Dear Innocents Banned

I would also read up on creating strong passwords. I would caution replacing letters with predictable symbols when spelling words or names. Many of the programs take this into account and will try those things first. For example replacing a with @ is extremely common and very easy to predict so it will be attempt first in a brute force attack. Brute force attacks will cycle through the predictable symbol/character replacements first. Length and a lack of pattern or predictability are what you want. You can always reset the password if you forget it. 

There are endless articles on the topic. How ever not all advice is good, one article I read suggested some really out dated methods. 

As computers get faster it becomes easier for them to cycle through billions of possibilities in a shorter amount of time.