The folks at CallPod gave me a license key to their Keeper product and asked me to do a review.  This is a first for me, because I typically only review stuff I would have bought anyway.  I did my best to remain objective in my review – the fact that it was free was tempered by the fact that it wasn’t a product I typically would have bought.  But I did want to make sure I was up front about how I got the product.  OK so on to the review!

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There are a  number of utilities that have sprung up of late that are designed to help folks keep track of their various passwords.  We are constantly being given opportunities to create user IDs and their attendant security information, and unless you use the same stable of passwords, keeping track of all of them become difficult.  For sites you visit often, it’s not a problem.  But for occasional use sites (like credit cards, affinity programs, retirement accounts and the like), I always have a devil of a time trying to remember my security phrase or password or whatever.  The tool I use, however, does not sync with the iPhone, so I can’t access my information when I’m away from my PC.  Keeper resolves that disconnect.

Keeper has both a desktop and a mobile component.  The desktop component is compatible with Mac, PC, and Linux, while the mobile component will run on the iPhone/iTouch, Android, and Vodaphone.  I ran Keeper on a Windows 7 laptop with the iPhone mobile component.  The mobile component is free; the desktop component is $19.95 regardless of platform.  I took a quick look at other similar applications available through iTunes to do a price comparison.  mSecure runs $2.99 for its mobile component but the desktop component is $14.99.  And SplashID is $9.99 but doesn’t have a desktop component as far as I can tell.  eWallet runs $9.99 for the desktop component and $9.99 for the iPhone component – you get the idea.  About $20 seems to be the sweet spot for these types of programs.

When you install and launch Keeper, you’re greeted with the above screen.  You pick a master password (preferably a complex one) and enter it twice.  It is critical to not forget this password.  You only get five attempts to log in after setting the master password; after that, Keeper wipes your data.  I couldn’t find a way to change the login attempts allowed to be more than five – if it’s not a feature, I’d suggest making it a future enhancement.  This is very important because the password you set in Keeper desktop has to match the password you set in Keeper mobile to allow syncing to occur.  Complex desktop phrases suddenly become a lot harder to enter when tapping on the iPhone’s virtual keypad.

The data entry interface is pretty straightforward.  The Folder field allows you to group sets of accounts by type.  The Title field allows you to name the specific entry.  The Login and Password fields are self-explanatory and the Notes field is pretty much your catchall for anything else.  A few more fields would have been nice, specifically things like URL and PIN.  I ended up using the Notes field to store those, plus things like answers to security questions.

The Settings allow some level of customization of the data entry fields, as well as timeout settings and data storage.  There is also a way to import and export your password database.  Exports can be for backup purposes, or you can print your database to PDF, text, or Excel.  Only the export to text file option allows for encrypting of the output.

The mobile component is very similar to the desktop component.  Options are limited, but how many options do programs like this really need?  You do have the option of turning off the self-destruct of the database if you fail to enter the correct password.  I thought this was an interesting option – on the one hand, you kind of want the database gone if someone tries to access your info.  On the other hand, I ended deleting my database three times either because I couldn’t remember my master password or because I mis-typed my complex (but easily typed on the desktop) password.  Again, balancing act – complex enough to make it difficult to guess but simple enough to enter easily on the virtual keyboard.  It’s a tough choice.

The login page shown is a bit deceptive because it defaults to numeric entry.  This particular page is only shown when you launch the app for the first time and need to set a master password.  I’d originally set a numeric password when I launched the mobile component, but then later had to reset the master password for the mobile app when I wanted to sync (more on that later).  Once the master password is set, however, you get a more standard login screen with a single password field and the alpha keyboard, rather than the numeric one.

I would suggest that Keeper look at using two different passwords on the mobile app.  The first password should allow access to the mobile app, while the second password should be the one used for syncing, and be forced to match the password on the desktop component.  This way, you can set a simpler password to allow quick entry to the application when you need it but you still retain a complex password for keeping the desktop and mobile versions coordinated.

Callpod will allow a one-time backup of your password database.  You pick a security question and provide an email address.  The mobile app then backs up your database to the Callpod servers.  When you want to restore from that backup, you provide the email address you used when you created the backup.  Callpod emails an access code to that email address, which you then enter into the mobile app.  Once entered, you must provide the answer to the security question you chose when you backed up the file.

But what most interested me about Keeper was the mobile/desktop syncing.  It works over Wi-Fi and it’s pretty slick.  You activate syncing on both the mobile app and the desktop app.

