Back in 1969, the computer on board the lunar module "Eagle" displayed error number "1202," meaning its 4 KB of memory had run out during the landing. Nonetheless, Neil Armstrong landed the craft and reported "The Eagle has landed" to Houston.
Nowadays I hold a tablet that has 4 GB of memory, roughly 4.000.000 times as much as "Eagle," and all this with touchscreen, mouse and keyboard at my fingertips. Nearly everything I used to do on a desktop I can do on a mobile as well.
And that's why EssentialPIM has not only a Windows version (WinEPIM) for desktops, but also an Android version (AEPIM) for mobile devices. Many of us use mobile devices instead of desktops and here are three ways that EPIM supports us.
Independence
I am very happy as an EPIM user that I can do all I need on my mobile device. I can have my appointments, tasks, notes, contacts and all my passwords with me. And wherever I am I can create an appointment or task, a note or a new contact. Or I can dial a friend right out of the EPIM Contacts module, log into a website right out of the Password module, or email a contact, etc.
I do not need to wait until I'm home, start my desktop and do all the things in EPIM that I've stored in my head while being on the way. And maybe forget something.
Android-EPIM (AEPIM) is my data-center.
Users who are in the office or at home may have their desktop available nearly all the time. But, in my case, I have my tablet as my EPIM data-center, a smartphone (with AEPIM, of course), and a rather old desktop at home with WinEPIM installed for when I need some data out of EPIM or need to do something special that only WinEPIM can do.
To keep all three up to date is easy. As all my hardware is connected to my WiFi at home, I can easily synchronize WinEPIM and AEPIM. I read in the EPIM forum that some users have trouble with synchronizing. I have found that making sure the software is up to date helps very much to avoid difficulties. For example, I had WinEPIM in version 8.x and ran into difficulties and nobody had an idea why. Some days after that I had to set up my desktop completely new. I installed the latest WinEPIM version, which was 9.1, and the problems were gone.
AEPIM, of course, is always up do date as PlayStore updates automatically.
Also, I have experienced that having very old data in the database can lead to problems. I had recurring appointments in AEPIM that I set in my calender back in 2018. That caused problems in synchronizing to WinEPIM. After deleting that series of appointments in calendar and recreating it, sync went without any trouble.
Security
For me, security is most important. As I said, tablet is my EPIM data-center. I have adjusted my AEPIM settings to make a backup automatically every three days, and to keep three backups (just in case one might be faulty, there still would be two others).
In addition, the backups are encrypted by a "long" key. This way I've no concern to automatically upload these backups to Google Drive in case the tablet hardware fails and I have no more access to backups there (I understand there may be EPIM cloud for AEPIM in the future, so I could even avoid uploading to Google).
As to passwords, they are secured/encrypted in AEPIM by a "long" key and can be set to "not visible in preview". Moreover, the system is self-securing, which means it closes immediately after your last action.
These features help to ensure that nobody can get in or just read anything. So security is as strong as it can be and all I have to remember is that "long" password for encrypting backups and passwords.
In addition to all this, I see WinEPIM on my old desktop as a backup emergency system because all data there is up to date and I can always get access just in case my tablet, smartphone, or backups are not available for some unpredictable reason.
Of course, I don't really need that emergency backup because EPIM does everything to secure data.
But life taught me to think beyond that ...
Which leaves me with the question, what about when I change a device? Nothing is easier than that: Download EPIM from the homepage, install it, and restore from a backup. Done. I've done this multiple times with AEPIM.
Simplicity
Simplicity is one of the key features of AEPIM, and that's why I love it.
For example, the Password module stores the username, password (automatically generated, if you like) and URL. Using this is very handy. As browsers typically remember the 'username', I tap on the password (EPIM copies it to clipboard) and tap on the URL, which EPIM opens automatically. I fill in the username and paste the password. Done. And the password is automatically deleted from the clipboard.
I appreciate how it works because it's easy. The third party password manager I used to have was a heavy piece of software that didn't work reliably. Maybe EPIM will eventually allow us to copy both username AND password to the clipboard and support opening not only URLs but also apps.
Another feature of AEPIM’s simplicity is that you don't really need a handbook. It is intuitive. This may be because suggestions from beta testers and users and from support notifications flow directly into the development of EPIM, which is how things should be. It's one of the reasons I departed from Microsoft/Windows because things for so long are not how they should be.
As such, EPIM is a program for users who appreciate independence, security and simplicity when managing their personal information. For us, as with the Apollo 11 astronauts, the “Eagle” has landed.
Axel has worked in information technology and lives in Bavaria, Germany.
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