Call me crazy, but I’ve been looking forward to this exact gizmo since I first replaced my last PDA with my first iPhone.

Now all we need is a word processor on the iPhone that has true spell checking, and I’d be able to work on my novels on the go again without having to lug a laptop around.

Rumor has it that Microsoft’s Office for iPhone (if it really exists) is due to make an appearance about the same time this goes to market.

This is pure silliness, which is why I like it.

If only the iPhone would last all day on one charge.  How awesome would that be?  But style-conscious Apple wants to keep their flagship product slim and sexy, which limits the size of battery they can shoe-horn into it. 

Because they don’t, and because there’s a high demand for longer use between recharges, we have the option of iPhone cases that come with extra power built into them.  They do the trick, but at the cost of increasing the iPhone’s size and weight, and also – in many cases – reducing the signal strength.

This one from Tekkeon, however, does not suffer from loss of signal strength.  I can attest to that personally, as I’ve been using it for about two weeks now.  Signal strength actually seems to be better – probably because the iPhone thinks it’s plugged into external power (which in a way it is) and so doesn’t tone down signal strength as a power saving method.

(This is just a guess, based on my impression of using it.)

They have two versions, one made of faux leather (shown here) and one made from the real thing.  PETA-sympathizers will probably opt for the former, which is just as well because it’s less expensive but gives you the same capabilities.

Let me tell you, having the battery meter show full all day long is awesome.  To me it’s worth the extra size and weight.  Totally.  I use this phone constantly for just about everything, and now I can finally go all day without worrying about running out of power.

The case also doubles as a dock, and comes with a standard mini-USB cable that can be used to charge or data-connect the iPhone.  That in itself is really handy when you’re out and about and want to hook your iPhone up to a USB port but don’t have an Apple cable with you.  Your standard mini-USB cable that comes with some cameras and external hard drives works just fine.

The only control interface on the case is a single light, which changes color depending on what’s going on.  It’s simplistic but it works fine.  Green means your fully charged and ready.  Red means you’re drawing power from the battery, or that it is currently charging.  Dark means the case’s battery is dead and you’re running from the iPhone’s battery.

That’s another cool thing about this case – while the iPhone is running off the case battery, it’s bypassing the iPhone battery.  What typically happens to me is I run all day long, and just at about 5-6 PM the case’s power is depleted and it switches to the iPhone battery, which is still fully charged.

Since getting this case, I have not run my iPhone out of power, even with almost continuous use.

What people do have to keep in mind about the iPhone is that it’s not really a phone.  It’s a powerful miniature computer with telephony built into it.  The device has a powerful processor and a large screen.  It’s going to suck juice, and there’s no way around that.  So you either make it twice as big, which will turn a lot of people off, or you make it esthetically pleasing and then let third-party companies fill the gap.

This gizmo, which I hereby officially proclaim as very groovy, fills that gap perfectly.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s now permanently part of my iPhone.

I love my iPhone, but I also love it when people make fun of it.

This is one of the coolest little gadgets I’ve seen in a long time and it doesn’t take any electricity, wiring, or anything to work.

It’s a horn.

That’s right, a horn.  Ancient technology, right?  Channeling and amplifying sound with nothing more than a shaped chamber.  It’s so beautiful an idea they actually made it translucent so that you could see the internal workings for yourself.  Pop your uber-high tech iPhone into this ancient-tech AirCurve acoustic amplifying horn and gain a full 10 decibels from the existing speaker at the bottom of the device, channeled artfully in a curve and out through the trumpet-like opening at the front.

Kudos to Griffin for coming up with something so foolproof that you can’t possibly screw it up without, say, running it over with your car.  And kudos to Griffin for it to actually work and sound good.

It comes with two different soft form-fitting cradles and will accept your existing charge/sync plug through a artful hole in the bottom.

This is one of the grooviest gizmos I’ve seen so far this year.  Here is something that applies the KISS principal perfectly.

I have been dabbling with this Facebook / Twitter phenomenon for a while now, probably not as long as most, but longer than some.  What really pulled it together for me is the free software called “TweetDeck” which is (in a strange, spreadsheet kind of way) the closest thing we have to an actual hive mind.  Especially over the last two weeks, when I am at home and the computer is on – and it is most of the time – I have TweetDeck open full screen as my backdrop to everything else.  Instant Twitter / Facebook updates from just about every friend and family member I have will appear in close to real time.

So I’ll be working on a novel, or an article, or a short story, and then get this trilling sound from TweetDeck announcing a new message.  It gives me a little jolt of pleasure, and I alt-tab over to see who is doing what.  And since it’s usually 140 characters or less, I absorb it in an instant, then happily alt-tab back to what I was doing.