On the mobile app, you get an IP address plus a numeric key.  You enter this information on the desktop component, decide how you want the syncing to be done, and hit the Sync button.  The process is pretty quick and fairly bulletproof.  I tried syncing five or six different times and had only one failure.  I just re-tried the sync immediately however, and was able to sync just fine, so it’s not like failure means hours of troubleshooting.

Overall, I was pleased with Keeper and thought it was a solid product.  If you’re hesitant about buying it outright, the mobile component is a free iTunes download, so you can try it before you buy the desktop companion.  Callpod’s willingness to host a backup instance for free gives you a way to store your passwords securely, so if you don’t add tons of accounts on a regular basis, it’s possible for you to set up all your important passwords on the mobile version, have Callpod store a backup, and be about your merry way.  (Not sure that the Callpod folks are going to be happy about this suggestion!)

The biggest problem with Keeper (and other apps like it) is something they will not be able to solve on their own.  I am referring to the lack of multitasking on the iPhone, which makes products like this totally annoying to use.  I can’t just flip back and forth between Safari and Keeper on the iPhone – instead, I have to log into Keeper every time I want to access a different secure site.  It significantly deteriorates the usability of the application through no fault of Callpod’s.  I think an app like this would be great for the iPad, which is much more intended to provide a complete web experience.  However, the lack of multitasking on THAT platform will also make things annoyingly frustrating.  For a company that talks all about the user experience, Apple is having a harder and harder time justifying the lack of multitasking on its portable products.

Would I buy Keeper based on my experience with it?  Honestly, I’m not sure.  For a long time after I got my iPhone, I was looking for some way to view my passwords for American Express and Ameritrade and the like.  But since I couldn’t find anything that I was willing to pay for, I actually ended up learning the passwords.  If there were an easy way for me to switch between Keeper and Safari, or have Keeper pass URL, user ID, and password information to a Safari session, I think this software would be totally worth it.  But given the frustrations of flipping back and forth between Safari and Keeper, I just couldn’t see myself using it on a regular enough basis to justify its cost.  Your mileage may vary.

I used to be an ardent Dell fan.  Over the years, I’ve bought four Dell laptops, at least one Dell desktop, and two printers from that company.  But over the past two years, Dell’s gone on a marked downturn, and their products have gotten progressively worse.  More importantly the customer service that made them famous has gone by the wayside in their desire to outsource everything possible.  So when my Dell AIO went on the fritz and refused to work under Windows 7 (and this is a printer I’d bought less than a year ago, mind you), I swore I’d never buy another Dell product again.  (More specifically, I raged at that stupid Dell printer with the fury of a thousand brilliant suns and almost went Office Space on that POS before deciding to donate it to a local AIDS thrift store.)  So I found myself in the market for a new printer/copier/scanner.  After extensive reading at Amazon, I picked out this HP unit.

The C309 is a relatively svelte machine, especially compared to the behemoth that was my Dell (hatred and denigration of Dell products will be a theme throughout this post, so if you’re a Dell fanboy, just leave now).  It came in a ginormous Amazon box.  I tried to take some unboxing pictures but my iPhone apparently was operated by an epileptic on crack so I’ll be sticking to stock photos.

The C309 is a wireless/wired photoprinting AIO unit with a duplexer.  I was dreading the setup for this printer because my experience trying to set up the wireless printing on the Dell was a Chtulian nightmare.  And after all the pain of setup, the wireless printing never worked right, leaving my fiancee and I passing USB cables back and forth to print.  So you can imagine my complete surprise and amazement when the manual gave me a completely wireless setup option.  And not only was it an option, the option actually worked!

Coincidentally, I’d bought a new router about a year or so ago.  One of the features it had was something called a WPS button, which supposedly would pass all necessary wireless settings to any WPS-equipped device.  The C309 is one such device, so when the printer booted up and asked for a WPS signal, I was able to have it connected to my network in about three minutes.  It was amazing.  The touchscreen confirmed my SSID, asked for my network password, and went through a few more confirmation questions.  The software installation took longer than the connection to my home network.  If I have to ding HP on something, it’s the fact that they have ALWAYS released bloated software.  This thing was fatter than a pregnant cow with triplets.  It also had a very annoying feature that forced an immediate reboot.  I lost several web pages that I hadn’t had a chance to bookmark because the install program shut down my laptop.  Make sure you’ve saved everything important before you install the HP monitoring software.

That one bit of nastiness aside, I was connected to the printer and testing within probably 15-20 minutes.  But the biggest test was connecting my fiancee’s laptop to the printer.  Again, HP pulled through.  The second installation was as smooth as the first.  Within 30 minutes, both of us were printing to the C309 sans wires.  The duplexer works just fine, but it’s a bit slow because the printer automatically waits for the ink to dry before flipping the page.

