Switchers' Blog

MacHeist Number 2 Starts!

MacHeist round #2 is up and running!

I just finished the heist and it was quite difficult! Be prepared to find things hiding in plain sight!

Unlike round #1, the rewards for the second heist are not secret. Crafty heisters will grab themselves a copy of the Cha-Ching Cash Manager and our very own 1Passwd Password Manager.

Happy Heisting!

Using Quick Silver to Manage iCal

I just finished watching this interesting video by David Chartier on how to use Quick Silver to add events and todos to your iCal calendar.

Very interesting stuff!

Roustem and I have added Quick Silver integration to 1Passwd; it should be available as a prerelease in a week or two.

New 1Passwd Icon

We have hired a very talented designer to create a new icon for 1Passwd. Tom Woodhams created the Democracy Player icon and disk image background; Roustem and I liked what we saw so we collaborated with Tom to see what he could do with 1Passwd.

We asked Tom for an icon that would set 1Passwd apart from the other Mac password managers. Other password manager icons symbolize the fact that they are secure. Security is obvious when you use the OS X Keychain, so we wanted something that would let people know we use the keychain, but most importantly, show that 1Passwd makes it easy to use your data.

In short, we asked a lot from Tom; we told him the icon had to:

1. Contain a key to represent the OS X Keychain.
2. Resemble a browser icon to reinforce the fact 1Passwd integrates into most browsers.
3. Allow ‘locked’ and ‘unlocked’ states to reflect the Keychain’s status.
4. And most importantly: Look so nice that users feel compelled to drag it onto their Dock

1Passwd 2.0 Now Available! Free Leopard Update Too :)

Today Roustem and I completed putting the finishing touches on 1Passwd version 2.0. Thanks to all the users who helped us test the prerelease and made this possible!

Version 2.0 is a major update of the 1Passwd Password Manager and Form Filler, and is available free to all existing customers. You can download the version or perform a Check for Update (recommended).

There have been a lot of internal changes to the 1Passwd code base, and some major new features. Here are the most visible changes:

Pixel - A Photoshop Alternative

I have to say that I am not a Photoshop expert. Occasionally I need to crop and resize images, change the colors, etc. I tried to use Photoshop and found it to be very slow and very expensive. For a long time I was looking for an alternative and yesterday I found Pixel image editor created by Pavel Kanzelsberger.

Taking Control of Passwords

TidBITS released a new book in their Take Control series: Take Control of Passwords in Mac OS X, written by Mac veteran Joe Kissell.

I contacted Joe way back in the summer asking him for his feedback on 1Passwd 1.0, and asked if he would be interested in reviewing 1Passwd on TidBITS. I was ecstatic when he said he had already heard of 1Passwd and planned on including it in his upcoming book. Take Control of Passwords covers the entire spectrum of password management on Mac OS X. There is a chapter about third-party Mac password managers and includes a discount coupon for 1Passwd.