Visual28

Better Page Anchors with Anchor Slider Plugin

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Here is another simple Mango Blog plugin that uses jQuery to make clicking internal links less jarring by adding an easing effect to select links. The obvious use is the back to top links found in footers, or at the end of long pages. Normally clicking one of these links jumps the page up or down to the specified section. The problem is that the quick jumping can be jarring and disorientating for some users.

Thankfully Cedric Dugas created a jQuery plugin that slides the page up or down with a nice easing effect so that users realize that they are in fact on the same page and not on a new one.

I really like these small finishing touches to sites. I feel that they make it a much more pleasurable experience.

The jQuery needed is only a few lines of code so at first it hardly seamed necessary to make a Mango Blog plugin from it. But after adding it to 4 sites in a row, I thought it made more sense to go ahead and make it a standalone plugin.

How to use it

Using the Anchor Slide plugin is easy. Just add a class of 'anchorSlide' to your links. That's It! jQuery does the rest! I recommend adding a new empty class in your themes adminEditor.css file of .anchorSlide {} so that you can use it within the TinyMCE editor.

Download Anchor Slider

Plugin version:: 0.1
Last Updated:: 2009-10-17
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/anchorslider.zip

Anchor Fade: Fade Link Colors using JQuery

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:11:49 GMT

I was reading the Janko At Warp Speed Blog the other day and he had this jQuery link fading script that he was showing off. I have no idea why this is useful but apparently another site: Retweetradar used it and Mr. Janko felt it was worth recreating. I still have no idea if I could ever see myself using this, but it was so easy to turn it into a Mango Blog plugin, that I did while I had 15 minutes of downtime while a movie finished transcoding. If anyone else can find a good use for then it was worth the 15 minutes I spent on it.

BTW: the video is still not done encoding. Quick, What else can I make into a plugin?

Auto Install URL

http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/anchorfader.zip

Unit PNG Fix

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:00:00 GMT

While creating a new MangoWear theme I needed a transparent png fix so I looked to Unit Interactive's unitpngfix.js. It's the easiest script to use and requires very little work to implement. Rather than manually adding the code to each theme I thought I would create a Mango Blog plugin so others can take advantage of it for your own themes.

If your not familiar with the unit png fix or why you need a png fix, here is a quick breakdown. Internet Explorer 6 does not support png's with an alpha transparency. So the genius minds over at Unit Interactive created a javascript that is really easy to use and fixes that lack of support for transparent png's Now you can create graphics for your page that have fades, drop shadows or anything with an alpha channel. Best of all it's only 1kb!

Unit PNG Fix will, by default, run automatically on all pngs on the page. If you wish, you can force the script to only fix specific elements by adding the class "unitPng" to those elements. This will cause only those specified elements to be fixed, and may help you work around any layout issues that the Unit PNG Fix may cause by default.

The Unit PNG Fix is not perfect. IE6 does not always properly with repeated background images. They talk about this on their website so if your needing this feature, check the Unit Interactive site for technotes and updates.

Download the Unit PNG Fix Plugin

Plugin version:: 0.1
Last Updated:: 2009-10-17
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/unitpngfix.zip

Juitter Plugin For Mango Blog

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:09:18 GMT

I read about Juitter this morning and thought it was a really cool twitter widget and decided to make a Mango Blog plugin from it.

Juitter is a lot like my twitter plugin but it does a lot more. In fact I would say that it's an all around better replacement plugin. It's feature list is rather impressive and covers some of items people had requested of the twitter plugin.

For starters you can display search results in your feed. So if you want to monitor the latest buzz about #mangoblog or #iphone you can. You can even search for multiple words at a time! You also have the option to show messages that were sent to you. Pretty handy if you like to display your feedback to the world.

Some other neat features include the ability to show twitter avatars in the feed. Of corse the text only option is also available too. Juitter also has a bad word filter. Now you can keep it clean and avoid any PR fiascos.

A few additional notable features include:

Choose whether to open links in a new window or in the same window
Restrict searchs by language
Automatic linking of URLs and users(@)
Update the tweets list by clicking on a hash tag (#)
Support to update the search word or user after loaded
Do not slow down your page while tweets are loading

The two plugins have similar functions but are slightly different in what they can do. For some people the two plugins might work best when used together. So try it out and let me know how it work.

