Introducing YippieMove '09. Easy email transfers. Now open for all destinations.

We’re aware that the images in our RSS and Atom feeds are not showing up in their expected positions. The problem is that the CSS that positions them isn’t getting out there correctly, and in the attempts we have made to inline the CSS, it just hasn’t worked with the readers we tried it with. We hope to have some kind of solution to the weird looking feed problem soon.

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Introducing YippieMove '09. Easy email transfers. Now open for all destinations.

Many Mac owners are probably not aware that there is an excellent way to store passwords in OS X. In this how to guide, we will tell you everything about why you should use this feature, and how you can start taking advantage of it today.

We have written about how to secure your data with Apple OS X before. But what about your passwords? You could put them in an encrypted file, but there is a certain amount of effort involved with this. Every time you want a password you have to unlock your encrypted disk, and open some text file. Post-it With PasswordsChances are you will tire of that, and then you’d be back to writing your passwords on little post it notes. Or even worse: you’ll start choosing passwords that are easy to remember. This is one of the cardinal mistakes when trying to live securely. Memorized passwords are usually the worst passwords; simple, easy to guess and likely to be reused. How many people are reading your email right now because you choose your high school sweetheart’s name as your password?

There is a much better way to store passwords securely on the Mac: Keychain Access IconApple Keychain. The Keychain comes built in with your OS X operating system. If you are aware of it, you may think that its only function is to store your Safari and Apple Mail passwords. It can do much more than that.

Keychain encrypts all your passwords so that they can be stored securely, and yet the keychain is fast to use and organizes all your passwords to make them easy to find. Keychain is more secure than post-it notes, and much faster to access than a disorganized encrypted text file somewhere on your hard drive. Ultimately, Keychain can make your online experience much safer. You will be able to choose very tough passwords, and yet you will only need to memorize a single master password: your keychain password.

Here’s how to add any password for any account to your Keychain.

How to Add Any Password to the Keychain

  1. Open Apple Keychain. You can do this either by spotlighting for ‘keychain’, or by locating the ‘Access Keychain’ icon in your utilities folder.
  2. Selecting New Password Item… on the File menu.Hit Apple+N, or select ‘New Password Item’ from the File menu.
  3. Enter a good name for your password item. This will be the most important tag for finding your password item later, so make sure you pick something sensible. If the password is for a website, it’s often useful to put the address of the site in the name field.
  4. Enter your account name.
  5. Key Icon to Open the Generate Password SheetType in a password of your choice. You may click the key icon to the right of the Password field to open up Keychain’s built in password assistant.
  6. If you need a copy of your password immediately, select ‘Show Typing’ to reveal your password.

Yep, it’s that easy. Here’s an example:

Screenshot of the New Password Item sheet being filled out.

Now lets look at how to get the password back once you have stored it.

How to Get the Password You Need in Three Easy Steps

  1. Open Apple Keychain, by spotlighting for ‘keychain’ or by locating the ‘Access Keychain’ icon in your utilities folder.
  2. To search for a key, enter the Keychain Item Name or the Account name in the search box in the upper right corner of the program. When you can see your password in the list, just double click it.
  3. To see your password, check ‘Show Password.’ You will be asked for your keychain password. Unless you changed this master password, it will be the same as your login password.

Here’s the password we stored in our example:

Keychain displaying a stored password.

If you want to be able to access your passwords even faster, you can go into Keychain’s Preferences and check ‘Show Status in Menu Bar’. This adds a padlock in the Menu Bar. Clicking on the padlock reveals a menu that does not only allow you to reveal your keychain quickly, but also gives you a convenient ‘lock screen’ feature.

As you can see, getting to any one password is easy with Keychain. And even then, the passwords are protected and require your master password for display. You can have a unique password for every website you visit if you so wish, safe in the knowledge that if a password does come out, your other online activity will be unaffected.

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Introducing YippieMove '09. Easy email transfers. Now open for all destinations.

WireLoad is looking for entry level PHP web developers. Experience with Symfony is desired. You can read about WireLoad opportunities at WireLoad’s Jobs Page.

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Introducing YippieMove '09. Easy email transfers. Now open for all destinations.

System76 is far from the first company to offer pre-installed Linux computers to the public, but they’re probably the one who’s most serious about it.
Ubuntu Logo
On their homepage one can find a series of fairly stylish looking laptops and desktops powered by Ubuntu Linux. Even though I haven’t had my hands on any of these computers, just by judging by the specs and prices they seem to be a good alternative to other vendors. In contrast to other companies providing similar solutions, this company have really invested time and money into providing a nice and professional website, with features such as computer customization (much like Dell.com).

The question remains though; Is Linux ready to power the desktop of an average user? Two years ago, I’d definitely say no, but things have changed since then. With the recent desktop focus and improvements of both Fedora and Ubuntu, I’d say Linux is now ready for the desktop. In particular for the ‘average office/student user,’ where the tasks are limited to e-mail, web-browsing, word-processing and spreadsheet-editing.

Even though I have no intention of replacing my OS X-running laptop at this point, if I were to switch it away for something else, I would probably consider buying a Darter Ultra from System76.

Verdict: I agree with System76, Linux is now ready for the desktop, and I wish them the very best. Hopefully this is a company we will see more of in the future. When we need to buy more computers, System76 is likely be the supplier.

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Introducing YippieMove '09. Easy email transfers. Now open for all destinations.

A small update of Cuzimatter, our social bookmark utility, went online today. The improvements are,

  • Polished user interface.
  • Support for Yahoo! My Web 2.0 bookmarks.

We know there are a few utilities like this one out there, but we still think Cuzimatter is among the easiest to use. There are no plugins to install, nothing to download. Just click and go.

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