On Creating New Passwords

My mail prompts me 'your password expires in 12 days. Please change the password.' This happens regularly and I have to change. The new password cannot resemble the old one. Wonder how that is checked? It must have small case, upper case, special characters and numbers and must be at least 6 characters in length. It must also be 'strong'. To top it all, there is no 'never expires' option! So how does one tackle this?

A good strategy is to have a password scheme which allows periodic changes without having to remember the password. The password can be say 'AugMonQ3wow!' or 'SepAutQ3Ahh!' . Here first three letters is month, next three letters is season, next two letters indicate quarter and then a three char expression followed by special char !. This was elaborated I think in one of the novels by Sidney Sheldon.

On Solving Crosswords

I like crosswords. Solving the crossword in the morning before actually getting in the daily rut is extremely satisfying. However the crossword is usually the winner with some words still hidden among the clues. Solution? Keep the paper down. Do your daily rut. Come back in the evening and try again. Not upto it? There are two sites that can help the cruciverbalist ( yes that is the word for a crossword solver!! )

http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/advanced.html - a good anagram site.

http://www.amo.qc.ca/cgi-bin/pub/ODico/dico.out - A brilliant helper for word finding.

Happy 'Crosswording'

At last - Managed to Create a Blog!

All things considered - I have managed to start this blog. I do not guarantee keep you upto date on what I think or do - only half. Hence Half the News.