There’s being prepared as in “I’ve got a bottle opener on my keychain,” and then there’s being prepared as in “I’ve got a pallet of bottled water and two backup generators in my basement.” Somewhere in between lies InfoWallet, a piece of shareware designed to keep your secret personal information protected yet accessible in case of emergency.

InfoWallet has areas to store your medical history, medications, doctors, emergency contacts, insurance information, financial accounts, website login credentials, and software licenses. It’s all kept wrapped up in a blanket of password-protected security--you choose one of six encryption levels. We went with 448-bit Blowfish.

Use InfoWallet for everything from medical details to website passwords.

When you save your “wallet,” the data stays right in the same self-contained InfoWallet folder as the app itself. You’ll notice there are three executable files in there: the Mac app, plus apps for Windows and Linux. That’s because you can put this whole InfoWallet folder onto a USB thumb drive (or any removable disk) and take it with you. Later you access your data from any computer by just launching the executable for that computer’s operating system. Plus you can save more than one wallet.

InfoWallet on the Mac is not pretty. Your profile information is entered in pop-up dialogs. The charts and buttons don’t look Mac-like at all. There’s no Mac integration to pull contact information from Address Book, although you can export Address Book contacts as vCards and then import them into InfoWallet, and vice versa. There’s no iPhone version (it’s expected in 2010) or built-in online backup. You can back up your wallet file to your hard drive and move it to a remote location (including an online one), but you must restore it to the self-contained InfoWallet folder before launching it again. The interface for looking up business addresses online is awful--virtually unusable.

Despite its flaws, InfoWallet is a great idea and can securely store tons of information. Putting this on a rugged flash drive in your emergency pack is a smart way to have all your vital records close by and secure. And you'll feel better knowing you'll be able to use the cross-platform app even if there aren't Macs after the apocalypse.

InfoWallet
COMPANY: InfoWallet
CONTACT: www.infowallet.com
PRICE: $34 individual, $49 family, group licenses available.
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2 or later
Also works on computers running Windows 2000 (or later) or Linux. Can optionally be run from a USB flash drive. Robust encryption. Universal binary.
Interface isn't attractive, parts of it aren't intuitive.