Password Extravaganza

For some time now, I’ve been thinking that I needed to start changing passwords. Though I’m a sysadmin by trade, and therefore security is a very important aspect of everything I do, I too had fallen into a rut of using too few passwords and too little security for things. Not that I would use one password for everything, but I had about five or six passwords, with a few variations, that I would use everywhere. The passwords were ranked in order of security, so one was used for very high security things, another for less secure things, all the way down to an almost throw-away password for sites where I didn’t really care. But having the iPhone I figured I should be able to find something that would help me keep track of more than just a few passwords. A few applications came into view, but one seemed to have the best features for me: 1Password.
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Even More iPhone Apps

So a combination of having had the iPhone for a while longer, and at least one friend who now has an iPod touch (and therefore asked me about which apps I have on my phone) has prompted me to revisit the list of apps I posted here before. As a side note, I started typing this up using the WordPress app on the phone, keeping it as a local draft until I was ready to add HTML elements and such – once I flip to landscape mode, my twin thumbs of fury can whip out text pretty quick :> As for the apps on my phone, I’ve finally bought some, even more than I’d anticipated I would. But most of the apps I install are still free.  Initially I planned to do this as a plain list of the new apps, but I think I’ll retouch on the ones mentioned before as well since my opinion has changed on a couple (and so I don’t have to keep looking back to see if I mentioned it before :> )
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One Week Of iPhoning

Last Friday I got my new iPhone.  I’ve been playing with it quite a bit since then, and learning what it can (and can’t) do, and can honestly say I think I’ll never go back to a “dumb” phone again.  In fact I sometimes wonder how I got along as long as I have with the cobbled together methods I used to use for keeping track of things.

So, the phone is not really new – it’s a refurbished one – but it’s new to me.  AT&T offered a price drop on refurbished units, so with a two year contract they were now $149 for the 16GB model.  Considering I’d figured on a way to pare my library down small enough to fit that and not feel unhappy about it, and the price was now right – combined with my Sony Ericsson w600i being four years old – it was finally time to place an order.  It took me almost no time at all on Friday to get it activated and get all of my contacts and information into the phone to at least be able to use it for the rest of the day until I could spend some time tweaking the settings and getting everything just how I want it.  Using Google Sync to first get all my contacts into Google, and then sync them over the air with push notifications to my phone directly, that’s just beautiful (and much better than having to keep everything nice and neat on the laptop, and using bluetooth to sync with my phone, like I did with my last phone).  Having calendar items get changed in one place and that pushes out to my phone within a few minutes finally makes it worthwhile to use and keep a calendar of my day.  Yes, I’d been using Google Calendar anyway, and even have iCal on the Macs synchronized to those calendars, but I don’t always have my laptop with me so it’s hard to discuss availability with someone (or check my schedule in general) when I’m not in my office or at home.  And the fact that I can share calendars with Stephanie, so she can post events that she’s doing – or we can post family events on a calendar to see when we’re all planning something – means I also don’t have to “check with the wife” for everything if someone asks me what I’m doing next Saturday.

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To My iPhoney Friends: I Need Apps!

With yesterday’s price cut on refurbished iPhones (plus some other recent events and changes) the device is finally at a point where I can justify replacing my 3rd-gen iPod and Sony-Ericcson w600i, both slightly younger than dirt.

Since apps for the iPhone don’t necessarily have free trials, what ones do you use and why?  Which apps can you not live without?  Which ones did you buy and wish you’d spent the cash on a cup of lousy coffee instead?