Some great advice, and helped me turn around and update my passwords... Quite easily at that. I would recommend anyone who thinks having a 6-8 lower case letters password should give it a read!
http://lifehacker.com/5631203/how-to-update-your-insecure-passwords-and-make-them-easy-to-use
I do this my self. Its is really good info. Hope lots of people see this topic.
If you want to be even more secure you can use https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm and save the passwords on a system that's encrypted and off the net. But that's only if your a nut. :P
And here is a good password meter. To check your passwords.
http://www.passwordmeter.com/