I live alone now, in a new place.  I don’t know many people here yet.  Occasionally I feel lonely.

When TweetDeck is up and running, though, I don’t.

This would probably be interesting fodder for some University psych study.  I can’t be the only one who finds companionship in TweetDeck.  When it’s running I don’t feel alone.

Case in point:  The trill just sounded.  I alt-tabbed over.  My cousin Traci, who was one of my dearest childhood companions, is going to see Aerosmith and ZZ Top tonight.

For some reason, just knowing that makes me happy.

I use TweetDeck on both my computer and my iPhone.  It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  It’s free.  And it’s hereby officially proclaimed groovy.

My kids gave me this little flying toy from ThinkGeek.com.  The video was taken on my new iPhone 3GS.

Griffin’s Clarifi is the best iPhone case I have ever seen.

As nice as the iPhone’s little camera is, it’s a bit farsighted.  Close-ups of people’s faces, objects, and especially text, all end up being blurry.

Paul Griffin at Griffin Technology noticed this and asked one of his case designers to see if a corrective lens would help.

Thus the Griffin Clarifi iPhone case was born.

Not only is it a really sleek, tough polycarbonate case for the iPhone, but it has a little monocle that you can slide over the top of the iPhone camera lens, and suddenly the things closer to you become nice and sharp.

Now, here’s the thing.  If this were just any camera phone , the story would end there, and most people would yawn and say, "So what?  Big deal."  But the iPhone is not just another camera phone — it’s a full blown computer in your hand with all sorts of ingenious, web-connected, distributed-processing applications just a screen-touch away.  So not only are your close-up portraits now clear, and the trinkets you sell on eBay now sharply in focus, but the iPhone has — thanks to the Clarifi — become a powerful text scanning device.

So what?  Why is that a big deal?

Add the application Evernote to the picture.  I love Evernote.

Evernote is an external peripheral for your brain.  Not joking — that’s what it is.  It’s a database to help you remember everything, with several ways to enter things into it — from keyboard, via copy-and-paste, via voice, and (here’s where Clarifi comes in) via pictures.  Load the free app up in your iPhone, connect to their website, and start taking pictures.  Every picture is run through very powerful and accurate Optical Character Recognition that can even read your handwriting, so the text is scanned and put into your personal database, where it can be sorted and searched.

Imagine it.  Every business card you come across … every ingredients label … all your napkin-idea scribbles … every recipe … all of it scanned, stored, and available for instant recall.

But not without the corrective lens on the Clarifi.

Another iPhone application that exists only because of Clarifi is the 1D barcode reader produced by Snapper.net.  This fledgling service allows you to snap a picture of a product’s barcode while standing in a store, and it returns comparative pricing information.

According to Jackie Ballinger at Griffin Technologies, the Clarifi is selling really well, and feedback from customers indicate they would be interested in more Clarifi models.  "Many people have requested color options other than black, and a zoom model," she says.  "We’re certainly investigating these ideas, the concept of a case like Clarifi that adds functionality and is more than just a fashion accessory is really appealing to us and something we’re continuing to explore."

Final word: this is one awesome case, adding functionality to the iPhone that greatly expands its capabilities.  I’m a raving fan, and I hereby officially declare the Clarifi a Groovy Gizmo.

If you’re into trance, ambient, Goa, or any number of trippy kinds of music, RjDj is a must have app for your iPhone.

It actually generates music from the sounds it samples — in real time — from your iPhone’s mic (note, though, that is has to be the one on your headphones).  The various styles of music generation are grouped in "scenes" which you can choose depending upon your mood.

What’s really cool is you can record and play back the music you generate.

I recently put this on and walked around downtown Helsinki, having left a restaurant, walked across a public square, and down into a train station.  The result was a very trippy 10 minute recording that only gives you a glimpse of what it’s like to use this software.  It really is like being on a hallucinogen, walking around listening to the world filtered through its music.  Strange, tranquil, and at the same time, exciting.

One thing that is different between this and, say, LSD, is if you start to have a bad trip, you can turn RjDj off.

Here’s my recording:  Evening in Helsinki.mp3

In the next release of the iPhone operating system, we’ve been promised native recording capabilities. If you want to record with it now, though, you have to install a third party app.

My favorite is called, simply, “The iPhone Recorder” by Retronyms.

It features a clean, simple interface, high quality recording, and the ability to pull your recordings off the iPhone either by emailing them or via a built-in WiFi webserver.

Here’s a sample of a recording I made using this software:  Music from Black Door Pub, Helsinki