5. eWallet: Financial Management Lite

I'm one of those people who never caught on to the whole Quicken craze. My idea of financial recording is a sheet of paper and an abacus. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit but I'm still definitely behind the times and should move into the digital age in this field. But, now I'm afraid to enter all my financial information on my computer because of the explosion of identity theft. I also know that, even if I installed some fancy PC software, I'd never remember to record my credit card purchases and ATM transactions at the end of the day. If this sounds like you as well, Ilium's eWallet is probably the only software program that makes sense for keeping track of your finances.

This is eWallet for Palm. Click on the image to see the full size version.

eWallet is far more than just a digital checkbook. It's the ultimate data store-all. You can store your passwords, PIN numbers, account numbers, and anything else that you'll need to look back on later. Yes, you can do that with Pocket Excel too, but what if a tech-savvy mugger pilfers your PDA? The answer is that you're screwed. eWallet sports a proprietary 128-bit encryption algorithm that's virtually impenetrable as far as I can tell. At the very least, that mugger's going to have to pay an expert hacker a large sum of money to break into your data.

Additionally, what makes eWallet such a worthwhile application is that it is completely transferable over multiple devices. Specifically, the file format is the same across platforms, so transferring the files does not result in data loss. So if you have a Pocket PC and/or a Windows Mobile Smartphone and/or a Palm, and buy all corresponding versions of the software, you can transfer your file between all of them via a computer. Accordingly, the included PC version is fully sync-able with your PDA.

This is eWallet for Pocket PC. Click on the image to see the full size version.

Aesthetically, eWallet shines. You can assign or create icons for each of your entries and entering data is very simple. If your PDA runs on Windows Mobile 5.0 or above, you can also assign different background images to each entry. The program uses a simple two-column Excel-type method of entry. With the organized GUI menu, which breaks down all your entries into several different categories, like credit cards, passwords, and phone numbers, you can very easily find the entry you're looking for.

Plain and simple, no matter how much data you need to store, sensitive or not, eWallet is one of the best ways to store it all. Also, eWallet won't break your real wallet, as it only costs $19.95.