The Keychain on your Mac is a little application buried in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder. I say buried because I think Keychain is sadly neglected by most users. Here are some things you can do with it:

• Save web page passwords
• Save login info (aside from websites, like your IM logins)
• Save protected notes (secret stuff)

This 101 will be a little longer than usual, so I can show you how to use Keychain to store passwords and other secret things. Later, in our Secure Your Mac series, we'll talk about making a good password so all these things stay private. Full details on how to easily use Keychain after the jump.

This week's podcast covers 1Passwd, the password manager and autofill tool that brings some really unique features and multi-browser support for the Keychain to the table. For just under 8 minutes I demonstrate some of the killer features of this app that go above and beyond the norm, and the whole thing weighs in at a mere 28MB. Snag it from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. Enjoy!

1Passwd from Agile Web Solutions is one of those browser addons that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, as if its developers had an epiphany while laying in a field of not-too-prickly grass on a perfectly warm, sunny day, asking themselves: "how can we make the world a better place?"

Which browser does 1Passwd work with, you ask? Why, just about all of them. This password and identity manager integrates with nearly every major Mac OS X browser, including Safari, Firefox, Camino and OmniWeb, as well as DEVONagent and even NetNewsWire, to bring Keychain nirvana and multiple identity autofill to website forms (that's right: Firefox can use the Keychain, thanks to 1Passwd). In other words: it's an über-Keychain for your browsers, allowing you to stop caring about which one you're using, where you saved that forum's password or how you're going to fill out the umpteenth store registration. And as you might have guessed from my introduction: I kind of like 1Passwd, and a recent upgrade to v2.3 offers even more to rave about.

Most noticeably, the new version ushers in a fresh new UI, shedding the old 'n busted brushed metal for the unified look that's all the craze with 3rd party developers and lovers of good-looking software. Don't be fooled though; the new features are far more than skin deep. Folders and smart folders are now in full effect, allowing for more flexible organization of your unruly collection of logins. Another really slick new feature is 1Click Login Bookmarks, which allow you to save a bookmark with specific login credentials - perfect for sites at which you have multiple credentials. Goodbye, tedious logging in/out all day!

Plenty of other new and updated features are detailed in this blog post, and many of 1Passwd's major features, such as Firefox integration and Palm/Treo syncing, have screenshots or video demonstrations on its product page (scroll down for all the goods). A demo is available, while a single license costs a mere $30, with a 3-license family pack for $40.