After a long week of work, I like to sit back and do a jigsaw puzzle. My friends tease me for liking it, but I enjoy the struggle of putting together a 1000 piece puzzle.

Beginning a new puzzle is painstaking but the excitement and relief that comes after finishing the puzzle, without having to pound the pieces in, makes the struggle all worth while. This process of struggle and relief is very similar to creating passwords for the AESDirect account.

On October 2008, the AESDirect system boosted its security measures to meet the standards of the Federal Government. One of those initiatives included making passwords harder to crack, which in turn made the words more complicated to create.

The password now requires

• at least one uppercase,
• one lower case,
• one number
• one special character (!#$%).

For most people who use the same password for their e-mail, Facebook, and bank account, remembering and making a password with this level of complexity is daunting. Especially after they read through the list of restrictions.

Commonly, the error for “no dictionary words ” occurs. I would simply suggest that everyone just avoid using any vowels and even the letter “y”.

The AESDirect Password can be a pain to make. But think about it this way, if you have a flimsy lock on your safe, it’s not really going to protect you from a motivated robber. If you spend a little time making your lock strong and durable, you’ll be much better off when that robber comes a knocking.