 Use up to eight (8) characters. Longer passwords are more secure. 2 Utilize letters and numbers. Using a combination of letters and numbers make a password more difficult to guess. 3 Combine mispelled words together to make a good password. [E.g. phloot, fumigyat, lugrnch] 4 Use first letters of words in a memorable phrase. [E.g. "I got a speeding ticket on 6th avenue" - igasto6a] 5 Use upper and lower case letters to further strengthen your password. This doubles the quantity of letters. Protect your password by the following guidelines 1 Do not share your passwords with anyone. 2 Never write down your password. 3 Do not store your password in a computer file. 4 When receiving technical assistance, always enter your password yourself. After choosing a good password. After you have created a good password, to improve the odds of remembering it - use your password immediately. Change your password and then logout and log back in. After ten minutes logout and log back in again. Changing a password on a Friday afternoon, just before leaving for the weekend can make the new password very difficult to remember.