How to create a strong, easy-to-remember password 

If you are going to do your banking or PayPal online (and even for your very confidential email account), it is most important to have an "uncrackable" password which at the same time is easy to remember so you don't have to go to your diary to look for it (and what if your diary should fall into the wrong hands?)
This page discusses how to create a strong yet easy-to-remember password that you can use for each and every one of your various accounts in internet, particularly for the more sensitive ones. I can assure you that spending some time on this is not time wasted, especially if you have numerous accounts in internet (and who hasn't?).
Some of you might not be aware that there are password crackers such as "John the Ripper" that are capable of detecting weak passwords easily by running through all the possible combinations eg. if a password has only 6 letters, all of which are in small letters, the programme will have (26*26*26*26*26*26=) 308,915,776 chances of success. This could be a big number to you but for the programme it is peanuts, as it needs only a couple of minutes, if not seconds, to find it!
But if you should include a capital letter and a number (digit) then it becomes much more difficult as each position would now be capable of 62 possibilities instead of 26, being made up of 26 (a-z) + 26 (A-Z) + 10 (0-9). And if your password has 7 or 8 characters instead of 6 it is even safer.
It is for this reason that many "serious" sites (such as your bank, PayPal, email accounts, FTP accounts, etc.) demand that your password must have a minimum of 8 characters, at least two of which must be a number (digit) and a capital letter.
Actually you can also use the 32 non-alphanumeric symbols such as, ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * _ - + = { } [ ] \ | : ; " ' < > , . ? / that you find on your keyboard, thus increasing the strength of your password as the number of possibilities for each space jumps from 62 to 94 but I am afraid they might also drive you crazy in the process! For the layman perhaps it is enough to just make use of a @ or a $ (which can easily take the place of S) somewhere in your password.
One good way to create a strong, yet easy-to-remember password is to use the first letters of the words of a sentence that is meaningful to you and you alone eg. you can easily come up with a strong password like: iwf4lyiP which is made up of the first letters of the eight words in this meaningful sentence: I worked for 4 long years in Paris
Since that password contains a number and a capital letter and there are 8 characters in it, it can be considered as a strong password. In fact you are strongly advised to create a password containing at least 8 characters (one of which is a number and another a capital letter) right from the start, so there'll be no danger of your password not being accepted. In fact some websites insist that your password must have at least 8 characters and that there must be a number and a capital letter among them. So you might as well get it right from the start.
But what is just as important is that it is a password that you can always remember without too much effort. This will become second nature if you were to read the sentence in your head every time you type the initial letters of each word. Of course the above password can also be "Iwf4lyiP" but I think it's better not to use a capital letter in the first position so as not to give away the fact that your password comes from a sentence.
Let's take another example with this password containing 11 characters (which is certainly stronger than one containing eight characters, though eight would be sufficient): mdTwgtmwiw9
How in the world are you going to remember that? And who, apart from you, would be able to come up with a password like that? You will see how simple it is when I tell you that it comes from the first letters of the 11 words in the following sentence: My dog Toby was given to me when I was 9
No further examples will be given as I am sure you get the drift by now. Any type of sentence that is meaningful to you, however far-fetched or silly it is, will do. As a matter of fact, the more far-fetched or silly it is the better, as no one (other than you) would be able to type it!
And if you are presently stuck with a very complicated password in one of your accounts, think of changing it to the one that you have created as suggested above. Most sites allow this. You only have to type your old password followed by the new one (which you often have to type twice to ensure there is no typing error).