How can I generate safe passwords?

You can't. The key word here is GENERATE. Once an algorithm for

creating passwords is specified using upon some systematic method, it

merely becomes a matter of analysing your algorithm in order to find

every password on your system.

Unless the algorithm is very subtle, it will probably suffer from a very

low period (ie: it will soon start to repeat itself) so that either:

a) a cracker can try out every possible output of the password

generator on every user of the system, or

b) the cracker can analyse the output of the password program,

determine the algorithm being used, and apply the algorithm to other

users to determine their passwords.

A beautiful example of this (where it was disastrously assumed that a

random number generator could generate an infinite number of random

passwords) is detailed in [Morris & Thompson].

The only way to get a reasonable amount of variety in your passwords

(I'm afraid) is to make them up. Work out some flexible method of your

own which is NOT based upon:

1) modifying any part of your name or name+initials

2) modifying a dictionary word

3) acronyms

4) any systematic, well-adhered-to algorithm whatsoever

For instance, NEVER use passwords like:

alec7 - it's based on the users name (& it's too short anyway)

tteffum - based on the users name again

gillian - girlfiends name (in a dictionary)

naillig - ditto, backwards

PORSCHE911 - it's in a dictionary

12345678 - it's in a dictionary (& people can watch you type it easily)

qwertyui - ...ditto...

abcxyz - ...ditto...

0ooooooo - ...ditto...

Computer - just because it's capitalised doesn't make it safe

wombat6 - ditto for appending some random character

6wombat - ditto for prepending some random character

merde3 - even for french words...

mr.spock - it's in a sci-fi dictionary

zeolite - it's in a geological dictionary

ze0lite - corrupted version of a word in a geological dictionary

ze0l1te - ...ditto...

Z30L1T3 - ...ditto...

I hope that these examples emphasise that ANY password derived from ANY

dictionary word (or personal information), modified in ANY way,

constitutes a potentially guessable password.