So anyway, I haven’t blogged in a while, I think Twitter may be taking up a lot of the time that I would/should spend on this site. This post is going to be a bit of a catch up rant.

I’m seriously backed up with web dev stuff to do, and I really want to get them all done and get a decent portfolio up and running, it’s looking rather stale at the moment, I tend to be a bit of a rollercoaster when it comes to web dev, sometimes I can find my creative side and quickly whip up a nice wordpress concept design, then I have a brain fart and struggle with making that concept into a theme, or vise versa, I think it depends on the music I’m listening to at the time, it has a big effect on the way my brain works. I might need to look at tagging songs for creative and for coding, I’m convinced it has an effect.

I recently bought a new toy to take my attention away from my iPhone, a nice Samsung 46″ LCD TV, it’s big and beautiful, and looks perty as hell, the purchase of this TV has given my xbox new life, through the HDMI cable I can finally play the games how they’re supposed to look, and since buying the TV I’ve bought 3 games for the thing; Guitar Hero III, which I already have on the Wii, but I wanted downloadable content and HD niceness. Project Gotham Racing 4, having heaps of fun with this one, haven’t got into a console racer in years, probably since the first Gran Turismo. The third game I’ve bought is Mass Effect, which is ok, only just bought it, not overly impressed.

I’m currently looking at Blu-Ray player prices, they are going for around $400 in the places I’ve looked, definitely a future purchase.

On to other Gadget goodness and me and my housemate have decked out the house with 2 airport expresses for streaming music, we’ve had one for a while but the things really shine with two, perfect synced streaming music throughout the whole house, one in the lounge, and one in the outside stereo with our recently partified deck, which proved to be awesome on Grand Final Day.

And Finally, just a bit of iPhone stuff, even though I’ve saturated this blog with it, I’ve finally hacked my iPhone, it was a breeze and the stuff I can do now is fantastic, live last.fm scrobbing, direct to device podcasting, themes, soundsets and video recording, particularly Qik.com streaming, which streams live video to my Qik profile, I’ve always been impressed with this service and now that I use it, I’m super impressed, check out my profile for some of the vids I’ve made.

I think I’ve rambled on enough, what a stupidly long post, oh well, kudos to you if you actually read it all!

The benifits are getting better by the day, the real seller for me was video recording support and particularly support for live streaming via Qik, which allows people to watch your live stream and send you messages, it’s a very cool technology and one I’ve wanted to try for a while.

It’s pretty easy to do, download the Pwnage tool, build your ipsw file (Aussie users make sure you have Activate UNCHECKED). Once the ipsw file is built, go to iTunes, hold down option and click restore, choose your newly created file and off you go.

So is it worth it? I’d say yes, there’s a bunch of Apps available now and it will only get better, for an example of just a few apps go here

So 3 new apps have found their way onto my home screen. First up, a proper Wordpress app, from which I’m posting right now.. Don’t believe me? Check one of the pics in this post. I’m going to post a few pics and see how that feature works with this app.

The next app is Twinkle, yet another Twitter client, this one has very smooth pic posting and a very cool nearby tab that allows you to see tweets from people within a specified distance. I have a small wishlist of feature quirks that would be pure awesome for a Twitter client like this one;

- Better location features, properly update Twitter location (not like the Twitterific long lat crap) and have the option of inserting your location in the actual tweet. Possibly auto create google maps link.

- Travel speed. No idea why I want this I just think it would be cool to be able to post your travel speed calculated by the gps signal.

- Insert current music playing. If you’re cruising down the street playing some tunes, so what are you doing? Walking down listening to travelling at .

It all fits dammit!

The last app ive installed is a spirit leveller, makes me wish I was a tradie.

Its late and cold and I need sleep.

Tap Tap - Kinda like Guitar Hero for your iPhone, pretty fun. Would be good to see more of an Audiosurf style setup that allows you to use your own tunes.

VNC - a VNC client for your iPhone, works pretty well, could come in handy.

Midomi - Just like Shazam, except this one allows you to sing/hum the tune yourself, or say the song name, or write some lyrics. Works ok, not quite as well as Shazam though I don’t think.

GarageBuy - For those outside US who don’t have access to the official eBay app, this one will suffice.

MyLite - There’s a few flashlight apps out there, this one gives the added functionality of strobe effects and colours.

FileMagnet - Transfer any file over WiFi to from your Mac to your iPhone, it works, does the job.

My Car packed it in this morning. Pretty sure it’s the clutch, completely dead. It’s gonna cost a bucketload and it’s turfed my dreams of both going to the snow this weekend, and getting an LCD TV.

Quick List of the 3rd Party apps currently installed, starting from the top:

Cro-Mag Rally - 3D racing game, Mario Kart style. Pretty fun game.

iPint - Balance game, slide a beer into the patrons hands, then be rewarded with your own virtual bevvy, stupid as hell, but it’s worthy for a spot at this point.

Light - White screen, what can I say it works.

Shazam - This thing is impressive, press the tag button and  hold your iPhone to some music, and Shazam will try and tell you what the song is. And it actually works.

Facebook - Facebook app (duh), status updates, IM, and most dangerous of all, direct picture to facebook uploads, that could end in tears.

IM - Just a Safari link to www.meebo.com

Cube Runner - run your spaceship through a maze of cubes, Fun.

Super Pong - Not sure why it’s called pong, it’s a brick bash game.

Hold’em - One of the best Poker games I’ve played, on any platform.

Monkey Ball - Marble Madness with Monkeys, uses the accelerometer, nicely polished, but hard.

Twitterific - Twitter client, post pics, upload location, all the twitterness action.

Airme - Upload photos to Flickr, with full location mapping and even current weather, the only Flickr app I’ve found to do location, which astounds me with all of the iPhones location features. Works like a charm.

Remote - Control iTunes on your Mac/PC, full control, does everything.

Wordpress - Links to my Wordpress admin page, using a wordpress plugin that shows an iPhone friendly interface (WPhone)

Just search for any of the listed apps in the store. FYI to take a pic, press and hold the home button and on/off button for 1 second, it will flash and drop a screenshot in your camera roll. Post your suggestions.