Download Juitter Plugin

Plugin version:: 0.1
Last Updated:: 2009-10-13
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/juitter.zip

What A Bad User Experience

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 06:20:13 GMT

I spend better than 60 percent of my day online. I shop, I do research, I work, and I play. Bad user experiences are not all that uncommon for users. We encounter them almost daily with the various websites we use. But this one site has really pissed me off today. So bad that I could not let it slide off my back like the others. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood, but really, I think it was just a bad experience that left a significant impression on me.

It all started when I got an email from SmithMicro, makers of TuneRanger. It's an application that syncs itunes libraries. Anyway, I got this email first thing in the morning announcing a 30% off sale. Being half asleep and recognizing it as a software that I once wanted to purchase I decided to jump on it. This is where it all started to go wrong…

First sign of failure, and a clue that I should have jumped ship before I got to involved was the ordering process. Upon submitting my order—paying with PayPal— I got an error message saying that my order had failed and that I needed to contact my credit card company. ?!? errr, mum, I payed with Paypal? Not a credit card. After checking my PayPal account, I was able to see that my account had been charged for the software after all. Odd?

I waited for a confirmation email and when nothing came right away, I went back to the SmithMicro site to look for a contact email for support. After reading through their complicated support pages, I was able to find a link to the store order manager where I could approve my order manually. Not sure why I had to do this but I did. Now… How many people are going to wade through all the support pages before getting mad? How many people will have the patience to do that? How many people would get lucky enough to stumble onto the store page link that allowed them to manually approve their order? My guess is, not many. Why? because it's not normal user behavior! As a user we are being asked to go above and beyond just to buy your products. Why does it need to be this complicated?

A short while later, I did receive an email from Digital River with a slightly cryptic message about my order. See if you can make heads or tails of it.

Thank you for placing an order on Smith Micro Software. If you completed payment, but did not return to the site and see confirmation, click on the following link and look up your order. This process attempts to reconcile your payment with your order and may take up to 24 hours to complete.

I did not really understand what this message was about, but clearly they have some issues with orders not being processed properly. What urks me is, rather than correcting the problem, some person thought it was "good enough" to send a message explaining that there is a problem with the ordering process and here is the link to fix it yourself.

First rule of an e-commerce site: make sure you do not give your customers any reason at all, not complete their purchase easily. Especially impulse buyers! A user should not get an error message stating that their order was not successful, only to find later, that they were in fact charged for the product or service. Users should not have to dig up links on your site, or email, just to approve the transaction that your shopping cart should handle automatically.

By this time, I wasted my entire morning chasing down my order and I was forced to set it to the side and head off to work. When I returned from the office, I sat back down to get this software installed and get my itunes synced. Most software is easy to figure out, and rarely require much documentation. But after reading some bad reviews while at the office, I decided that I wasn't going to "wing it" with my precious iTunes library. Good thing I did read up on the software, as I discovered that the software did not function exactly as I thought it did anyway. Without a trial version available to demo, I bought this software entirely on impulse. It was only after discovering that the software was not what I needed, I wanted to get my money back. So back to their website I go to request my refund. After all I never used the software. It was not Compatible with my version of iTunes, and did not do what I was looking for. This should be easy right? Wrong!

Drudging back though the support pages, I had to follow 4 links that said "To request a refund click here". Why can't they just link you directly to the page that you need, rather than make you follow links to 4 separate pages that offered very little information on the actual refund process? This is very frustrating as a user! Why do they subject us to this type of experience?

After reading every single support page, I was left feeling unsure about this refund policy. The text on the homepage read "There are no worries with our 30-day 'no questions asked' return policy!". The gold seal makes it look official, but I think it's really just lip service. Once they lure you in with a promise of getting your money back if you are not satisfied, they got you. But I digress.

On one page, the return policy states that you must return the product with 24 hours. On another page it is stated that you have to wait 48 hours to request a refund. So should I wait? or do I have to act now? I am not sure. I decided to act on it now, rather than later thinking that it would be better and probably would not hurt anything. So I proceeded to the refund request page to submit my query.

Once I got to the request page, I typed out a long message explaining why I was requesting a refund. Wait… I though this was a "NO QUESTIONS ASKED" policy? I guess not? Anyway, I typed my long explanation and was going to submit the form and thats when I discovered that there was no submit button to even send my query! WTF?! What kind of crack pot group is managing this website anyway! To overlook a submit button on a form?! I scoured the support pages again looking for other links, I started the process over again, several times. I tried different browsers, thinking it was a browser issue. All attempts failed to get me any further than before.

