A while ago I was looking at password management options and came across the Mandylion Labs password token/keychains. I thought they were pretty cool, but the price point on them was a little high for what I was hoping to spend at the time.

Recently, the president of the company (who left a comment on my previous blog entry) contacted me again and we started talking about the future of password management, what people today decide to trust (and what they don’t), and so forth, and he mentioned that, while their newer models are light-years better than the original/older versions, he happened to have one of the older ones he could send me to play with.

Enter the Mandylion Labs ebpLite. Very simple five-button interface (just like the newer models), securely stores 20 passwords, has the ability to auto-generate passwords, remind you when passwords expire… Pretty slick, if I do say so myself.

Admittedly, the five button interface takes a bit of getting used to. Certain key combinations do certain things (navigate through menus, enter account data, etc.) and it takes a couple of seconds running through the quick start guide to really get it going. Once you’ve gotten over that hump, though, the benefits of the thing totally take over. Running a super-secure environment? Tell it to irretrievably destroy its contents when a user fails to unlock it correctly. Got certain password complexity requirements? Set up an auto-generation password schema so next time you need a new password it will generate one for you that meets all the requirements.

Pretty crazy the amount of stuff you can fit into such a small package. And this isn’t even the latest model.

They sell a newer model over at ThinkGeek, but the price point is still a little steep for the average end user. I’ve heard they’re going to have a more consumer-oriented model at a lower price point soon. Definitely something to look into if you’re still in the stone ages keeping your passwords written on sticky notes attached to your monitor or floating unsecured around your PDA.

The new version has been released and provides the following updates:

Added logging to the DXCore “Messages” window.

Fixed bug where nested lists weren’t rendering correctly.

Optimized context menu creation.

Optimized handling of XmlDocuments for faster rendering in preview window.

Updated parser error handling to more accurately display information about the location of errors in XML comments. (Errors now show approximate line/character locations in relation to the source document as well as in relation to the XML comment begin/end.)

Fixed bug where attributes on unrecognized tags weren’t passing through to be rendered.

Go get it!

This past three-day weekend was a blast. Jenn, Stuart, Tiffany, and I all went up to Seattle on the train.

Three days and two nights of chaos and mayhem. Among other things, we saw Pike Place Market, Experience Music Project, and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

EMP and the Sci-Fi Museum were my favorite stops. The two put together took us pretty much an entire day. EMP sucked us in with the tons of cool exhibits and hands-on demonstrations of musical concepts, and the Sci-Fi Museum was a blast with all sorts of science fiction paraphernalia. From movie props to original novels scripts, they had it all. I even got a picture of myself next to Gort. (For reference, I’m 6’2” tall; Gort dwarfs me.)

Honestly, normally I do the whole play-by-play of all the things we did, but it was so much I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll just say it was a lot of fun and a great weekend to decompress.

Only downside: too much walking. I think the next vacation’s gotta be lying on the beach drinking umbrella drinks. Give these tootsies a rest.

I admit I’m all about merchandising. I mean, I can’t not buy Star Wars toys. But the Star Wars patterned fabric? I think that’s a bit much.