setting userPassword in OpenLDAP

I few weeks ago I installed OpenLDAP on my Debian box.
During the install it asked me for a password, so I
set it to one. In an older version, I used to set
write access and the password in my /etc/openldap/slapd.conf
file. Now what I have is an entry in dn: cn=admin,dc=mydomain,dc=com
under the object userPassword.

First of all (good chance I do not understand the ACL's in slapd.conf:),
is the userPassword object, by definition, the means by which I
am authenticated for write access?

How do I change this value. The field has CRYPT{xxxxxx}

v/r
Mike