So here I am stuck at page 2 of 3 in my refund request process. Depressing… What should I do now? Wait 48 hours and try again? Does this 48 hours include weekends? I placed my order on a Friday, do I have to wait until Wednesday before I can attempt my request again? Will the button magically appear at the end of 48 hours? These are all questions I should not have to be asking myself after purchasing a product. I think days of buying software from developers that use third party credit card services like Digital River are over. Also over is my willingness to buy software without a proper demo.

The real losers here are (besides me and my pocket book) the developers. I spend on average $200 a year on small apps and utilities that make my computer experience more pleasurable. Unfortunately, todays events have left sizable negative impression on my experience with sites that operate like this. One that I wont soon forget.

Snow Leopard Firefox Fonts Fix

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:06:56 GMT

I had a strange problem today when I upgraded my office computer to the new Snow Leopard OS. Upon launching Firefox I noticed that all the fonts in the user interface got really fat and bold looking. I immediately started checking the preferences for a default font selection thinking the font choice had been changed. Tried resetting the preferences, tried checking the about:congig for FF thinking there might be something there. I was turning up empty handed. I had already updated my home machine without incident, so I knew it had to be localized.Here is a screen shot below of the offending UI:

After turning up empty handed in my search for a changed or damaged preference, I turned to Suitcase. I noticed that I had a lot of duplicate fonts that were not there before. I keep a tight library and instantly recognized the issue. After turning off and removing duplicate MS Office fonts both from Suitcase and from Apples Font Book — I was able to determine that the missing font was LucidaSans and/or Lucida Sans Unicode. After reactivating these two fonts the problem was fixed.

Also worth noting: On my home system I used Suitcase Fusion, and at the office I am using Suitcase Fusion 2 Other than that the systems are the same. I know Suitcase Fusion 2 has a different way of handling fonts. So this might be the root problem, but I am not really sure.

I hope this will help someone else just upgrading to Snow Leopard.

Update

I was alerted by Jason Reed that there is another possible fix for this issue. Interestingly enough also involving the font "Lucida". Design blog Stucel, has this alternate fix posted on his site: Firefox bold font UI problem in Snow Leopard So there are at least two possible fixes for this issue. If you find another solution to this issue that works for you, feel free to comment or shoot me an email.

Netflix RSS Feed Plugin

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:27:58 GMT

If your a Netflix subscriber, you can now place one of thirty possible Netflix RSS Feeds on your blogs sidebar. Netflix offers 6 personalized feeds like your movie queue, your reviews, or other recommendations specific to you. They also offer General public feeds like the top 100, or new releases. Personally I wanted to see what movies were in my queue. I get so excited when I see what favorite movie is coming to me next.

Download the Netflix RSS Feed Plugin

Plugin version:: 1.0
Last Updated:: 2009-08-08
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/netflix.zip

Memento Image Gallery Plugin

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Before I even knew about Mango Blog, I ran my own home brew blog system. It did not have very many features but it worked for the time, and I was proud of what I had been able to create. But it took me nearly a year to make the move and convert my personal blog over to Mango Blog simply because it did not have the features I wanted from it. One of those features that held me back was a photo gallery. I tried to use flickr but my technophobic family cried fowl! They liked the original lightbox style image gallery, and found themselves lost and confused when all my photo links directed them to flickr.

Thanks to Mango Blog's plugin architecture I was able to create a simple but functional photo gallery system to solve my problem. I am calling it "Memento". It was based loosely on my Auto Gallery script that I have been using for years to simplify the automation of image galleries. I just made it even easier to use by adding an image resizing cfc that automatically creates the thumbnails for you. No more creating two versions of your image in Photoshop. Hooray!

Download the Memento Plugin For CF8+

Plugin version:: 1.1 for CF8
Last Updated:: 2009-07-28
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/Memento-v1-1.zip

CF 7 version now available

I gave up trying to make ColdFusion 7 work with my original version of Memento. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make the two work correctly. I did manage to chunk out the CF7 only bits and get it to work on my CF7 server. Since it's such a hassle, I won't be updating this version unless there really is a demand for it in the future. Instead my efforts will be in making the the CF8+ version more robust and extendable.

http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/Memento_CF7.zip

Installation

When you first install Memento it will create a new folder called (can you guess?) "memento" in your assets/content directory. This is where all the images and files are put when you use the file explorer that comes with Mango Blog so you don't have to learn how to upload files just for Memento. Just do it the same way your already used to.