Speaking of ink, the C309 uses individual ink cartridges.  There are five altogether – four for photos (including a photo black) and one for text.  I haven’t priced the ink out in great detail, but I do recall seeing sets of photo ink for this printer in the $25 range, which isn’t terrible.  The POS Dell’s ink was so expensive I actually considered buying a new printer rather than replace the ink.  Instead I just didn’t print anything (which was good, since I couldn’t print anyways).

The other awesome thing is that HP provides an iPhone printing app.  The HP iPrint will let you print pictures directly from your iPhone to any compatible HP printer.  Launching the iPrint app, I was able to detect my printer and send a test print to it with zero setup.  Tres cool.

I’d never really been a fan of HP products before, but if the C309 is any indication of the typical quality and ease-of-use that HP is putting into their designs now, they’ve just become my favorite PC hardware manufacturer.

January is the top month for gym memberships enrollment.  Everybody resolves to get into better shape.  And come February, the peak volume of January declines to normal levels as everyone quits.  I know that my gym is filled with noobs right now – we’ll see how long that lasts.

For those of you who don’t want to pay for a gym membership, body weight exercises provide effective exercise with minimal equipment and space requirements.  And they’re not a wuss-out form of exercise, either – studies have shown that bodyweight exercises will build mass, reduce fat, and get you in shape just as efficiently as weight equipment, if you do it right.  In order to help you do it right, a company called BrainBakery has created a suite of iPhone applications and a supporting web site under the moniker GymFu.

The GymFu line consists of four iPhone applications – CrunchFu, SquatFu, PushupFu, and PullupFu.  They run $0.99 each.  There is also a free version of SquatFu called SquatFu Lite that limits you to 30 reps but gives you a chance to try out the product line.  I downloaded three of these apps – I did not buy PullupFu because I don’t have a pullup bar.  The other three exercises only require some floor space to test out.

The basic concept behind all the apps are the same.  Each application trains you to reach a target goal for the given exercise.  For pushups, the target is 100 reps; for squats and crunches the target is 200 reps; and for pullups the target is 50 reps.  There are two modes.  The training mode is used to progress towards the target reps for the exercise, while battle mode allows you to compete against other GymFu members.  In order to use battle mode, you need to create a GymFu.com account (which I didn’t do).  If you create an account, you can post your progress to GymFu.com and see how you compare against other users of the app.

GymFu’s apps, however, don’t just record your progress – they make sure you’re doing each exercise correctly by using the iPhone/iTouch’s accelerometer to figure out if your rep was a good rep.  They only count the good ones, so the apps help keep you honest and make sure you’re doing a full range of motion.

To start off, each application gives you a short tutorial on what proper form looks like for the exercise in question.  It also gives instructions on how to mount the iPhone/iTouch for best sensitivity.  The app then has you go through a leveling section, where it tries to figure out at what level to put you into.  There are ten stages to the training but you can skip several of them depending on how many reps you can do when you first start out.

Each training session consists of five rounds.  The first four rounds have set target reps, depending on where in the progression you are currently at.  The fifth round is an “as many as possible” round, used to help determine whether to move you on to the next level or drop you down some.  Each training stage consists of three “days”; once you pass the 10th stage, you reach a finale where you perform the target number of max reps in one go.

The apps count your reps for each round.  They will also tell you if the rep was a half-assed one or if the rep was done incorrectly.  In use, I found this part to be a little annoying – it’s highly dependent on proper placement and perfect form.  It’s also important to get a strap that will fit you.  That’s not a problem for arm straps but finding an arm strap that will also fit around your thigh (for the squats) will be a bit of a challenge.

The default voice is a bit mechanical but if you sign up for an account, you can download two additional voices.

Since I belong to a gym and work out on a regular basis there, I didn’t use these apps as much as I thought I would.  However, for people who want to exercise in their homes and want a way to keep themselves honest and motivated, these apps are as good as anything else.  They’re also probably a better workout than a Wii Fit and a heck of a lot less expensive.

I’ve recently re-jailbroken my iPhone.  Primarily this was to get access to two apps that the App Store refused to carry (uMonitor and GV Mobile), plus I really like skinning my interface (hint hint, Apple!  For a company that claims to be about individuality, you make it damn difficult to customize your products).  I have a 3G iPhone so I can’t do much with it.  But I saw a few posts on a variety of iPhone and gadget blogs talking about a multitasking application called ProSwitcher.  It looked interesting enough that I wanted to try it out.  I’ve been using it for about two weeks now and I gotta say that these guys have a great idea.

