I've been looking for a way to securely store usernames and passwords on my Mac & Palm, with the hopeless wish that they would stay in sync. Seems like something Palm would have built ages ago, but maybe the export/national security ramifications are too much? That didn't stop Selznick Software from creating Password Wallet. There's a carbon Mac application to securely edit and store your information as well as a separate Palm app for doing the same. The good news comes in the form of a Palm conduit which syncs between the two. Works great.

So that means no more carrying around frequent flyer, hotel, and car rental cards. The next step is to get rid of some of the other plastic: library, video, and shopping cards. The one thing they all have in common is a bar code. It's not like the card is really needed, just the barcode. It seems that if I can display a barcode on my Palm they should be able to scan it on the screen (need to try this). I figured there'd be plenty of apps for creating barcodes on the Palm but the only one found thus far is for creating ISBN barcodes (books). Any ideas?

Update: I found the Barcode Server which can make the barcode for a shopping card, but not the video store or library cards. It seems strange to me that we aren't using some sort of speed-pass (RFID) sort of device. It's just a unique ID locked in a hunk of plastic, heck my Treo 90 could have had one embedded in it at the factory. The library, video store, and other merchants could scan the RFID and associate the ID with my account. They don't need to change software, just change how they get a user's unique ID.

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