I’ve talked about how much I like 1Password, the password manager and automated form filler, before. Now, version 3 is out and it looks to be a great improvement over it’s earlier versions.
The new version of 1Password boasts over 50 new features, some of the highlights include:
Password Anywhere which lets you securely use a web version of 1Password, storing your keys on an encrypted flash drive.
A Software license organizer, so you can keep all of those pesky software licenses out of your email and in something secure
The ability to edit your password items right from your browser
Tagging to help you keep your passwords organized
All in all, a great looking release with some really cool new features. Do yourself a favor, pickup this software. It will keep your passwords safe and keep you from having to remember them all.
Alfredo Padillia over at The Apple Blog have begun a discussion around whether or not web based software will lead him away from a Mac. I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few months and I used to think the same thing. Now I’m not so sure.
Cloud computing, the idea of running all of your applications on the web, sounds like a great concept. The author’s notion of cloud computing is that all of the applications he uses are browser based. His examples are GMail, Google Reader, Remember The Milk, etc. While these applications are indeed running “in the cloud” I think it’s the wrong way to look at things.
The problem with web applications is not that they aren’t powerful enough to get the job done, it’s that they don’t operate efficiently together. I tried using the Google suite of applications. They are nice, but god forbid if you want to integrate them into anything else. I tried for months to come up with a solution for synchronizing my Google Address Book, GMail and GCal to my iPhone. There are some hacks to do it but in the end, I settled on using Spanning Sync with Address Book and iCal to keep my Mac client apps in sync and iTunes to sync those to my iPhone. Another great example is bookmarks. If I need to go to a specific website, am I going to go the the delicious website first or will I use the delicious plugin for Firefox. The plugin has a much tighter integration.
Where cloud computing shines is the idea of a ubiqitous data store. I like that I can drop ont a friends PC and in a pinch, check my calendar, or email. It doesn’t mean I still miss the convienience of interoperability between these applications. Standards based data formats will give me the best of both worlds and when we get there, cloud computing my finally get some legs.
The 10.6.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:
an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites
Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user
issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers
the reliability of menu extras
an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture
an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server
Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing
a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book
an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet
Safari plug-in reliability
general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account
Has everyone made the switch to Snow Leopard? I’m still holding out. If you are too, we’d love to know why.
The folks at Mac Heist bundle interesting Mac software and make it available for a great low price. They do this a few times a year and have sold a boat load of software My guess is it gives smaller software companies the opportunity to gain some word of mouth marketing around their software.
This month, they are releasing their latest bundle totally free. It includes a number of cool programs including:
Shovebox
WriteRoom
Twitterriffic
TinyGrab
Hords of Orcs
and if they get 500,000 participants, Mariner Write
Head on over and get your free downloads today, only a few more days until the offer ends.
When you create accounts on a website, it’s important to use unique passwords on those sites. There are many tragic examples of stolen passwords on one hacked website used to gain access to another site. I, like most people do not always follow best practices.
I’ve mentioned before how much I like
the 1Password password manager product. One of it’s great features is that it will create unique, secure passwords that you can use when creating accounts online.
While this feature is great, it becomes a hassle when you need to access a website from a remote machine. How do you retrieve your password?
The 1Password blog revealed that they are going to provide a solution to access your key chain anywhere in 1Password 3. The feature called Anywhere will allow you to have access to your key chain from anywhere on the Internet.
Rather than keep your key chain on a website, 1Password Anywhere assumes that you will manage the location of the key chain yourself. If you are traveling, you can store your key chain inside a Dropbox or on a USB drive. The point is, Anywhere only will decrypt the key chain eliminating a potential security hole of having your keychain stored on their website.
It’s a cool feature I’m looking forward to trying. In the meantime, this video shows you how it works.
I’ve talked about how much I like 1Password, the password manager and automated form filler, before. Now, version 3 is out and it looks to be a great improvement over it’s earlier versions.
