Yesterday, I wrote my review of 1Password, the OS X application, but I didn’t go into detail about some of Agile Web Solutions’ other offerings that help make 1Password even better. One example is my1Password, a service that AWS will provide (either for free or at cost, unknown at this point) that ties in with 1Password. my1Password is currently in private beta, and the only reason that I have access is because everyone who bought the January 2008 MacHeist Bundle got an invite. However, I have been trying it out for quite awhile, and so here is my review.
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Tags: 1Password, Agile Web Solutions, my1Password, online, passwords, review, security, service

The other day, I was showing off 1Password, one of the apps that I use most frequently on OS X, to a friend. I was subsequently surprised to discover that I’ve apparently never actually reviewed it on my blog. Well, actually, that’s partially true: I reviewed it back in 2006, when it was still called 1Passwd and wasn’t that good, but that post no longer appears on here (since I recently cleared out my fairly lame old posts from before January 2007). In fact, the only real mention that I have of it on this blog was its awesome iPhone/iPod touch app I reviewed a month ago. However, 1Password has gone through revolutionary changes since I reviewed it in 2006, and now I’ve been using the app for almost a year, and it’s been getting better and better. And so today, I’m going to make things right by reviewing 1Password, the application, today, and tomorrow, I’ll be reviewing a new 1Password service that I have invite-only access to and have been playing around with.
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Tags: 1Password, Agile Web Solutions, applications, identities, keychain, Mac, passwords, review, security, wallet

I’m currently writing this blog post on an iPod touch at my local Apple Store, thanks to the WordPress App for the iPhone/iPod touch. Writing on this onscreen keyboard is still a little bit clunky, but I’m certainly doing it faster now than I was doing when I first picked up an iPhone here a year ago.

As i’m sure many of my readers are aware, I’ve been a very longtime holdout when it comes to iPods and iPhones. In fact, as I described in a recent blog post (boy, I wish this thing had a way to let me copy and paste links), my opinion of the iPods (including the touch) has been that they pretty much didn’t do anything that I couldn’t already do on my laptop. True, these things ate more mobile, but just how many of the mobile features that these things offered did I really need to have with me when my laptop was not handy?

But now this darned thing called the App Store is out. Not only has it wowed certain influential tech reviewers like David Pogue (if you haven’t seen his latest video about the App Store, you’re missing out on something GREAT), but it’s even making me take another look at these pocket-sized wonders.

Twitterriffic is certainly one of those Mac apps that has ported over very nicely to the iPhone/iPod touch, but it actually extends the ability of Twitter to reflect what you are actually doing. After all, most if us certainly don’t spend every moment of the day doing things just in the computer, so for Twitter to realize its full potential, it has to be the kind of service that can go mobile. I’ve had the chance to try Twitterrific on the iPod touch, and it has really felt like a nice transformation from its beautifully-simplistic interface on the Mac to an equally beautiful and simplistic interface on the touch. I could easily see it making me 50% more active on Twitter.

WordPress, the app that I am using right now to write this blog post, is also a very interesting examplenof what’s possible. After downloading this app onto here, all I had to do was enter the URL of my blog along with the username and password for my WordPress admin panel and boom, I was in my admin via the app with the ability to edit my past posts or write a new one, like I’m doing now. I could totally see using this to write a brief blog post from somewhere, although maybe not a really long one like I’m doing now.

1Password has not yet gotten their iPhone version out yet, but after seeing the preview that they posted on their blog, it’s another app I’m quite interested in. One of it’s abilities is supposed to be allowing you to generate super-tough and super-safe passwords, but I’ve been a bit slow at getting many of my passwords safe because I wouldn’t remember them if I needed to login from somewhere else and didn’t have 1Password there to autofill the info for me. Between having 1Password on the iPhone/iPod touch and the my1Password service, however, both of which are coming up soon, I could really have a nice solution for keeping track of my passwords and keeping them secure.