The basic concept of ProSwitcher is to replicate on the iPhone an interface similar to that of the Palm Pre.  It is a front end to Backgrounder, an app that allows you to set certain apps to run in the background.  Backgrounder is a must-have app for jailbroken iPhones but it has a distinctly minimalist interface, plus switching among the various running apps requires the standard interface actions so it’s hard to keep track of what’s running in the background.

When installed, ProSwitcher creates an icon plus a Settings entry.  You never need to touch the ProSwitcher app itself – everything is handled through its Settings.

The settings primarily revolve around how ProSwitcher is activated, though there are a number of other parameters that can be set using the interface.

The activation options are many and varied, and you should play around with them to figure out which method works for you.  When activated, ProSwitcher cards look very Pre-like.

There are a small set of dots underneath the application title – these describe the number of running apps.  To switch between the apps, just flick the cards left or right.  To close a running app, just hit the “X” button in the top left corner.  You can activate any of the dock icons directly as well as flicking between the active apps.  And that’s pretty much it.

The main issue I had with ProSwitcher was that I didn’t have an iPhone 3GS.  On the faster processor with the larger free memory, I’m sure this app would have been really amazing.  But on a 3G, the lack of RAM plus the slow processor makes this app worthless for running more than three or four apps at the same time, and since two of those slots are typically taken up by the Mail and Phone apps, and since I use my iPod app more than just about any other app on my phone, I was pretty much only single-tasking anyways.  But if you’ve got a jailbroken 3GS, definitely check out ProSwitcher.  I think it’s a great little app, and the fact that it’s (currently) freeware is even more amazing.  I was going to buy MultiFl0w, the other highly rated multitasking manager, but I’m glad I tried ProSwitcher first.  Not because it’s necessarily better, but because it showed me that I really don’t multitask very much.

ProSwitcher is available via Cydia.

In case folks around here hadn’t noticed, it’s gotten rather cold of late.  And one of the difficult things about being cold is that using electronics in the cold is just a rotten experience.  In tech’s never ending quest for miniaturization, designers seem to forget that there may be impediments between your tech and your hands that prevent proper usage.  I speak, of course, of the glove, bane of gadgetlovers everywhere there is snow and ice and freezing rain.  This problem is a lot worse with devices that use capacitative screens, such as the iPhone/iTouch.  Those devices rely on the electrical resistance provided by skin to do their thing.  In the case of the iPhone, you can’t even make an emergency call without touching the screen.  DOTS gloves were designed to address this issue.

The company itself is a couple years old.  I remember reading about them last year but by the time I’d gotten around to ordering them, they were out of stock.  They also only had one model last year if I remember correctly; this year they have three.  And this year, I went and ordered my pair early before winter really started so that I could be assured of having a set.

The DOTS gloves work by providing a small patch of thermally conductive fabric on two fingers plus the thumb portions of the gloves.

(Please excuse the crud on the gloves – the large animal in the background enjoys gloves for breakfast and dinner, and it’s a constant battle to ensure the gloves survive their daily use.)  If you look closely, you can see the two dots on the tips of the first and second fingers of the glove.  A similar dot adorns the thumb.

The conductive patch allows the gloves to pass electrical resistance from your skin to your device while keeping your hands warm and comfortable.  They come in three sizes – small, medium, and large.  My advice is to err on the smaller side.

I purchased the D200 model, which is their warmest one.  I originally ordered the medium and then ended up switching them for the small.  It’s critical to have a tight fit with these gloves, and the medium made me feel like my hands were swimming inside fabric.  Even with the smalls, my hands still have plenty of room, and therein lies the problem.

The gloves themselves do OK at keeping your hands warm.  They aren’t going to be a lot of use in really intense cold but then again, few mass market gloves will, so that’s not a big problem.  I’d rate them at about the same level as a good pair of Isotoners.  But in terms of letting you use your iPhone while gloved, I’d have to rate them as only so-so.  I don’t know if other reviewers had really big hands or if there’s a smaller size I could have gotten that would have fit better but I just couldn’t get the gloves to be tight enough against my skin that the dots would consistently make contact.  And without that contact, it’s like wiping a microfiber cloth against your screen – nothing happens.

I freely admit that I have delicate hands – my piano teacher called them bird hands they were so thin.  But in a way, I represent a subsegment of the potential user base that DOTS is eventually going to have to figure out how to handle, namely women.  I can’t imagine that women would find the size small versions to be a good fit.  I know girls who have hands even smaller than mine, and there’s no way they would be able to use these gloves in the way they were intended.  Even women with big hands could be challenged because in general, women tend to have thinner fingers than men.  Maybe the other DOTS models provide better fit and contact, but in my daily use, I ended more often than not taking the gloves off, working my iPhone, then putting the gloves back on.  I think if they could incorporate some Lycra into the gloves so that the fit were tighter and if they made the dots bigger so that they contacted more skin surface, the gloves would work better across a wider range of people.

