From the Wikipedia Article:
John Dennis (1657 - January 6, 1734), was an English critic and dramatist, born in London, the son of a saddler.
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His other works include several plays, for one of which, Appius and Virginia (1709), he invented a new kind of thunder. The play was not a success and the management of the Drury Lane Theatre withdrew it. But later at a performance of Macbeth there Dennis found the thunder produced by his method and said, That is my thunder, by God; the villains will play my thunder, but not my play.
According to Brewer's entry (under the headword thunder), this is the origin of the phrase, "to steal one's thunder".
Outside of possibly saving me if I ever get to appear on Jeopardy, it reminds me of a new feature that we implemented in 1Password a short time ago that has pretty much been overshadowed by the new Sync to iPhone feature. The new functionality comes in the form of a new import/export format named 1Password Interchange. I really bugged the development team hard for this feature and I am very proud of how it turned out. So in an attempt to get some thunder back for the 1Password Interchange format I wanted to explain what makes it so great and how it can be used.
1. An additional backup method
1Password already does automatic backups and you can manually backup the 1Password keychain at any time by clicking on the File Menu in the main program and selecting Backup Keychain. However, these backups are still in the Apple Keychain format. The 1Password Interchange File is a structured plain text file that can be imported instead of just copied. (more on the power of this in #2)
2. Manual Syncing (SneakerSync)
In the early days of personal computers Local Area Networks (LANs) were not prevalent as they were expensive and difficult to setup. When someone wanted to copy a file from one computer to another they would copy the file to a floppy disk, walk to the other computer, insert the floppy, and copy it onto the other computer. This was referred to as SneakerNet which was a play on Ethernet (a LAN standard) and referred to the walking part. With the 1Password Interchange file you can import the exported 1Password Interchange File on another Mac to sync information from one Mac to another manually. I refer to this as SneakerSync. :)
You can export all the entries from 1Password:
or you can select certain entries and only export those:
You can name the export file anything you desire or use the default:
You can then use any method available to copy the exported file to the other Mac including LAN (or Wireless) transfer, FTP transfer, USB thumb drive, CD/DVD, or e-mail. (not recommended)
Importing the 1Password Interchange File on the other Mac is both easy and powerful because not only does 1Password check the data that is already in the destination Mac's 1Password, it allows you to customize exactly what to import and where to import it.
On the other Mac, you select Import from the File menu and choose 1Password Interchange from the list of import types as shown here:
Click on the Choose File button to select the file that you exported and copied earlier.
A preview of the data will be shown and the Encoding method will be automatically set. If the data does not look correct, change the encoding method until it is readable. Here is an example of what it looks like:
Click Start Import to continue the process. Now comes the part that makes this so powerful for syncing. Take a look at the this screen:
Notice that the Action column shows two different actions? (Update and Create) If 1Password sees that there is already an existing item in the destination Mac's keychain it will update that item. If the item does not exist then it will create a new item on that Mac. Therefore, it is safe to import everything without worrying about duplicates. However, you can use the gear menu to make the import more granular and faster by only selecting a subset of the entries.
Clicking on the gear menu displays these options:
You can use these options to customize what items will be imported.
By default, 1Password will merge the imported items in with your current data. However, if you wanted to have all the imported items put into a special folder you can do this by typing in a folder name as shown below:
Once you determine which items you want to import, click on the Import # Selected Objects at the bottom and they will be processed into 1Password.
Using the above procedure, you can sync the data from multiples Macs to each other.
3. Moving your 1Password data to another Mac
Maybe you got a new MacBook to add to your stable of Macs or perhaps you upgraded from a G5 iMac to a new Intel iMac. You could install 1Password on the new Mac and then copy the 1Password.keychain file located in the User_Name >> Library >> Keychains folder of your current Mac to the same folder on the new Mac to get all your 1Password data onto the new Mac. However, the preferred method is to Export All as 1Password Interchange File on your current Mac and then import the file into the blank keychain that was created on the new Mac. This eliminates any chance of permission issues cropping up and is just as fast. Just follow the same procedure in #2 above. All of the entries will have Create listed in the Action column.
4. Resolving Browser Permission Issues
As you update browser versions, install new browsers, and/or remove browsers from your Mac the Access Control List (ACL) on the 1Password keychain can end up with extraneous permissions or duplicates. One way to fix this issue is to use the Rebuild Keychain from the Help menu in the main 1Password application. However, this does not work in all cases. 1Password Interchange to the rescue! The procedure listed below is pretty much the same as what we looked at in #2, but for ease of use I am listing the ordered steps below.
Rebuilding a keychain using the 1Password Interchange Format to Export and Re-Import the data
1. Load the main 1Password application
2. Click on the File menu and select Export All >> 1Password Interchange File...
3. Note the Filename and Folder and click on the Export button. A Finder window will open showing the file.
4. Exit 1Password
5. Rename the 1Password.keychain file located in the User_Name >> Library >> Keychains folder to 1Password.keychain.mybackup
6. Restart 1Password
7. Since there is no keychain you will see the Welcome Screen. Click on the icon next to "Create 1Password Keychain File" to create a new keychain
8. Choose and confirm the 1Password master password and click on the Create Keychain File button
9. Click the OK button and then Click the Start Using 1Password button
10. Quit 1Password
11. Restart 1Password
12. Click on the File menu and select Import
13. Use the pull down menu and select 1Password Interchange File and then click the Continue button
14. Click on the Choose File button and select the file from Step 3
15. Use the pulldown menu to Select ASCII for the Encoding method
16. Click the Start Import button
17. Click on the Import xxx Selected Objects button
I hope that I have shown what a powerful tool the 1Password Interchange format is and that its multiple uses bring a lot more power to 1Password. I would love to hear your comments. We now return you to more posts related to 1Password and the iPhone. :)
