Clipperz Password Manager

Just a quick post to say thanks to the great community of users of Clipperz password manager. I’m proud and delighted to see all those interesting discussions in the Clipperz forum, the steady stream of donations, and the amazing reviews from so ... [More] many reputable bloggers and websites. Thanks! You are probably aware of what Giulio and I have been working on in the past year. However, here is a short recap: the brand new “gamma release” that will replace the current version of the password manager; a “mobile edition” of the password manager app, optimized for mobile browsers; a complete restyling of the Clipperz website; None of these three projects has been completed, but they are all publicly available. There are still many rough edges, glitches, missing parts and probably quite a few plain stupid errors, but we are confident you could get some satisfaction by playing with them. Clipperz “gamma”: https://www.clipperz.com/gamma Mobile edition: http://m.clipperz.com And, of course, the new website: http://www.clipperz.com We would like to send a special thanks to our patient “gamma testers” and to Taddeo Zacchini for producing such a great graphic theme for the website. Main screen of the “gamma” release of Clipperz, partial view. Sneak peeks of the mobile version of Clipperz. [Less]

We have just released a new version of Clipperz password manager that fixes a bug related to native JSON support. The bug was affecting only those using Firefox 3.1. Beta 1 or Beta 2. Firefox 3.1 includes TraceMonkey, the new Javascript engine. ... [More] It’s an evolution of SpiderMonkey that uses a new kind of Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler to boost Javascript performance by an order of magnitude or more. Unfortunately Firefox 3.1 also introduced a DOM binding (the global object JSON) for the native JSON parser; the DOM binding “shadows” the JSON object from the json2.js library currently used by Clipperz for JSON de/serialization. The native parser doesn’t yet support de/serialization of primitive (string, number, boolean) objects (only object literals and arrays) hence the card creation process results in being broken in Firefox 3.1 Beta. As soon as Firefox 3.1 will provide full support for JSON de/serialiazation (planned for Beta 3) we will switch to the native JSON parser, taking full advantage of speed improvements. [Less]

It’s really nice to start a new year with a bit of love twits from Clipperz users. Thanks!

The first thing most of you do every morning is to open the Clipperz password manager and start your daily routine by quickly accessing your online services. Just one click on a “direct login” link and you are logged in and, depending on your browser ... [More] settings, each click will open a new window or a new tab. Unless you are using Safari … In that case there is no way to tell Safari to open a “direct login” in a new tab, it will always open a new browser window. I find it quite annoying, I personally can’t stand having too many browser windows open. Direct login links have a target = "_blank" attribute and Safari has no (evident) option to decide if the new page should be opened in a new window or a new tab (like Firefox has). But luckily Apple has added a hidden preference, since Safari 3.1, that allows you to tell Safari to stick to one window. Just paste into Terminal the following command and and you’re sorted! defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true This works great, unless you are like me: I usually launch tens of “direct logins” and I end up scrolling tabs back and forth within a single Safari window. Not very convenient. But with Safari I can solve this problem by easily detaching and grouping together tabs (all email accounts in one window, all bank accounts in another, …). Unfortunately Firefox does not allow me to detach tabs the way Safari can, but I’ve found a very good solution: Duplicate Tab 1.0.2. A nifty Firefox add-on that allows you to detach tabs and merge windows. So if you use Safari, I would suggest to set the above hidden preference, while if you prefer Firefox, choose the option to open new pages in a new tab and install the Duplicate Tab add-on. In any case, don’t let your browser degrade your Clipperz experience! Thanks to Dennis and John for the tips! picture from inju Flickr photostream [Less]

Giulio and I are looking for a job. We have been working at Clipperz for almost 3 years, investing our own money, time and energy. We cannot afford it any longer. But don’t worry for the future of your favorite password manager, since we will take ... [More] into consideration only job proposals that leave us enough free time to keep the service running. We won’t stop its development and we will continue to provide support to the about 20,000 registered users. Moreover, there will always be the option to run the Clipperz Community Edition on your own server. To date Clipperz is a success and a failure all at the same time. A success because thousands of users love the service and because the underlying zero-knowledge architecture is enjoying a growing acceptance and has spurred a stimulating debate over privacy and freedom for web applications. A failure because we were unable to tell investors a convincing and easy-to-grasp story and therefore they didn’t see the huge business opportunity arising from zero-knowledge web applications. The presentation below is our latest attempt to tell this story. Hopefully better than we did before. Feel free to send in your suggestions and to forward the presentation to reputable and passionate investors that could find it interesting. And, as usual, donations are always welcome! An introduction to Clipperz [Less]

Lately Giulio and I have been busy helping with the organization of BookCamp, a barcamp focused on books, ebooks and digital publishing. Is there any direct relationship between a password manager and the future of books? Not really, but we do ... [More] like books and we would like to see more freedom in the publishing industry. The BookCamp will be a wonderful chance to discuss next generation textbooks, print-on-demand, ebook readers, why DRM (better known as Digital Restrictions Management) is bad and many other topics. Richard Stalmann, President of the Free Software Foundation, will deliver a speech (via phone) with a quite straight title: “Fighting the Swindle of DRM on E-Books”. See you at Castel Sismondo in Rimini, next Friday, starting at 16.00. Italian will be the official language, but anyone is welcome! “Thanks Gutenberg. So long.” (Mario Guaraldi, publisher) [Less]