Speaking of passwords, I thought it would be fun to share this little bit of trivia: last year TechCrunch amused everyone by publishing the list of 370 words banned by Twitter for use as a password.

You can actually find them yourself by checking the source code on Twitter’s sign up page if you are so adventurous.  (Go to Twitter’s sign up page here and do a search in their source code for ‘twttr.BANNED_PASSWORDS’).

We found them all on Business Insider’s website and you can view the entire list here.

Some are obvious: repetitive numbers “111111″ or “123456″, or names like “amanda” or “einstein” all of which violate the rules laid out in the prior post, Finding the Right Password.

Others are fairly amusing, for example you can’t use “twitter” as your Twitter password. Nor can you use “computer” or varying progressions of “password”, “password1″, “password12″, well….you get the point.

Other banned words are curious: you can’t use “turtle” as a password, but apparently “whale” would be acceptable (if it was available).

So have fun with the list and happy Twittering….

If you are like most of us, you find yourself doing more and more activities online, from buying to banking to chatting, you know already that you have to protect yourself and your information. Strong passwords are important protections to help you have safer online transactions.

For the strongest password, you need to find the right complex combination of characters that is individual to you alone. Most sites recommend using at least 8 and up to 14 characters or more in the greatest variety you can.

Here is a great chart that offers several key ideas that you might not have thought of to create your best password: