If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you've collected about a zillion accounts and their associated passwords. Personally, I have over 500 different active accounts all over the web and probably a thousand more inactive or unused accounts.

Most people don't have anywhere near that number, but I'll bet you have at least a couple of dozen. Let's see, you've probably got an account at your bank's website, a few credit cards, egroups, perhaps a few webrings, your ISP, email, hotmail, perhaps AOL, and a few others that you don't use as often.

If you are like most people, you cannot even come close to remembering it all. In fact, a lot of people simply create the same account name and password everywhere ... and that's extremely dangerous.

Let's say a hacker figures out your AOL account and password. If every other account that you own has the same username and password ... well, you get the idea. Now all he has to do is figure out where you have accounts ... but he could just try it at a number of say, banking sites or credit card sites, and perhaps he will get lucky. You may make it even easier for him by mentioning your sites in your AOL emails or on your web site.

So how do you protect yourself? First, make sure your passwords are all different. Don't use the same password on all of your accounts ... and try and use a few different usernames if you can.

Next, be sure and choose some password that are not so easy to guess. Avoid names (husband, wife, kids, cats and so on), social security and phone numbers, addresses and anything else that someone could figure out if they knew anything about you.

Also avoid some common words. Did you know that the most common password is simply "password". "God" is also common, especially amoung system managers. Avoid common words such as these.

All right! Now you've got all of your 30 or so accounts set up with different account names and different difficult-to-guess passwords. How are you going to remember them all?

Rule number one is be prepared for disaster. Write down all of your usernames and passwords in a notebook (yes, on paper). No, really. You need to do this because computers sometimes die, and when they do it's at the worst possible time. You may not even have a backup, and if you loose all of your passwords you could lose a lot.

Keep this notebook safe, perhaps locked in a drawer. It's probably a good idea to keep a copy in your safe deposit box - so someone can get to your accounts after you die, perhaps, or if you are in the hospital or something else happens.

Now keep a computer record also, which you will maintain more up-to-date. I like using a program called Password Tracker, although you could just as easily use Excel or even notepad. The idea is to record all of your account information as you create or change it. Password Tracker is great because it also gives you tools to enter the data for you.

A product to avoid is Gator (I use both Password Tracker). This program is handy for saving passwords and filling in forms, but it is spyware and transmits details of your surfing habits to a corporate database.

Be sure and keep backups of the Password Tracker database ... believe me, you don't want to lose this information if you can avoid it.

By the way, I've learned to avoid the automatic account and password features of Internet Explorer. Why? Because there is no way to save, print out or get to the information. Thus, if the computer dies I lose my passwords with no way to recover. I don't use Netscape much, but I would guess the same thing applies.

To conclude, use different account names and passwords for your various web sites. Record them on paper and store that somewhere safe. In addition, you can use programs link Excel, Gator and Password Tracker to save all of this information for you. Finally, and very importantly, be very prepared for disaster.