Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

chapter 12: accounts and security 345

To prevent evildoers from guessing your passwords, Mac OS X comes with a good-

password suggestion feature called the Password Assistant. It cheerfully generates

one suggestion after another for impossible-to-guess passwords. (“recharges8@exch

angeability,” anyone?)

Fortunately, you won’t have to remember most of them, thanks to the Keychain pass-

word-memorizing feature described at the end of this chapter. (The only password

you have to memorize is your account password.)

See Figure 12-15 for details on the Password Assistant.

The Keychain

The information explosion of the computer age has one colossal annoyance: the

proliferation of passwords we have to memorize. Shared folders on the network, Web

sites, your iDisk, FTP sites—each requires another password.

Apple has done the world a mighty favor with its Keychain feature. The concept is

brilliant: Whenever you log into Mac OS X and type in your password, you’ve typed

the master code that tells the computer, “It’s really me. I’m at my computer now.” From

that moment on, the Mac automatically fills in every password blank you encounter,

Figure 12-15:

Any place you’re

supposed to make up

a password, including

here in the Accounts

pane of System Pref-

erences, a key icon

appears. When you

click it, the Password

Assistant opens. Use

the pop-up menu

and the Length slider

to specify how long

and unguessable ...