Memengo, Inc. official blog

What happens if you replace or your phone or need to resintall the Wallet for some reason? If you synced your Memengo Wallet data to our web site, you can now sync it back from the web site to your phone – just install Wallet again and push the sync button on the iPhone.

Now, what to do if you don’t sync your data to our web site? You can use iTunes to create a backup. Here’s the procedure that I use to verify it works well:

1. Install Wallet on the new iPhone (or reinstall it, if it was previously removed for some reason)
2. Run Wallet and witness how all the data is gone and replaced by the default data
3. Using iTunes, right-click on the iPhone connection and then “Restore from Backup”
4. Run Wallet again, witness how your data is there again, instead of default data

Make sure to do your iTunes backup regularly!

Our next update is dedicated to usability improvements. There will be something for everyone!

The update was recently submitted to Apple an should post to the App Store in about 8 days, give or take.

• On Wallet startup you are now taken directly to the last place you looked at (after asking for key if wallet is encrypted). In the past this only worked on non-encrypted wallets so it wasn’t as good. Also, keyboard’s larger “return” key will also unlock the wallet in addition to the smaller “done” button. Thanks John for pointing both of these things out.
• Larger buttons with more descriptive text – Edit Wallet, Edit Folder, Delete Folder and Delete Wallet should now be easier to locate. This has given a pause to many of our users and it shouldn’t have.
• New card type by popular request: Frequent Traveler. It’s already on the web site. Let me know if you think it’s missing fields, I can add some more within reason.
• Fix for jittery display of large Notes (over 2000px tall). I know folks were waiting for this one. Apple has fixed this bug in iPhone OS 2.1, but if you’d rather not upgrade there is a workaround: the text will be cut short and you need to press “Edit” to see the rest of it. The workaround will be removed after everyone upgrades to the new iPhone OS 2.1 (about 6 month form now).
• More accurate highlighting of clickable fields.
• Text Notes now occupy entire width of the screen (sans padding), not 3/4 as was the case before.

We recommend that you make a backup of your iPhone using iTunes before installing any application update.

Are there rough edges that still need polishing? Let me know in the comments.

In my next two posts I will cover:

• What new big features are at the top of our list?
• How to use iTunes backup to preserve your data (especially for those who don’t use our web site sync option)?

My dear friends, I would like to ask for your opinion and insight about my new iPhone application and the startup around it.

The app normally costs $10 but it would be silly to expect people to pay that much for the privilege of reviewing it so I dropped price to zero till August 11th. App Store has no discount or coupon system so timing is the only thing I could control. In return I hope to get one thing: feedback. If you have suggestion or thoughts fell free to use the thread on news.yc or on this blog. Or you can leave a comment in the App Store where more people could find it.

Proceed over here to get started.

So what does our app do? It stores passwords, encrypted, on the iPhone. This way you trade “many things I must remember” for “one things I must remember”. It’s a good trade we reckon. In addition it can optionally sync the same data (while still encrypted) to our server and then view/edit it over at http://www.memengo.com. We do AES-256 encryption (including within AJAX web app) so clear-text data never leaves your possession.

As a result you maintain control over your data – if you lose the phone (or someone steals our servers) the data is still encrypted, you don’t really lose the access to the data because there is more than one copy and you can access your data from any modern web browsers or from your iPhone. That’s the value prop – your data is within your reach.

Our business model so far is to sell iPhone application and provide online service as a free add-on. We still consider other alternatives, so if anyone’s been in the same boat please share your insight. If there is interest in our technology stack or any other questions, just ask.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of Memengo, Inc. Our mission is to put your data within your reach – no more hunting for yellow sticky notes scattered around or left at home, no more painful password reset procedures, no more anxiety about small but important piece of data that was just in your head but is now gone. You should be able to see your data whenever and wherever you are.

Memengo Wallet ™ is our first step towards fixing the problem:

• You can enter your pieces of data online at www.memengo.com and we will save them for you. If you provide an encryption key (a pass-phrase of your choice) we will also encrypt the data before it leaves your machine and only those who know the pass-phrase will be able to see what’s inside.
• Alternatively, you can install our mobile phone application and keep all the data pieces locally – the data will never leave your phone without your explicit action. Encryption is supported, so if your phone is lost the finders won’t be the keepers of your secrets.
• You can put the mobile and the web applications in sync – that way all changes made in one will be visible in the other after next synchronization. And you won’t have to worry about losing your phone and all the secrets within.

So make sure to give it a try. If you’re like us you will feel liberated from the need to micro-manage your stuff. Peace of mind is what it’s all about.