November 13, 1998 Shareware Fee: $10 The MacLocksmith Download (187k) Pros: effective, create stand-alone encrypted archives, inexpensive Cons: some minor design flaws    The MacLocksmith from YellowSoft is a utility for protecting your files or folders through encryption. It is very straight forward and easy to use: drag a file or folder onto The MacLocksmith icon, or its main window, and you will be prompted to assign a password for the file. It then encrypts the file and deletes the original. Decrypting is as simple as double clicking it and entering the password again. But that means you'll need to have The MacLocksmith installed on whatever computer you'll be decrypting the file. To overcome this, The MacLocksmith has the ability to create stand alone "Cryptets" that contain the password feature built-in. The process for creating a Cryptet is somewhat tedious, though. You must first encrypt the file or folder as you normally would, then select "New Cryptet" from the File menu. You then locate the encrypted archive and The MacLocksmith will make a Cryptet, but it leaves behind the originally encrypted archive so if you'll have to go back and manually delete it if you don't want two copies of it. It would be nice if you could select a box at the password screen, before you encrypt the file, that says "Make Cryptet." You can also download the free YellowExtractor that, among other things, will be able to decrypt The MacLocksmith archives.    The MacLocksmith has another small design quirk as well. If you drag and drop a file from within the Finder onto The MacLocksmith's main window, because of the way drag and drop works you won't be switched to that application. The MacLocksmith will then bring up an alert message telling you that it needs you attention, where you can then encrypt the file. It would be great to see a system extension or contextual menu module that would integrate The MacLocksmith into the Finder, similar to what Aladdin does with Stuffit Deluxe and Private File, so that you could bypass the application all together.    Nevertheless, The MacLocksmith is an effective and inexpensive utility for easy encryption.   -MS