For one, recently, I used a passage from The Hobbit.  If you do use such a method, however, you need to avoid the most common passages (e.g., “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”).  Pair such a passphrase with even a small clump of complex characters at the fore or the rear, and even someone who figures out your passage won’t be able to crack it (in any immediate time scale).

Then use a password utility program to store ALL of your other passwords, encrypted with that REALLY GOOD one. Now, you don’t even need to know your passwords. You make them completely random, 15 char or so. You never see them, just decrypt, then cut and paste. In real use, it is easier than using a couple of weak passwords.

You can even put that encrypted file somewhere where you can find it (think web space, or even email), hell you can even use the same program on your smart phone if you choose wisely.

Also, read this xkcd and realize the scale of the problem: http://xkcd.com/936/
and this one: http://xkcd.com/792/

Realize that the second puts a huge hole int he password customization scheme. Once someone has phished one password, if they realize you are using a scheme, it is down to guessing the small unique part.

Since you can’t rely on websites be secure, totally random is a huge win.

nice try – all keys typed with the left hand move one key over to the right, all keys typed with the right hand move one key left

thus qwert becomes werty and poiu becomes oiuy

Don’t really think this is the way though – it’s pretty obvious (if you use dictionary words) and would probably lead to you thinking you are secure.

My personal way is to use a song or book I like (and that the site reminds me of in some way) and use that and some figures. This way, (like a mnemonic) I remember the site’s password by association to a song. Then I use the first letters of every word in the title and a number that fits with the site. If necessary, I then can separate the numbers and the letters with some chosen punctuation mark (which I tend to keep the same). This gets around simple minded security requirements.

Of course, I now have to remember the song or title of the book for the site, but that is a lot easier (and less hazardous to noting down if altzheimers starts to kick in) than remembering a random hash.

Thus an example may be: Pride and Predjudice, by Jane Austin (written in 1813)

PaPbJA!1813 (gives me a long version) or
PaP!1813 (gives me a short version) or
PaP1813 (gives me an “insecure” version)

Hope this helps

Joe

$website = $_GET['website'];
$website = explode('.',$website);
$website = $website[0];
$next_char = substr($website, 2, 1);
$next_char = $next_char;
if (strlen($next_char) > 1) { // if you go beyond z or Z reset to a or A
    $next_char = $next_char[0];
}
$new_password = substr($website, -1, 1).substr($website, 0, 1).'$#@!'.$next_char;
echo $new_password;

(instead of 1, 2, 3.. you can make it a b c, !@# QWE or whatever you want)

but an intresting one could be:

first 6 characters of the web addres (aclean)and than typ it this way: svkrsb. Now its your turn to guess how i got it :)