Twitter was subject to a breach because they didn't encrypt any of their data. In 2009 corporations, especially those involved in technology, not encrypting data is unforgivable. I recommend hard drive encryption to anyone who uses a laptop or stores sensitive data on a desktop. A trick that ups the strength of passwords is the to choose one much like the article states e.g. changing your default "password" to "p4s5w0rd!" and then adding on the name of the website/application so for Slate.com it would be "p4s5w0rd!slate" and so on.