Getting Started

Using Memento is pretty easy (I hope). Start by creating a new folder inside of the "memento" folder to hold all your images. I refer to it as an album as that term seems to make the most sense. For discussion sake, let's call the album "test". Upload your pictures to the "test" album.

On any page or post where you want to include your photo gallery, type in the editor [memento:AlbumName] Using our example above, you would type [memento:test] That's pretty much all there is to it.

Just in case it is not too clear how to use Memento, I put together some videos that I think will help you understand how to use it.

The first time your album is called, Memento will automatically scan your album and create the thumbnails for you. Expect that the first time you call memento to create your thumbnails the page will take longer to load. Be patient. The more photos you have or the larger the images are you can expect longer load times the first time the thumbnails are generated.

Memento will also build out the code necessary for any of those fancy lightbox scripts. Memento is built to use either Shadowbox, Lightbox2, or Fancybox. If you use another lightbox script and wish to see it supported let me know either in the comments or with an email. I would be happy to include support for it.

Additional Gallery Features

One of the cool features about Memento is it's ability to scan your large images to check for new ones. If you later add new photos to an existing Memento album, Memento will automatically create that new thumbnail and display it on the page with the rest of the images.

What if you change your blogs design and part of that redesign is making all your existing thumbnails square? Maybe you want to change the size of the thumbnails, like making them bigger? No problem! Just delete the "thumbs" folder from inside your album and Memento will reprocess your album images making new ones based on your new settings.

Technical Requirements

Memento was built to run on CFMX 8 or higher. (CF 7 Version coming soon)
Requires jQuery plugin to use lightbox effects
Lightbox, Shadowbox, or Fancybox plugin required for overlay effect

Development To Do List

Memento is not perfect. I would like to see it grow and have ideas in mind for that growth. If people like the plugin and find it useful I will continue to build on it. Here are some of my thoughts for future upgrades.

Implement large image resizing (preview images). Currently original images are linked to thumbnails. Shadowbox will scale image to fit browser. However this may not be desirable in some situations where users upload large images that are 10 megapixels. Currently, the recommended process is to resize your large preview images first. 800pz -1200px is a pretty good size for most uses.

Option to keep or delete original files after preview images are built. Keeping originals will be handy if you change your mind and want to reprocess the images. Reprocessing thumbnails is as simple as deleting the "thumbs" folder in your Memento album folder. Deleting the originals save server space.

Option to place "Download Original" link in preview title or below thumbnail. I thought this would be helpful if you had a large image you wanted to offer as a download but also wanted to offer a larger but not full size preview to your visitors

Option to extract EXIF meta-data for image title, captions, and keywords.

Acknowledgements

I would like to point out the great work the guys at Developer Office have done creating an awesome cfc called iEdit. It served as the basis for putting this plugin together and helped me to work out the cfimage version of the plugin. Without the support of great open source products like iEdit and Mango Blog, we would not have such a great community. Hats off to all that develop and create open source software!

Easy Retweet 1.1

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:36:27 GMT

Thanks to the great feedback on my initial Easy Retweet plugin I have made a few enhancements to the 1.1 version of the Easy Retweet Plugin. It now supports a new event. It can now attach itself to the end of your blog post automatically. You no longer have to manually add the link to your content.

As I found out, not every theme supports the "beforePostContentEnd" event. If your not seeing the retweet links and you have it enabled you may have to add a line to your template. It's pretty easy and is only one line.

Open your index.cfm look for this line: <mango:PostProperty ifnothasExcerpt body /> Right after it add the following line: <mango:Event name="beforePostContentEnd" />

We will make a similar change to the post.cfm page. Find the line that reads <mango:PostProperty body /> and again add the folloing line after it: <mango:Event name="beforePostContentEnd" /> That's it. Save your templates and upload them to your site.

Get the Easy Retweet Plugin

Plugin version:: 1.1
Last Updated:: 2009-07-24
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/EasyRetweet1.1.zip

Shadowbox Plugin

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:42:36 GMT

Hands down, Shadowbox is my favorite javascript lightbox. Not only does it make creating image galleries a snap, but it can also make displaying Flash videos easy, Quicktime, AVI, and WMV files are all done with a simple hyperlink.

David Freerksen created the original Mango Blog plugin, and I do not wish to take credit for his work. The Shadowbox3a plugin is really just a re-skining of the original shadowbox plugin by David. So even though I love the shadowbox plugin, I could not find a place in my heart for it with it's original skin. I felt the original skin is a usability disaster.

