Comments on David Alison's Blog: Do you use the same password everywhere?

@ping: careful! The keychain status in the menu b...

2008-04-15T15:38:00.000-04:00

@ping: careful! The keychain status in the menu bar is not accurate. It can indicate locked when the keychain is not locked. Also, when it thinks a keychain is locked, it does not offer the command to lock that keychain, so you can't use the menu bar item to make sure that a keychain is locked.

This makes the menu bar thingy for Keychain Access a lot less useful than it should be. :-(

Yep same here, I can't say enough about 1Password....

2008-04-15T14:39:00.000-04:00

Yep same here, I can't say enough about 1Password. I will look forward to your writeup on it :)

You can let keychain indicate its status in the me...

2008-04-15T08:26:00.000-04:00

You can let keychain indicate its status in the menu bar. You can also access all its functions right there.

@All: Thanks for the great comments. I just downlo...

2008-04-14T20:33:00.000-04:00

@All: Thanks for the great comments. I just downloaded and installed 1Password. Dndgrl - thanks for the tip on Maczot - I just went and purchased a license. I'll write about my experience with it shortly.

I got 1password with the recent MacHeist bundle an...

2008-04-14T19:07:00.000-04:00

I got 1password with the recent MacHeist bundle and it is the one program that I have enjoyed the most out of the bundle so far. Very nice.
Before that I was using the PwdHash Firefox plugin which I can also really recommend for people who want a free solution and don't want to memorize multiple passwords.
http://crypto.stanford.edu/PwdHash/

I'll second the 1Password recommendation. It is n...

2008-04-14T18:38:00.000-04:00

I'll second the 1Password recommendation. It is not perfect, but it is good enough that I'll give it the highest praise a developer can give another developer: when I got it (as part of the latest MacHeist), I abandoned the password manager I was designing.

One nice feature is that the passwords are all stored in standard OS X keychains, and the low level keychain software in OS X is all open source. Even if 1Password's developers go out of business, or Apple changes the format, you will be able to extract your passwords to migrate to something else.

There is a bug in Apple's keychain management, by the way. A keychain that is unlocked isn't always reported as unlocked, so just because 1Password and Apple's Keychain Access say it is locked doesn't mean it IS locked. Set your Mac to lock all keychains when it sleeps, and if you are going to step away with the Mac still awake, open Keychain Access and do a "lock all keychains" command. With those precautions in place, you should be fine.

Another option, for Mac, is to use Keychain Access...

2008-04-14T18:33:00.000-04:00

Another option, for Mac, is to use Keychain Access -- that pre-installed utility that automatically saves many of your Mac-related passwords. Most people have never tried, but you can actually launch the utility and create password items and secure note items manually.

David, if you're interested in 1Password, go to Ma...

2008-04-14T17:23:00.000-04:00

David, if you're interested in 1Password, go to Maczot.com. 1Password is today's zot and you can get it for 42% off, today only.

@Paul: No worries man! I am going to look into 1Pa...

2008-04-14T15:44:00.000-04:00

@Paul: No worries man! I am going to look into 1Password shortly. I had this article queued up and after reading in a forum how a guy was worried someone was going to hack his accounts because he used a single password it made me think this might be of value to others.

If people are wanting to have unique passwords for...

2008-04-14T14:59:00.000-04:00

If people are wanting to have unique passwords for all sites, check out 1Password. It can help you generate *strong* passwords, and then will handily remember them all for you. So long as no-one has 1) physical access to your Mac and 2) knows your Mac login, your data is safe.

Also, Time Machine will automatically backup the data stored in 1Password, so if you were to lose your machine, you wouldn't lose all those passwords..

(Sorry David that I've recommended this again, it just seemed very fitting! I'm honestly not affiliated to the product!)

Paul