Being prone to experiments & projects, my clever boyfriend Jeremy & I wanted to make a fish-eye lens for our iPhones. Sure “there’s an app for that”, but we wanted hardware! So after a trip to the hardware store, $4 for a peephole (the kind you’d install in your front door to spy on the neighbors.. wait, what?), we had a fish-eye lens!

We have yet to figure out a proper “mount” for the lens, so it requires being handheld against the iphone lens. However- this gives it an interactive “lensbaby” type experience, no two shots are the same. You can see the barrel of the peephole in the photos, and often get interesting flare, light leaks and color tints.

Here’s a video of the project, and a sampling of our photos at the end of it. Enjoy!

I just installed the “Mill Colour” app on my iPhone, and am WILDLY impressed. I’ve been using CameraBag and Cool FX for many moons – this has beyond replaced them. Because it was designed by visual effects company – not simply app developers –  they have brought “subtle” into the world of iphone image editing! Full control over color, saturation, gain, lift (exposure), gamma… and a handful of solid presets.Image loading, editing and saving is decidedly faster than any other app I’ve used.

The kicker? IT’S FREE!

Here are 2 quick-and-dirty edits from dinner tonight (our tea glasses at Cheesecake Factory). Sidenote: I’m so very pleased with the iPhone 3Gs camera – especially the macro ability. It’s just so crisp… love it!

It was a pounding rain on the dark window, warm kitty purring, running bleary eyed to the truck, endless trail of red brake lights downtown, running with an umbrella to the office door but still getting soaked, kind of Friday morning here in Tampa.

What’s a gal to do but take some artsy iphone photos?

GetDropbox.com – at the risk of sounding cliche – has revolutionized the way I manage my files & documents.

I have a work PC, a window netbook, a Macbook Pro, gmail documents, lists on iPhone “notes” … just all manner of personal and work files spread everywhere. Budgets, resumes, professional photos, personal pictures, guitar tabs, wordpress themes, workout log, french vocab, photo biz documents, family geneaology research, upcoming nepal trek info, grad school pdfs… you KNOW what I mean!  Now, I keep “backups” of my computers and my professional photography on my Windows Homeserver. What I’m talking about here is just the “data of life”.

I needed:

1) A way to centralize all these files, so I could access them from any computer or device. And SUPER SIMPLE EASY to use.

2) Have them integrate natively into my folder structure on all these computers. I don’t want to always go to a website to manage the documents, it’s gets tedious & I quit doing it (eh-hem, like with iDisk, not so native for Windows). I just wanted a folder to show up in “my documents” or on my desktop that I can drag-and-drop the files to. And if I add or change a document in one place, it changes everywhere. But I did want web-access, if I’m on someone else’s computer or am travelling.

3) A way to share documents if need be: send my boyfriend the silly “hurricane drinking game” I wrote, send a family member an old photo I found of a great-grandparent, share a logo pdf file with a co-worker.

4) And the dream was to have an iPhone app for it as well.

BAM! ZAP! PING! ….. enter: DropBox.

It does all of this without blinking. It’s totally secure, and free (or cheap, for more storage options). I put all of these folders/docs/photos in my dropbox and can get them anywhere. Also, I won’t have to sweat it if one of my computers dies, or lets say, if I change jobs and don’t want to have that panic of “wait, did I forget about my personal budget files on that PC?!”.

And now that there’s a slick iPhone app, I can even upload photos I take (or already have in my album). I can send links to documents from within it. I can view all of my MS Office files (yes, even .docx), high-res pdfs, photos. There’s even a way to pick “favorites” – those docs you access all the time.

I think you get the picture, and why I’m so stoked! Check out their website for a demo. Also, pricing: 2G = free, 50G = 9.99/month, 100G = 19.99/month. I got the free option, and within 30 minutes had upgraded to 50G. I’ve nowhere near maxxed it out, but it’s worth the cost to me. Peace of mind that my “life data” is secure & universally accessible ROCK!

Here are some screenshots I made so you can see how it fits into my life. Click the first one & it opens up like a gallery, you can click “next” through them all.

If you’re like me, your iPhone spends alot of it’s day docked on your office desk & looking bland. Wouldn’t it be cool if it could be a photo slideshow / picture frame?!

Cue stage right: DreamStream (iTunes WebApp link)

DreamStream display photos from your iPhone photo library, sure. But it’s also integrated with social networks & will display photos from: Flickr tags, Facebook albums, MobileMe, RSS, and more. You can set the slideshow time interval as well. And beneath the photos is a scrolling “widget” bar that cycles through: the time, date and weather (with multiple customizable locations). It works in both portrait and landscape mode.

There is a free Lite version as well, but honestly – after about 30 seconds, I immediately purchased the full version (only $2.99). Worth every little penny!

TED iPhone app (opens in iTunes)

“Enjoy inspiring and edifying talks from the Technology, Education and Design (TED) conferences on your iPhone or iPod Touch. … Watch and listen to the latest videos and audio, search their vast collection of content, bookmark your favorite talks to share or enjoy later.” (official description)

“The quarter-century old nonprofit TED—Technology, Education and Design—just made their mission of spreading innovative ideas easier with their iPhone application. Aggregating the latest audio and video from the TED talks and conferences, the search function sorts through the hundreds of speakers and a bookmarking feature marks favorites.” (review at Cool Hunting)