Below is a side by side comparison between the original shadowbox and the 3a version. It's a very small difference but it has spared me hours trying to defend it's very existence to my superiors. Because of this one change, I no longer receive phone calls from people saying the don't understand how to get back to the main page where they just came from. Just goes to show that just because it makes sense to you and I It may not make sence to those that are less savvy

Since I already modified the Shadowbox plugin, and because I am releasing a photo gallery plugin later this month. I wanted to post my modified plugin in case any of you also hate the original shadowbox skin.

Download The Plugin

Plugin version:: 1.0
Last Updated:: 2009-07-21
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/shadowbox3a.zip

Fancybox Light

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:06:41 GMT

Fancybox is a great lightbox alternative because it is easy to customize and it looks really nice. I used it for the first time in my AutoGallery script and thought it worked out nicely. This past week I have been working on a photo gallery plugin for mango blog called "Memento". I have decided to make the code a little cleaner by separating the fancybox code from the rest of the plugin. It made the most sense as it allowed users to make their own decision about what lightbox script they wanted to use.

I am releasing this plugin as a "light" version because it uses the older 1.0.0 version of fancybox and does not have as many options as the current release of fancybox (currently 1.2.1). Many of the newest features of fancybox appear to be made in an effort to make it work more like Shadowbox by incorporating more media types than just images. For a photo galery this isn't necessary and the light version works just fine. I do plan to release a full version later if people find it useful enough to merit the work. If your a big Fancybox fan let me know in the comments.

Plugin version:: 1.0
Last Updated:: 2009-07-20
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/fancybox-light.zip

sIFR3

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:33:09 GMT

A while back I started working on a sIFR text replacement plugin for mango blog. For what ever reason I stopped working on it and there it sat on my hard drive wasting away. So rather then have it waste away I thought I would post it here for you all to take a look at and maybe add to it. The plugin currently works as is. You can test it using the really bad font I included with the download or use the sIFR Generator to test your own.

Known Bugs: Advanced styling not working properly. Better to style with theme css.

Plugin version:: 1.0
Last Updated:: 2009-07-14
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/sIFR3.zip

Free Grayscale Textures

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:25:43 GMT

As a designer I understand the value of great free textures. Textured images are a great way to add some pizzaz to a design project. That's why I decided to give back to the design community by offering these textures up for free.

I originally shot these images for use in various video projects I had going. Because I used them as video mattes they are all in grayscale. This made it easy to matte the textures to a background to create the desired effect.

Your free to use these textures for personal or commercial work. The only restriction is that the images cannot be redistributed on any other site or as part of a collection for sale or free. You are NOT required to provide a photo credit, but if you can do so without mucking up your project I would love you long time. Please Enjoy!

Download Texture

Share the goodness with a retweet!

Free Grayscale Textures

Easy Retweet Plugin

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:22:00 GMT

UPDATE: This plugin has been updated! Download the newest version here.

Earlier today, John Resig released a script called Easy Retweet for tracking the number of people visiting his blog from Twitter. It's a stand alone script than can be used anywhere you like. All you need to do is make a link with a class of "retweet" and your done. Of course there are other options available and I encourage you to check John's blog post where he lists all the available options for creating a link.

Since the script was so simple I thought I would make a very simple Mango Blog plugin out of it. The plugin has two possible functions. By default the plugin will create a new sidebar pod and automatically generate the retweet button for any page you include the pod on.

If you don't like the sidebar pod, you can disable it and simply include the retweet script into your template and make links manually in your blog posts or anyplace in your template that you specify.

Note: I barely tested the plugin before posting it, but it all appeard to work in the few themes that I tested it out on. Let me know if you discover any bugs.

Get the Easy Retweet Plugin

Plugin version:: 1.0
Last Updated:: 2009-07-10
Requires:: Mango Blog 1.3+
Auto-install URL:: http://www.visual28.com/assets/content/mango/EasyRetweet.zip

Tips For Better Password Security

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:26:15 GMT

In the last few months I have had a few people tell me that their web based email accounts or other web based services had been hacked into. Their accounts taken over by crooks or criminals and in one case (my aunt) her H&R Block credit account liquidated. When I asked about their passwords they admitted that it was an easy password to guess. Often times we don't think about security until it's too late. With web based systems, cloud computing, and other mash ups I think it's about time we revisit the idea of a strong password.

How do hackers get my password?

