One of the key rules of the Internetz is to have multiple and sophisticated passwords for everything. Unfortunately, very few of us follow that rule and simply use a minor variant of the same password for everything. If this sounds like you, then you might want to check out the Ultimate Password Manager app.

Ultimate Password Manager by Jean-Francois Martin

The Ultimate Password Manager app is a fully loaded password manager and intelligent password generator. As such, Ultimate Password Manager combines two password related features into one iPhone/iPod Touch application.

The password managing features of this app give users the ability to store their passwords in what is called a “password safe”. Users can store passwords with descriptive information such as a name, note, or description and further assign a password type and category (allows for quick retrieval). Users can also set a validity date and duration period for each password.

Since this is a security app, passwords can be set to expire, as alluded to earlier. Because passwords can be set to expire, the app provides methods of password renewal. When a password is about to expire, the specific entry is “yellow-flagged” and this allows users to prepare them for renewal. When a password completely expires, it is “red-flagged” which means the password should be renewed immediately.

To renew a password, the app provides a linked password profile function that contains rules for renewal. The profile(s) include user chosen rules for password generation. So for example, users could have a profile for specific websites, work related materials, or personal passwords. The profile feature is actually rather helpful as it saves users time from having to think up some type of complex password to use and lets users just choose a profile from which to define a password.

Aside from password management, the app doubles as a password generator. Passwords are generated by using user chosen rules, similar to what is found in the password profile. Users can select between dictionary-based, word-based and character-based passwords which further includes lowercase, uppercase, numbers and even special characters. Once the rules are chosen and password set, the app can alert users of the strength of their password.

If passwords aren’t your thing, and you’re looking for a great password manager (and generator!), give this app a look.

Ultimate Password Manager is available in the App Store for $1.99.

Ultimate Password Manager for iPhone is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

For those of you who use the PayPal iPhone app, you will be pleased to know that the app just received a major update. The interface has been revamped and new features have been added, including the ability to use the Bump iPhone app to send payments.

Here’s the description on the latest update:

PayPal’s mobile money application is
the faster way to send money with your iPhone® to friends and family anytime, anywhere. It’s much easier than going to the ATM to withdraw cash, writing checks, and sending gifts the traditional way. And you can manage your PayPal account right from your mobile device. All of this with the security and protection you get from PayPal.

What’s New In This Version:
+ Brand new look and feel!
+ Bump: Easily start by bumping iPhones.
+ Withdraw funds from your PayPal balance.
+ Request Money: Get paid faster, it’s the easy way to ask for the money you are owed.
+ Split the Check: Instantly split the bill, calculate tip, and request everyone’s share.
+ Collect Money: Ask for contributions from a group for an event, gift, or cause.
+ Set Reminders: Never miss rent or a bill.
+ Refer the app to a friend

The new update looks really nice and retains the clean interface. It adds more features than before and is easy to use. Not sure how often I’d be using the Bump functionality but it’s a great addition for existing Bump users. The PayPal app is free in the App Store.

How do you like the latest update?

PayPal iPhone App Revamped–Now With Bump is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

Doodle Kart is a doodle style top down racing game that is very much a blend of Mario Kart meet iPhone.

Doodle Kart by j2sighte

Doodle Kart is all about racing and using whatever means necessary to become first place, which includes launching objects at your opponents.

The game has a certain addictive element to it that mostly comes from its unique pen and paper “doodled” graphics. The entire game, including menus and all stages, have the look of being doodled or in other words, hand drawn.

Obstacles during a level include such items as rulers and pencils to keep with the doodle theme. However during a race, your opponents and you both have access to items and weapons that are good for whoever fires first and bad for the recipient. Items and weapons are collected by driving over flagged areas on the race track.

Weapons come in many forms, but one of the more useful weapons is a pencil which acts like a bullet and attacks opponents cars. Some of the items that can be collected include a car speed booster and an item to enlarge the car which can be used to run over opponents! There is a total of seven available items/weapons.

The game includes five different environments for a total of 25 race tracks. The opponents you race against are controlled by AI and you always race against three AI. As such, the two game modes are Single Race mode, which includes a solo race or a race against the AI, and a Championship mode, where players can unlock new environments.

Doodle Kart further includes four difficulties; Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare. There is a fifth game mode called “Dark” but I was unable to unlock it. However if it is anything like Nightmare, I think I’ll avoid it as I am not worthy!

For controls, I really appreciate the available options. Players can control the game by touch or tilt, of which I recommend touch as there are some really tight turns. Players can also opt for an Auto-gas option that enables the gas pedal for you. For screen orientation, players can race in portrait or landscape and for me, both were equally comfortable.

Doodle Kart also saves the best time for each track in a local score board and further supports OpenFeint for online score tracking for each race track.

Doodle Kart is available in the App Store for $0.99. There is also a Lite version available for free.

