I just use the same username and password for all sites I don't care about that much. That way if I ever come back again I can just log in easily, and the process of signing up is so familiar I could do it in my sleep.
No, the real issue is password questions. "What is your mother's maiden name?" "In what city were you born?. Those always seem like a security hole, so I choose a random question and just remember that the answer to all my security questions is "the landed gentry". That's fairly secure, right?
That's what my XP hint did, and my password contains an accented character (áéíóú/ÁÉÍÓÚ) as I noticed password breakers tend not to use these characters by default, but a lot of programs and services accept them. To say just hitting 'Alt Gr' can prevent any password breaker, I thought it was a pretty good safety measure.
No, the real issue is password questions. "What is your mother's maiden name?" "In what city were you born?. Those always seem like a security hole, so I choose a random question and just remember that the answer to all my security questions is "the landed gentry". That's fairly secure, right?