Securing the App

Do you tend to wander away from your Mac without locking it? Or, do you allow others access your beloved Mac and often worry they might get their hands on your private data? Secretbox allows you to extensively lockdown the app and the database from other users. From the Preferences screen you can set a timer to lock the database and to hide the displayed password after a preset time of inactivity.

Securing the Database

 

Clearing the clipboard is a great practice and you can either set the app to clear it when the file is locked or when the app is closed. You do not want to be second guessing yourself when it comes to backing up the sensitive data you have stored. So, set your backup schedule (anywhere from hourly to monthly), sit back, and relax while Secretbox does all the grunt work of backing up everything you have stored. The backup process begins as soon as the app is closed.

Security

It is natural to wonder about the security of an app like this. So, for those of you who find yourself pondering about the security level of Secretbox, the app uses 256 bit AES algorithms to encrypt the files. In case anyone doesn’t quite undertand what that means, it is the standard used by the military to secure data. So, rest assured that the data you store with Secretbox is absolutely safe. In fact, as an additional security measure, Secretbox decyrpts only the files that you open instead of decyrpting all the files at once the way many other apps do.

Final Thoughts

Secretbox is a rock solid app for protecting sensitive information. For those who want to access the data stored in Secretbox while on the go, there are companion apps for the iPhone and the iPad that sync with the desktop app. While a visual revamp would take the app a long way, it seems to have a perfect set of features and is a steal at $9.99. Go grab it from the Mac App Store!

Has Apple Made Hardware Specs Irrelevant?

Since the dawn of home computing, those in the know have measured a machine’s worth with a look at the system’s specifications: A Sinclair Spectrum ZX which sported 128K of RAM was better than the 48K version and, likewise, a 500MHz iBook G3 was naturally superior to its clamshell ancestor, which housed a 300MHz processor. Once you understand the terms and the math, it’s simple. Or it was, anyway.

In more recent years, the picture has become a little muddled – is a 2.2GHz AMD CPU superior to its Intel rival? Throw in multiple cores and a choice of video card and a confused mess becomes positively Byzantine. Then there’s Apple, who as usual do things their own way.