Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lterer by istelf, but the wrod as a wlohe.

For you Windows users, there is an equivalent of the Macintosh "Keychain" utility, which allows you to keep all of your passwords cryptographically secure using one master password, so that you only need to remember one password instead of dozens of them.

The program is called " Password Safe" and is available on Sourceforge, where the price is always right [;-)

A number of my friends use "Password Safe", and they seem happy with it. The latest version (as I write) is 2.07. The executable is: pwsafe-2.07.exe and the file size is a slim 481194 bytes.

The US National Security agency publishes "Security Configuration Guides" to help users to secure their computers.

These guides are on their Security Configuration Guides page on the left under "Operating Systems". There are links to guides covering Linux, Mac, and Windows here.

Particularly interesting for Mac users is the use of "Keychain" to contain passwords, certificates, and secure notes. This is a really user-friendly way to store such items so that you don't forget them, and they are safe from prying eyes.

This material is definitely worth reading, although it is pretty detailed for most people. School computer administrators should probably read the whole thing.

     - Thanks to Jim Stanco of Siemens in Boca Raton, FL for this item.