OmniFocus for the iPhone/iPod touch, however, has GOT to be the deal-clincher for me. Since I bought the Mac version at Macworld in January, I’ve been working on adopting OmniFocus and getting used to using it to help me organize the various tasks surrounding my life (and try to reduce stress as well). The problem, however, is that it lives on my computer, which I don’t have with me at places like school and other places where I really need to have it handy to add actions to (as well as reminding me of what actions I need to get done). OmniFocus for iPhone/iPod touch, however, would eliminate that problem by letting me have my OmniFocus lists with me to get to, and let me sync them with the ones on my computer. Add in those awesome mobile-only features like location-aware contexts, and it’s about time to put the “Slippery With Drool” signs out.

While I’m still not interested in the iPhone (unless someone wants to donate the $70/month AT&T plan to me, since I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford that and don’t like AT&T anyway), I’m starting to show a bit of interest in the iPod touch for the first time. It may have just been a touchscreen wifi media player when it first came out, but now, thanks to the App Store, I’m convinced that it’s the best PDA out there, and one that I’m really getting interested in. However, I’ll keep waliting until Apple releases their next line of iPods (likely this fall) until I start saving.

P.S. Do yourself a favor to maintain your sanity. Don’t write a post as long as this on an iPhone or iPod touch. It takes too much patience.

Tags: 1Password, App Store, Apple, applications, iPhone, iPod touch, OmniFocus, Twitter, Twitterriffic, WordPress

Well, MacHeist has just sweetened their 2008 bundle for the last time. They’re trying to get $300,000 raised for charity through bundle sales within the next three days. I must say, over the last two weeks their bundle has certainly improved in its impressiveness factor, and so I’m probably planning to buy it and do my part.

However, there are three applications in the bundle which I will not be taking advantage of. I already have a license for 1Password, which is an awesome password managing tool for Mac OS X. I know that a lot of people really like Snapz Pro X, but personally I’ve never figured it out, and I have a license for iShowU, another app which does the same thing. And as for Wingnuts 2, I’m not particularly planning to play that kind of game. (However I’ll be keeping my hands on the mini golf game because it seems interesting, and even if I don’t like it, I’m sure my younger brother would.)

But anyway, I will be giving away a license each to 1Password, Snapz Pro X, and Wingnuts 2 from the bundle. MacHeist allows me to specially designate these licenses to you when I do the check out for the bundle, so these will be licenses especially for you with your name on them. If you weren’t planning to get yourself the full MacHeist bundle but are interested in one (or more) of these three apps, this is a great opportunity to get them free!

How does it work? Post a comment to this post on Webmacster87.info telling me which app(s) you would be interested in getting for free and why you want it/them. The deadline to make your comment is 7:00 AM Eastern time (4:00 AM Pacific time) on Tuesday morning, January 22nd–this essentially gives you 38 hours. I will announce the selected winners Tuesday morning, and will purchase the bundle Tuesday afternoon (the licenses for these three apps will go out to the winners at that time, and the licenses for the remaining 11 apps will come to me for my own personal use). Please be sure that when you post your comment you enter your Name and E-mail Address exactly as you want it to appear in the license for the app(s) you’re interested in. If no one is interested in a particular app, then I’ll just keep the license and file it away somewhere.

Also, do you plan to purchase the MacHeist Bundle, but haven’t yet? PLEASE use this referral link to buy the bundle! I really really would like to get a free license for LaunchBar, and if you buy the bundle through that referral link, I get LaunchBar for free! (If you use my referral link to give me LaunchBar before Tuesday afternoon, I’m willing to use your referral link as well to return the favor.)

Again, thanks to MacHeist for putting on such a great event, and doing it for a good cause. And, thanks to all the developers who are throwing their apps into the ring for this excellent cause as well!

Tags: 1Password, applications, bundle, contest, LaunchBar, licenses, MacHeist, referral, Software