More often than not, hackers gain access to your accounts because the password you selected was far to easy to guess. By "guess" I mean it's probably a dictionary word or a variation of a dictionary word. Hackers don't just sit behind a keyboard and type random words from a dictionary into your login page. No, they use complex tools that run automated attacks against a websites login function until they get lucky. Having an easy to guess password, one that can be found in a dictionary is like handing the hacker keys to your accounts.

Another method of cracking a password is through "social engineering". This is where the hacker attempts to use or manipulate data that put out for public display. Like social websites, instant messengers and email. They may try to manipulate people into divulging confidential information or use the information to guess passwords, or security questions. In a time where many people use social sites to stay connected, we need to be cautious that the person on our friends list is really our friend.

What's Makes A Password Bad?

Unfortunately the list of things that make a password bad is pretty long. I wont create a long list here. If your interested GeodSoft has a pretty comprehensive list and I am sure there are plenty other sites out there with their own lists. Here are a few of my basic rules.

Don't use personal info, account names, or any information that could be found on a social site, or address book. No phone numbers, names of spouse, children, or pets. Streets you lived on as a child, birth dates, or social security numbers.
Don't use a word that is in the dictionary. This includes other languages. Not even words that have letters replaced with symbols or digits. For example: P@s5w0rd is way to easy to guess.
Don't use a word in reverse or swap the first and last letters.
Don't append or prepend a number to the dictionary word.
Don't think your slick by doubling up on letters in a word too. "wwoorrdd" is still an easy guess.
Lastly, a bad password is one that you will forget. So if it's not memorable, then it's all pointless.

Creating Memorable Passwords

Creating a memorable password is easy, creating one that is difficult to guess but still memorable take a bit more work but it's still pretty easy if you use some techniques to help you remember.

The best passwords are at least eight characters in length, contain upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and a special character. With this in mind lets construct a password that is both memorable and difficult to guess.

One method I use is to think of a phrase or a quote that is memorable to me. For example my football coach used to always say to us defensive players. "You have to stick it to them and drive, drive, drive!" I can still hear his voice ringing in my ear. Using this phrase I might construct a password like "Uh2stic&D,D,D!"

Repurpose With Layers

Because creating a good password takes a bit of thought, I like to repurpose the same password on several sites. Normally this is not a good idea, but let me explain.

I think of the sites I use in terms of layers. There are some sites that I don't use often or sign up for and then forget about. Then there are sites that I use often, they may contain personal information, but not connected to any sensitive info. Then there are sites like banks, email, and other services that store or use my sensitive information as part of the service like paypal, or a credit reporting site.

Because creating a strong password is only good if you can remember it. I create three levels of passwords. One for the fly by night sites that I visit and sign up for. This one might be easy to remember and type quickly It may not be the safest password, but I probably don't care if someone wants to hack into IconBuffet account. It's also not uncomon for these outer layer sites to restrict passwords to only letters and numbers, as special characters might create programming challenges that the creators don't feel is important enough to fix. For these Outer layer sites I might use "yh2st1ck" as my password. It's easy enough to remember but unique enough to challenge a would be hacker.

A second layer password that is more difficult yet. I might use this for social sites, or sites that may contain personal information or access to my friends and contacts that could be used in a social engineering attack. For a second layer password I might use "UH2s&dDD!"

And lastly, the highest layer needs a really strong password for banks, email accounts, or other systems that use sensitive information. This might be the strong password I mentioned earlier like "Uh2stic&D,D,D!"

To reiterate my point. My reasons for recommending this technique are to make all your passwords memorable so that you don't write them down on a scrap piece of paper or put them into a password file on your computer. It's also better to have three passwords that are safer and more secure than one to ten passwords that are easy to guess.

Tools For Generating & Testing Memorable Passwords

If your finding it difficult to create a memorable password or not sure the password you picked is as safe as you think it is, there are tools out there to help you.

Password Assistant – Macintosh utility built into the OS
The memorable random password generator
Password Security Meter
Microsoft Password Checker

Macintosh Password Assistant

My personal favorite utility is the password assistant. It's built into the OS, and thanks to the gurus at Code Poetry, they have created a simple utility to call the password assistant without having to access the accounts preference pane. Here is a screenshot of the utility and a sample of the suggested password. It also gives you a visual meter of your passwords quality.

What I really like about this utility is it's ability to can give you useful feedback when your password is too weak. For example here is the word "rocking" with the typical number replacement on the letters "o" and "i" As you can see the Password Assistant instantly recognizes this as a dictionary word and alerts you in the Tips field allowing you to modify your password to something a bit more secure.