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

This was originally published back in November 2008 … I brought it back to the top because they’re getting some bad bloggery over at BoingBoing, and receiving what I think is an unfair beating.  After all, they didn’t get to tell their side of the story.  Anyway…

A while ago I crushed my iPhone by accidentally running it over with my car.

I considered getting a new one, or having it repaired, or simply abandoning it. I came close to abandoning it. I even bought the antithesis of the iPhone to replace it, the Zen feature-free nothing-but-a-phone Motorola F3.

The folks at iResq.com read my blog and contacted me, saying they could fix it. At first I didn’t know if I wanted it fixed (I know, crazy talk, right?) but after speaking with them and checking up on their company, I decided to go for it. After all, crushing your iPhone under a car tire kind of voids the warranty, so what did I have to lose? Besides, they charge way less than Apple, while still being Apple certified.

I was once Apple certified. While working at ComputerLand back in the 80′s I used to repair Apple II’s, IIe’s, IIgs, Apple Lisa, and the original Mac. I know what you have to go through to get Apple certified, and these guys are, so I knew they must have their act together. Plus, they’re a really friendly group of people. I like them.

So I sent it off, and the same day they got it, they fixed it and overnighted it right back to me.

I now have the iPhone back in my life. It’s as good as new. And everything is still there!

So here’s another difference: from what I understand, when you send your iPhone in to repair with Apple, they hand you back an already-repaired replacement phone. You have to go through activation again, and migrate all your stuff over to it, etc.

Me, I just plugged mine in and … everything is fine, exactly the way it was!

I’m up and running again!

So, you’ll be seeing iResq ads on my sites for a while. I am extremely happy with them. The iResq folks are my heroes, and I hereby officially proclaim them to be Groovy Gizmo Gurus.

Update:  Their Google Notebook importing feature is now live.

I’d discovered a wonderful service called Evernote.com through my iPhone. It came to me as an app recommended by a friend.

My first thought was, “Oh, look, another Google Notebook with added features.” Handy as it is, I’m already entrenched in Google Notebook, so even though I’ve added Evernote.com to my list of tools, I’ve never really done anything besides play with the iPhone app.

Today I learned that Google is abandoning it’s Notebook feature. Two things went through my mind:

• Google, you suck.  I came to depend on something of yours and you’re pulling the plug on me.
• Thank God I’d discovered Evernote!

And, as Andrew Sinkov of Evernote.com told me today, they are building a tool to allow Google Notebook users to import everything they have in Notebook over to Evernote.

I’d already done it manually, simply by using Notebook’s export feature (I displayed each notebook as a HTML page and then captured it from there into Evernote … it took about an hour to grab everything, but in the process I ended up skimming through some of the things I’d captured — that I’d forgotten about — and now have lots of ideas for articles).  That being said, I’m looking forward to their import feature, as it may pull things over more dynamically.

If you haven’t discovered Evernote.com, it’s actually lightyears ahead of Google’s Notebook.  More ambitious.  Their stated mission is to become the external extension of your brain.  How they’re doing it is to create a free form database that is accessible via the web, and via a mobile device, as well as having software you can download (for free) and load on your main computer.  Everything connects through the Evernote.com website and syncs up.  So if you take a note one place, it’s available everywhere.

Also, it’s much more than just screen captures from the web.  Using their apps for various devices (iPhone, Smartphones, etc.) you can record voice notes and snap pictures.  Once synced up to Evernote.com, OCR software actually reads your pictures, capturing any next therein, and indexing it in your database for easy retrieval.

That means you don’t have to jot something down, or type it, you can just take a picture of it.  Say, for instance, notes on a class chalkboard.  Bing!  Instant class notes in your database.

How cool is that?

Anyway, that’s why I’m saying “Goodbye and Farewell” to Google Notebook, and “Welcome Home” to Evernote.

I don’t even think iResq will be able to fix this one.

There is hope for my iPhone.  It may live again.

Stay tuned…

[Update!  It's been repaired!  See details here.]

This morning at work I took off my coat and reached for my iPhone.  It wasn’t there.

Do not put your iPhone in a case that clips to your belt.

I noticed that carrying it in my shirt pocket tended to drag the front of my shirt down.  In a perfect geek world this wouldn’t matter, but my friends confided in me that it didn’t look flattering.  The iPhone is, by today’s standards, a rather large and heavy mobile phone — with good reason, it’s the ultimate gadget — and I saw the need to be a bit tidier in my appearance, so I found a nice leather iPhone case that clipped to my belt.

It worked out for about a month.  This morning, however, I was putting something in the back seat of my car, and the case came unclipped from my belt.  I didn’t notice it was gone until I got to work.

You have to understand — ever since I got this iPhone G3 16GB, it’s become a symbiotic part of my system.  An external portion of my brain and senses.  I use it for everything.  It never leaves my person.  I sleep next to it.

At first I didn’t panic.  I thought that I must have left it on the kitchen table.  I’d done that once before.  No big deal.

Then I remembered the part about putting something in the back seat of my car, and knew it could have popped off my belt while doing so.  That meant it could be sitting alone, abandoned, on the cold cement floor.

My iPhone.

