Pantry is a simple-to-use inventory specialist, designed for your kitchen must-haves and basic household necessities. It let’s you see exactly how much you have left of your staple items, alerting you when you run low by automatically adding the item to its built-in shopping list.

You can also synchronize it with other iPhone users in your house, so if you slosh the last bit of milk in your coffee, you can easily alert your roommate/husband/daughter to grab a carton on their way home when it automatically appears on their Pantry list.

The added convenience is worth it, especially to those who are constantly on the go. Pantry allows you to keep track what you have, stay organized, and even sync with your Mac. Version 1.1 was released just last week and is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch.

$2.99, thinkfresher.com

Quotationary is the perfect complement with 30,000 quotes featuring everything from thoughtful insights to television classics to motivating triumphs.

It doesn’t just deliver random quotations; you can search, do some trivia, and look up words with ease, finding the perfect quote to match your needs. Need a quote on love to instant enamour a crush? Quotationary has you covered.* Writing a paper on a tragic hero and need some Shakespearean leverage? Quotionary again. Options, you’ll realize, are endless.

* You can also mark quotes as a favourite, for reference if you need to use the same one again.

And because they are stored right on the device, you can have easy access even if the internet isn’t available. This means when you’re bored mindless while camping with your in-laws or stuck on the subway, you can easily guess who said what quote.

When you do have WiFi access, though, Quotationary includes a convenient online search to discover more about the author, with instant access to the questionable reliability of Wikipedia, among other resources. You can also email quotes to your friends and family when you just can’t think of the right thing to say.

$1.99, Quotationary at the App Store

The recent cover was developed by Brushes, an app available at the App Store for $4.99US. Designed by Jorge Colombo, he drew the cover while waiting outside Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Times Square in about an hour. You know, simple as that.

According to the article in the New Yorker, Colombo only owned the phone since February, but has been an artist since age 7, and has had published drawings in the magazine since 1994.

Digital drawing has its advantages, he explained. “Before, unless I had a flashlight or a miner’s hat, I could not draw in the dark.” He also noted to the New York Times the convenience of the app. He explained that it “made it easy for me to sketch without having to carry all my pens and brushes and notepads with me, and I like the fact that I am drawing with a set of tools that anybody can have easily in their pocket.”

You can watch how he drew the cover with a video on their website, showing you stroke-by-stroke of the process.

You can also view a new drawing weekly by Colombo each week on newyorker.com.

Amazing.

I recently read an article, and discovered a tip I will forever be indebted to. Rob Griffiths over at Macworld.com enlightened me on how to create clickable links to mail messages in those stickies of mine. Yes, I knew they were URL supported, but to be able to instantly click a link and be brought to my email? Wonderful.

“Just drag any message out of Mail, and then drop the dragged message on a note in Stickies, and you’ll have an instant link to that message. So if you’ve got an e-mail that you’d like associated with some text on a note in Stickies, all you need to do is drag-and-drop, and you’ll have a link to the source e-mail. In my testing, this link worked even after moving a message from my inbox to one of the folders in the On My Mac section of Mail’s sidebar.” [by Rob Griffiths, Macworld.com]

This food and wine management software is a must for everyone from connoisseurs or those who just like to tinker in the kitchen. It lets you create, edit and share recipes with ease, organize your kitchen ventures, include wine notes, develop meal plans, and even print your own cookbook.

The new release features updates and bug fixes to its main sections: Mealplan, Cookbook and Nutrition.

Mealplan
Mealplan is the must-have tool for, well, meal planning. Just use a drag and drop to create your weekly meals and shopping list, which is automatically generated for your recipes. You can create menus with ease, and then print it out for the entire week, so you know what is to come, and import recipes from online sources if you don’t want to come up with your own. The new features include improved copy/paste access,  and a new “day label” feature, letting you mark special days (like birthdays or dinner parties) and sync it with iCal.

Cookbook
Cookbook lets you organize your recipes into chapters, adding information and images, and, if you’d like to have a hardcopy, easy e-books or printable .pdfs. The updated version lets you add a “text blurb” and features improved .pdfs.

Nutrition
Nutrition gives cooks a database that lets you solve the nutrient values of all your meals. You can easily browse or search to figure out exactly what you and your family are consuming. The new version includes an update to all latest USDA information.

MacGourmet also features Wine Notes, which lets you catalog information about your favourite vino from winery to sub-region to taste. You can record all your tasting notes and add pictures and cellar information, so you never forget your favourites.

A free update for registered users, MacGourmet Deluxe costs $45 and is available here. System requirements include Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Easy controls allow you to play, pause, skip tracks and contol volume, but it’s far more than wireless iPod communitcation. The remote is a full-fledged information monitor. Just press the side button after you start your run, to learn the details around your distance, calories, pace and time.

One issue with some watches and monitors (although this is incomparable in value) is  poor lighting, but the WatchRemote features an LED display, so it doesn’t matter what time of day or what the weather is like when you’re hitting the path. And because it’s water resistant, pouring rain isn’t a problem.

The one-touch access to your Powersong (read: the one that gives you that extra boost) is our favourite part, so repeatedly playing the Rocky theme (or whatever ails you) is done with ease.

Nike+ is designed for individuals who like to run with music pumping in their ears, and want to measure and monitor their progress.

It works in conjunction with your Nike+ iPod Sport Kit and iPod (sold separately); but if you have an iPod touch 2G, the  Nike+ Wireless receiver is built in, so you only need the Nike+ iPod Sensor (sold separately).

With the additional accessories, it works with all iPod nano all models and iPod touch 2nd generation.

Check it out at Nike.com

Apple Certified trainer, owner of RHED Pixel, and author Richard Harrington, guides you through the basics and shows you how to produce sophisticated results with ease. Designing, editing, and publishing are detailed in easy instructions with photo and video examples for quick learning.

But don’t let the word “basic” fool you – he discusses each feature of Keynote, Pages, and Numbers in detail, so you know how to successfully use each function. Sixteen lessons cover everything from  Creating a Stacked 3D Bar Chart, to sending your presentation to your iPod, YouTube, and a DVD.

Much more than a basic pseudo-“iWork for Dummies,” this training series just saves you time and hassle and gives you quick tips and detailed lessons for professional results.

Available at the Apple Store, and Amazon.ca.

It sounds invasive, but it’s not – it just tracks the actual keyboard and mouse use and time spent in front of the screen (it doesn’t record exactly what you’re doing), and then gives you instant feedback, through suggestions of rest and breaks at appropriate intervals.

But don’t picture an alarm sounding off on your MacBook; small alerts, letting you know that break time is near (or has arrived) simply provide you with whats to come without making you lose your train of thought or telling the whole workplace. It also gives you a little time to prep, telling you that the break will begin 10 seconds after you stop tooling around on your computer.

There are forty-two, fully illustrated integrated stretches designed to help limber your body and improve your posture. For example, after extensive mouse use, it gives you ideas for stretches to decrease wrist pain that could eventually evolve to issues such as carpal tunnel syndrome, or tendonitis.

We like the additional “stealth” mode, which instead provides the user an obscure menu bar item so the rest of your office isn’t aware of your sneaky route to better health. You can easily switch it off, so in the middle of the presentation, it doesn’t give you untimely feedback.

In addition to the stretches, MacBreakZ gives dozens of tips to help you get through your day. After giving it a try risk-free, you might also want to download StretchZ for iPhone/iPod touch, for the same handy tips on-the-go.

Download the demo at the Apple Store.