I like the concept of these gloves, but now that conductive thread has come out, I’m tempted to get a really close fitting pair of regular gloves and sew a couple of big fat patches onto the fingertips.  Better fit and bigger usable surface.

So today was Avatar day.  The fiancee, kids and I took in the 3:40 IMAX showing of James Cameron’s latest epic at a nearby megaplex.  I have to admit that I was not having the greatest of expectations for the movie, though I’d studiously avoided all reviews, critics, discussions, and associations with the movie to keep myself pure.  And of course I had to see the 3D version, because there was no way I was going to sit through a 2.5 hour standard movie.

We got to the theatre about 40 minutes ahead of showtime to find a rather large line.  But we only waited about 10 minutes before they let us in, and we got pretty good seats near the middle of the screen, in the row right before the dropoff to the next lower level.  I’m not sure if you’re aware but there are seats in an IMAX theatre that are useless for movie watching, and the number of bad seats increases for 3D movies.  In general, if you’re in the lower levels and on the outer ends the rows, you should probably just leave and get tickets for a less crowded showing.  This becomes critical for movies that Avatar is going to spawn because of how Cameron does 3D (more on that later).  I’m sure if you google “bad Avatar 3D seats” or some such, you’ll find plenty of articles talking about the details.  I personally have a rule that I will not sit below the midline of an IMAX movie, and for 3D movies, that rule has been amended to not sit below the midline or towards the ends of any rows.

So enough preamble – how was the movie?  In a word, amazing.  The glasses were uncomfortable at first but you get used to them really fast.  And after a bit, they disappear and you immerse into the screen.  The 3D is incredible.  Not the popout type of 3D, mind you.  That whole market has just been effectively rendered dead by Avatar.  No, this 3D was more about general depth.  There was a distinct difference between the foreground and the background, and the focus had a sense of being in front of the screen, almost as if it were being extruded from the screen itself.  And because Cameron doesn’t rely on the popout type of 3D, it means that you can’t focus on the background or you’ll get a migraine.  Flat movies can use an in-focus background to add depth to a scene or to shift attention.  If you remember Speed Racer, one of its signature visuals was that everything was in focus simultaneously, both foreground and background.  Avatar is different.  You have to look at what Cameron wants you to look at because if you don’t, the background won’t come into complete focus and it will give you a headache.  The few times I felt the most vertigo was when I was trying to pick out details in the scenery rather than watching the characters currently in focus.  That is a darn shame, because the visuals of the planetary ecology are just incredible and you want to see all the detail.  That may be the main advantage to the 2D version – you can catch more of the side stuff.

If you haven’t seen Avatar yet, I strongly urge you to see the IMAX version.  Even if you have seen the regular version, go and see the IMAX one.  I’d be pretty curious to know if you thought the movie was a deeper experience because of the 3D.  I can’t imagine seeing this moving in a flat version now, and quite frankly it’s going to color my decision to buy the DVD (Blu-ray of course).  The 3D was that good, and because it ran through the entire movie, there were no real “gotcha” moments where arrows leap off the screen or animals jump out at you.  The only times I saw anything like those types of moments were in a few scenes where ash or insects were flying around the characters – they appeared to be in midair, and seemed so natural that you almost wanted to brush them away.  I am not sure that Avatar will make a billion dollars like Titanic did.  But it will make a mint, and there will be sequels.  I’m not really looking forward to those, because the story is not anything to write home about.  But what I am certain of is that Cameron as a visual pioneer has raised the bar on immersive movie experiences and Avatar will now be the starting point for a whole new generation of movies that blend 3D into cinematography as a natural extension of filmmaking rather than as a gimmick.  My kids are going to be a bridge generation between flat screen films and true 3D, and their kids will probably grow up never knowing what a 2D film really was like.  Few people are able to advance an industry overnight.  With Avatar, Cameron joins the ranks of those few.  Absolutely amazing.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Instead of the usual answers to what are you thankful for? Family, friends, blah blah blah. I want to ask you what Free Apps are you thankful for?

It takes a lot of effort to develop applications. We should recognize the author’s efforts.

Here is my personal list to start:

• WordPress
• Shazam
• Pandora
• YouTube
• Gmail
• Google Chrome
• Google Voice
• Google Calender
• Google Apps
• Google Docs
• Firefox
• Dropbox
• Cydia (iPhone Jailbreak)
• LogMeIn Free