Doodle Kart Racing For iPhone & iPod Touch is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

There are numerous broadband testing apps available in the App Store, but you don’t get much more official than a broadband test app from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC Broadband Test app provides users with information regarding the quality and speed of their mobile Internet connection. Users can test their upload and download speed, as well as the latency of their broadband connection. After a test is complete, users can share their results in an email export.

It is worth noting that test results may vary based on many factors such as location, hardware, and network congestion. Overall, the app is really clean and does provide fairly accurate results.

The FCC Mobile Broadband Test app is available in the App Store for free.

FCC Releases Mobile Broadband Test App For iPhone is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

Absolute Vintage is an application that allows users to create an Old Time vintage photo using faces of yourself or your friends.

Absolute Vintage by David iSoft

Absolute Vintage is really neat application and if you get creative enough, you can have a lot of fun with it. The app allows users to take a new photo or get an existing one from the photo library, take the persons face from the photo and overlay it on another body. The body in this case is a template that looks like a photo taken with an older camera from the 1930 to 1970 era.

There are 100 different body templates to choose from, 50 men and 50 women, and each one has the same distressed photo look as if the picture has aged for 50 years.

When the chosen photo is processed, users can make some minor edits to the persons face. These edits include being able to rotate and zoom using finger gestures, move the face around, mirror the face, change brightness, and hold the rotation or scaling.

Once users find a photo and chosen body to use, they can add up to 20 different accessories such as cigarettes, beards, glasses, hats and much more. The photo can then be saved to the photo library, emailed or uploaded to Facebook. Furthermore, users can access the “Frame Studio” where up to 30 different old time frames may be added to the photo. Users can also edit color effects with a Sepia effect to further age the look of the photo.

As a quick note, which I did not know right away, to quickly remove all of the accessories, simply shake the iPhone. This saves a ton of time instead of having to select each accessory individually to remove it.

Overall, the app can take a face and transform it into a person from the 1960’s or earlier era. The app is a lot of fun and would look really neat when making an entire modern day photo album with old time pictures.

Absolute Vintage is available in the App Store for $1.99.

Absolute Vintage Photo App For iPhone is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

If you’re like me and have a whole heap of videos on your Mac/PC at home (legally purchased of course), then converting them into iPhone friendly .m4v files, organizing them in iTunes, and then USB syncing it to your phone (provided you have enough space) can be a rather cumbersome task.

The AirVideo app will be the best $3 you will spend. Seriously, I’ve been using this app for a few days now and it’s totally changed they way I watch video on my iPhone. All you need is to install a small, free server application from In Method’s website and AirVideo will make all your files available to watch – and it will even convert any unplayable files in real-time while streaming to your iPhone.

The best part is, you are able to do this not only over Wifi but also 3G (in experimental mode). I’ve managed to play 1080p .mkv files with Live Conversion, streaming to me over 3G quite well without lag. This truly is an excellent app, and may be a preview on how iTunes could be one day.

..and wait till you use this on the iPad.

App Review: AirVideo – Stream Your Entire Video Library to Your iPhone/iPad is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

If you live or work in Edmonton and are a software developer, whether independent or with a firm, you have a great chance at winning yourself a couple thousand dollars in prizes!

Later this month, the City of Edmonton will be holding a contest that will provide $50,000 in prize winnings to local software developers. The city is looking for methods to improve information flow to Edmonton residents, so if you think you have what it takes, keep an eye out!

The City of Edmonton will be looking to local software developers to improve the way information is made available to residents with a contest to be announced later this month.

Along side the contest, the city is further looking to partner with other municipalities in an effort to design a common platform that software developers can utilize to create applications for sending information to 311 call centers.

So if you live in Edmonton and develop software, keep an eye out for the Apps4Edmonton contest in the next few weeks. Winners have the chance to receive up to $50,000 in prizes and further be showcased at GTEC in Ottawa in October 2010.

[Vancouver Sun]

City Of Edmonton To Award $50,000 In Prizes For iPhone Apps Contest is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

Do you send a lot of text and/or picture messages with your iPhone? Does your wireless bill add up every month from these messages? If so, take a closer look at the Pushme.to Messenger app.

Pushme.to by Treebune

Pushme.to is a messenger app that is made to send free messages from the internet to an iPhone or iPod Touch. In other words, using Pushme.to, users can send and receive free text and picture messages between their friends using their own iPhones, iPod Touch or other mobile device (receive from other mobile devices).

The benefit here is that using Pushme.to eliminates the monthly fee of paying for text or picture messages from the wireless carrier, as users no longer need to pay their carrier for that service. However, do note that if you send a text/picture message using your wireless carrier, charges will apply, as Pushme.to is simply an alternative method for messages.

By utilizing the app, users can completely bypass paying for SMS or MMS. Of all the types of messages that users can send, one of the largest beneficiaries will be international text message users, as there are no charges to send a message locally, within North America, or anywhere in the world.

