Multitasking to come in iPhone 4.0 software

According to several sites on the Internet the general opinion seems to be that in Summer version 4.0 of the iPhone software will be released and will include multi tasking capabilities. This will extend beyond the core apps to allow concurrent execution of 3rd party apps. Sounds good to me. 

The image above is a good representation of how the screen could display your running apps and allow you to switch between them. Power consumption and available memory are concerns with running several things at once. Plus the potential for Spyware\Malware being able to "lurk" in the background is now a threat. I for one will be keen to see how Apple handle these issues. I expect there will be a maximum number of apps that can run concurrently. Will my iPhone 3G be able to cope with v4.0 software and multitasking or will I have to get the next iPhone model which will probably have more memory a faster processor and a better battery (I hope!).

Parrot MKi9200 Car Kit

Hi there good people of the Internet. I have great news to share with you all. For some time now I have been getting along very nicely with a VW iPod kit in my VW Passat to use with my good old trusty 4th Gen iPod. However since Spotify came out for the iPhone and I signed up for Spotify Premium I have been wanting to play my Spotify music in the car. But how? What would be the best way? As soon as you plug a dock connector into your iPhone it only wants to use the native "iPod" app. I needed another way. A method that used no cables. And then I discovered the Parrot MKi9200. What a beauty!!  Let me tell you what it can do for me. First of all it's a wonderful bluetooth car kit that sync's my iPhone contacts list so that I can call people easily and receive calls. Nothing that clever there really but I've never had a car kit before so I find it exciting. Anyway I can also use voice tags to call, reject incoming calls or hang up. My iPhone 3G does not have this function. Then I can do bluetooth media streaming so I can choose to use the iPod app or the Spotify app from my iPhone. Both work great. Additionally I could put music on an SD card and insert that into the display screen. The device also has a cable in the glove box with 3 adapters on it. One is an iPhone connector so that when I'm using the iPod app I have full control over its features from the MKi9200. Album artwork, picking the music I want, track skipping, volume etc. Or I could use the standard headphone jack adapter to plug in any MP3 player that is not clever enough to have bluetooth or I could use the USB adapter and plug a USB memory stick in that happens to have a bunch of music on it. So any music listening option is possible really. The device also has themes and other customisations to personalise it. I'm well suited. It's perfect. I bought mine from Halfords which whilst far from the cheapest place to buy it was very convenient and they fitted the device for free. If, like me, you love to have your music in the car and want a device that makes that very simple whilst providing a great range of methods for listening you can't go wrong with the MKi9200. Buy one today!! Treat yourself for Christmas. That's what I did.

Google Wave

Well I've got me a Google Wave account courtesy of my old work colleague and friend,  Matt Fitchett. Thanks Matt if you're reading this. It looks like it could be a lot of fun and very powerful but not until you have a worthwhile set of contacts, which frankly I don't. Don't get me wrong, me and Matt have lots to talk about :o) but it'd be good to share the fun around with a wider set of people. Matt seems to get invites that he can send out from time to time, so if I get the same I shall surely pass them on to my friends and family. I've not worked out too much of the good stuff as yet but I like the idea of a single wave between friends rather than sending an email to loads of people and trying to keep track of all the "Reply to Alls" that clutter up your Inbox. The collaborative nature of a Wave seems really sensible. I'm interested to see what happens with this product as more and more people get connected to it. I feel that the power is in the ability to have a wide network of contacts to collaborate with. Anyone else got a Google Wave account?

Firefox Add-Ons

I just upgraded to Firefox 3.5 and installed a bunch of add-ons for it. One of them is enabling me to quickly add this post to my blog. It's called "Shareaholic". It's great for updating loads of different social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. I also installed FoxyTunes which enables me to control my media player from a discreet bar at the foot of my web browser. FoxyTunes has a thing called Twitty Tunes which means I can quickly Tweet what I am listening to and it also posts a link to more info about that artist. Finally I installed TwitterFox which is a great little Twitter client integrated into Firefox. Check 'em out good people of the Internet!

30 Twitter Tools For Managing Followers

Found this article via somebody else's Tweet.
http://pelfusion.com/tools/30-twitter-tools-for-managing-followers/
I take no credit for it but it looks useful if you are a Twitter user. Sticking it on my blog will help me remember how to find the article. I haven't actually checked out any of the tools as yet.