I left work immediately, feeling sick, knowing that if it was indeed on the floor of the garage, there was a chance I could have run over it.  I imagined it smashed there, dead.  I wondered what the heck I would do.  How could I live without it?  I mean, I’ve already invested lots of money in software, lots and lots of time setting things up.  My bank account, my passwords, my shopping list … not to mention all the fun and nifty apps.  The GPS mapping system, which I had only recently come to depend upon.

So I got home, opened the garage door, and saw it there on the ground.

Worse, there were definite tire tracks on the case.

I FREAKING RAN OVER MY FREAKING IPHONE!

(“Freaking” is not the F-word I was using, nor is it the one I originally typed here.)

I have never ruined a camera, a radio, a stereo, a PDA, an iPod, or any of my beloved little gadgets.  Ever.  EVER EVER.

This was my favorite one of ALL TIME, and I RAN IT OVER WITH MY CAR.

Staring at the ruins of the smashed screen, I had a kind of religious experience.  This must be a message to me from God.  This is God’s way of telling me, I am way too attached to a gadget.

Gathering up my poor smashed iPhone, and my sick mess of emotions, I drove mournfully back to work.  I called Apple.  I called AT&T.  I searched eBay.  I examined my options.

Repair it:  $279
Replace it:  $399
Cut my losses and cancel my account:  $170
Buy a cheapo no-frills replacement phone:  $40

And then to my amazement, my phone rang.  My iPhone.  I picked it up, slid my finger across the broken screen (from memory) and lo and behold I was talking to someone.  After that I started fiddling with it.  The thing still works!  Only the screen is broken.

That says a lot about the case.  I don’t know of many phones that you can run over with your car and then still make a call on it.

So, technically, my iPhone isn’t dead — it’s crippled.  I still haven’t decided what to do.  I’m still wondering if the thing is a boon or a hindrance in my life.  I love the thing, but ever since I got it my writing projects — especially my new novel — have suffered.

I may just say goodbye to it, and learn from the experience.

Don’t love the tool more than the task.

I hear it from all sides.  I feel it myself.  Pride, and a feeling of belonging.

A friend sends me a picture of himself holding his new iPhone.  "I just got it a few days ago.  I can’t keep my hands off it."

Another makes this comment:  "The fact that I can’t get an iPhone hurts my soul."

Me?  I held out as long as I could.  Finally I justified it by telling myself it will be like carrying around a phone, an iPod, a PDA, a camera and an alarm clock in one neat little package.  And it is — it’s handier than a Star Trek Tricorder.  It does everything but shoot laser beams and open my beer.

Here’s the thing:  it does MORE than I thought it could.  Way more.  It’s even handier than I’d thought in my wildest dreams.

Also, I’ve bought more software in the past month than I have in my entire life.  More music, too.  And I’ll tell you why — it’s insidious — the software is priced low enough for impulse buying, and it’s always at your fingertips.  You don’t have to sit at the computer studying what would be the best for the money, and you don’t have to drive to the nearest software store.

During idle minutes at the doctor’s office, for instance, I realized I had a really good signal, and sat there browsing the App store for new things … and there’s always new things.  I spent twenty dollars without even thinking about it.

I write blogs on it (not this one, it’s too long and I’d go nuts trying to type all this on the little thumb keyboard).  I keep up with friends on MySpace and Facebook.  Every twenty minutes I compulsively check my email.

It’s my alarm clock in the morning.  Its my meeting reminders.  It’s my source for weather and news.  It’s my full blown English dictionary, and a Wikipedia portal.  It’s my life’s soundtrack stereo.

I balance my checking account on it.  Keep my todo lists.  My shopping list.

I use it as a map.  I’M NEVER LOST.

Keep up with my Netflix queue.

Convert units of measurement.  Network through LinkedIn.

I even have a program that tells me how far away the last lightning strike was.

The one thing I hardly ever do with it, it turns out, is make a phone call.

Other people who have them, they whisper to me in conspiratorial tones.  What games do I have?  Movies?  And always the question, "What is the coolest new app?"

Before I got mine, I used to be annoyed when I’d get an email where at the bottom it said, "Sent from my iPhone."  For the first few days, I took it off mine, so it didn’t say that.  Then … I have to admit this … I put it back on.

I couldn’t help myself.  It’s like saying, "Ha ha!  Look!  I have the coolest toy, and I want to brag, brag, brag!"  Now when I get email from others that feature that bragging line down at the bottom I feel kindred to them.  We’re brothers and sisters.

We belong to the same cult.

The cult of the iPhone.

And don’t say that it isn’t.  Look at it in the press.  Watch them yakking on and on about it on blogs like Lifehacker.  Or even, er … here.  Yes.

It’s a cult alright.

And I haven’t been in love with a piece of hardware like this since my very first computer, way back in the early 80′s.

The iPhone is beyond a groovy gizmo.  It’s life changing.  If they ever come out with a keyboard for it, it would replace my laptop.

I mean, after all, a laptop is no where near this cool.

If I hadn’t already taken the plunge and joined the iPhone cult, the news of this app would driven me over the edge. WordPress + iPhone = true convenient mobile blogging.

Obviously I am writing this using the software. One thing it will lead to is much shorter posts.

WordPress for the iPhone is hereby officially proclaimed Groovy.