Aside from using the app, users can also send messages via the web by navigating to http://pushme.to/nickname. What this means is users do not necessarily need to have an iPhone or iPod Touch to make use of the app and its messaging functions.

If you are looking to pick up Pushme.to, the app comes in two flavors; a free version and a paid version.

The paid version gives priorities for new features, delivers faster support, and does not have advertisements. The free version simply does not have the aforementioned benefits, however it is still as functional. If users begin with a lite account, their user account is fully compatible with the paid version.

Also, users of either the Lite or Full version can install a web widget on their blog, site, or even Facebook profile, so that visitors can send him/her free instant messages!

Pushme.to is available in the App Store for $2.99. The lite version is available for free.

Have you used Pushme.to or a similar service? What do you think?

Giveaway

If you haven’t used Pushme.to yet (or a similar service), I’m going to give away THREE copies today. To win, tell me about your wireless carrier billing horror story!

Winners chosen at random; Contest ends March 10, 2010 at 11:59PM PST.

Contest Rules:

1.) Make sure to include your email in the name entry form or I cannot contact you!

2.) One Contest Entry Per Person. Do not attempt to post multiple contest entries under different emails and/or user names during the same contest.

3.) Winner(s) must claim prize(s) within 24 hours of me sending the confirmation email. Failure to do so results in expulsion from the contest.

Pushme.to Messenger App For iPhone is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

It was recently reported that Apple has started pulling all WiFi finder apps from the App Store, due to an issue with an undocumented, private API being used in some of these apps. Developer Aspecto Software has decided to go the jailbreak route, and release their app, WiFiFoFum in Cydia, for Free.

This comes just 2 weeks after Apple pulled all the “boob” apps from the App Store, claiming they wanted to keep the App Store more family oriented. This is a huge blow to developers who have relied on these sales to keep their companies going. WiFiFoFum sold for $2.99 when it was in the App Store.

WiFiFoFum is a great app for finding WiFi, anywhere around you. It uses the iPhones Location API, to figure out where you are, then scans the surrounding area for WiFi networks. You have a live list of the closest hotspots, a map of the area showing more know hotspots, and a cool “radar” more that shows your orientation to these hotspots. There are many more features included, so if you don’t already have this from the App Store, and your device is jailbroken, there is no reason not to get it now.

Jailbroken iPhone users will continue to benefit from this behavior from Apple. As these companies are pushed out of the App store, they really only have one place to go: Cydia or Rock (I guess that’s 2 places ).Some developers with probably modify their apps, and resubmit them to Apple, but the easiest thing to do is turn to the dark side!

Thanks for reading. You can follow me on Twitter, if you want, and you can read more of my stuff over and Green Candy and iEvolution!

WiFiFoFum Released for Free, in Cydia is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users

Looking for places nearby when you need them? Can’t find that restaurant, coffee shop, or bank machine? Check out Canada Eye!

Canada Eye by Canpages Inc.

Canpages has launched a free augmented reality iPhone app called the Canada Eye. Among searching for local businesses, the app lets users view the direction and distance to all specific business locations by utilizing augmented reality on the iPhone screen.

For those wondering what Augmented Reality is, essentially, AR is the integration of digital information with live video or environment in real time. In other words, using the iPhone 3GS compass, GPS, and camera, users can see points of interest overlaid on the iPhone screen instead of looking at a map.

Canada Eye lets users search for a specific category, whether it be a local deli to a Mom n’ Pop bakery to a Starbucks. Whatever business needs to be found, Canada Eye is the one app to find everything near you, and also provides direction of how to get there.

When opening the app for the first time, users can allow Canada Eye to use their current location to find local businesses nearby. Then, using one of over 30 points of interest, users tap on a category such as “ATM” and all of the ATM locations near the user are listed. Tapping on any search result allows users to one-touch call, add the business to the iPhone Contact List, open Safari to view a website, or view the directions on a map of how to get there.

Another great feature is being able to toggle between a list, map, or “eye” view while viewing the search results of a specific category. The default setting is “List”, which simply lists the search results. Tapping on “Map” will open an in-app map, using the Bing search engine oddly enough, which showcases all of the business locations with pins. Lastly, tapping “Eye” (or rotating the iPhone sideways) will start the Augmented Reality view and allow users to visual search for business locations in real time using the iPhone camera.

Canada Eye also allows users to use the one-touch menu to add more categories and to organize them how ever users want. In other words, users can keep their most used categories at the top of the list at all times!

If you are looking for a great point of interest app that also utilizes the amazing Augmented Reality technology, check out Canada Eye.

Canada Eye is available in the App Store for free.

Canada Eye Augmented Reality App For iPhone is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Tips, Tricks, News, and Tutorials for Canadian iPhone Users