At the very least, if you had a Babble account and have an account elsewhere with the same password, you should change all of your passwords to something else.

Ideally, you should change your passwords for online accounts used at least once a year, or every 6 months if you can. Passwords should always include numbers, letters and even a symbol, and should *not* include any word found in the dictionary.

I keep at least 3 different kinds of passwords for different kinds of accounts. For financial or other sensitive accounts where someone can buy stuff on my account, I use a strong password that's regularly changed. For admin accounts, a different "strong" password (strong being letters, numbers, symbols). And for everyday accounts at other websites (like a community like this one), a third password that's also strong. You're supposed to use a different password for every different account, but honestly, that's just too much for me to remember. (There is "password management" software you can install on your computer to help remember them if you go this route, but that seems more trouble than it's worth in terms of what it gets you.)

Yes, you can write your password down on a sticky next to your computer or keep it in an address book if you need to remember it, especially if it's only *your* computer used only by you. (If it's a shared family computer or a work computer, you can still write it down to remember it, just keep it someplace only you regularly have access to.) It's generally better to write down a "strong" password than to say, "Ah, that's too much trouble, I'll just use a weaker password I can remember."

Best,
DocJohn