When I first went to pick up my iPhone 3G, I was scared. I know what my hands are capable of: Horrible, unthinkable acts of clumsiness. I’ve hurt myself. I’ve hurt others. I’ve even hurt my kitties. So why would I want to put this salvific piece of tech gold into harms way? I need to protect this treasure, specifically because I don’t have another $600 to spend on a replacement. And I will be needing one soon.

I don’t put my iPhone in a case. You shouldn’t either.

I really have only one reason why my iPhone doesn’t wear clothes, and it offends iPhone case owners every time I talk about my decision. Sure, I can mention that I don’t like the current selection of cases, but that isn’t true. I really would love to have a macro lens option on my iPhone, so the Griffin Clarifi taunts me every time I walk into the Apple Store. I can show you exactly where it is: second shelving unit, bottom row on the middle right. I can also mention that I don’t like the scratches that cases put on the iPhone, but if it’s in the case all the time, you’re really never going to see them, are you?

My only reason for going caseless is this: A case doesn’t allow me to experience the iPhone. It just means I’m using a bulkier, less attractive iPhone.

I don’t use a screen protector for the same reason. I’m just not getting the same experience if I add all this protective gear. Seriously, you look better when you’re not wearing a retainer and safety goggles. It’s a fact.

Scratch Resistance and Apple Care

Believe it or not, your iPhone is scratch resistant where it matters most. I throw my phone onto sandy countertops. I put it in the same front pocket as my keys in my tight jeans so you know there’s some rubbing. And I have yet to see a scratch on the front of my iPhone. Granted, the back has scratches and wearing on the corners, but that’s not important to me and apparently a case does that to your phone anyway.

Also, my current iPhone is a replacement for my last iPhone which was a replacement for my first iPhone. Because I don’t have a case on my iPhone, dust gets under the screen and eventually builds up to the point where I can’t stand it anymore. When I took my phone to Apple, they replaced it with a new one the first two times. Last time I went they just replace the screen rather than the whole phone.

The Trade Off

So yes, if you work construction and you like to jackhammer and talk on the phone then you should put that gorgeous piece of technology in something protective. And yes, if you go caseless you’re going to get lint under your screen. But no casual case is going to save your baby from that urinal. And since a case can’t offer you potty insurance, why not enjoy your phone the way Steve meant it to be?

If you have a google voice account, you can make free VoIP calls on your iPhone. You’ll need to sign up for a Gizmo account and download Fring for your iPhone, but after you’re done you can make free 3 minute outgoing calls and have unlimited incoming calls through Google Voice.

Ingredients
To do this you’ll need the following:

• Gizmo account
• Google Voice Account
• Fring app for iPhone

The following are optional but will optimize your experience (though Apple will hate you for it):

• jailbroken iPhone
• Backgrounder
• 3g unrestrictor

Sign Up for Gizmo

All you need from Gizmo is the VoIP part of the puzzle. You don’t need to download the Gizmo desktop client, but you will need to change some of your settings.

When you’ve signed up for Gizmo, login to your account and turn Google Voice on. Add your google voice account number and you’re set. On your way out, be sure to grab your Gizmo number which is two headings below in the Account Overview section. You’ll see a heading called SIP Number. Copy it. We’ll need to add it as a phone in Google Voice.

Set up Google Voice

Navigate to your Google Voice settings and click on the phones tab. At the bottom of the tab is an add another phone link. Click it and select Gizmo as the phone type from the drop down menu.

Once you’ve added your gizmo number, it’s time to open up fring on the iPhone.

Set Up Fring

Open up your Fring app and click on the SIP selection in the Add Ons menu. Use the Gizmo option to login to your account.

Enter your Gizmo credentials and you’re set to make calls with Google Voice on your iPhone. Fring allows you to select contacts from your iPhone and hit SIP to dial. You’ll need to be on a wifi network to make outgoing calls, and you’re limited to 3 minutes, but you can receive incoming calls and talk for as long as you want. The incoming caller just needs to dial your google voice number and you need to make disable Google Voice from forwarding your calls to your iPhone phone number.

Always Available

Fring now has push notifications so you can be notified when someone is trying to reach you. It isn’t the most reliable way to take incoming phone calls, but it’s the only way for an un-jailbreaked iPhone to handle incoming calls without having the Fring app open constantly. So this system isn’t dependable for switching to VoIP just yet, but you can make 3 minute calls for free and have your friends call you back for unlimited interaction time.

Either Way, a Smart Move

Using this system of Google Voice->Gizmo->Fring will help you cut down on your minutes, and it’s just the thing to keep you connected when you’ve run out. Jailbreaking your phone allows you to keep fring open in the background to receive calls, and it also lets you wander off of wifi. Using the 3g network for VoIP means you can lower you minute plan to nil. All you need is data. Isn’t that a Beatles song?

Even though I can’t think of a must have use for this app at this very moment doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. You’ll need to take screenshots. You’ll need to take a screenshot of something and email it to a friend. Maybe a copy of some uncopyable photo on Flickr, or a hard to format print job will benefit from Skitch dwelling in your menubar. You’re going to need this app, and it’s a must have free download.

Screen Shooter

Skitch is a screen capture and quick photo editing app that lives unobtrusively in your menubar. When you want to capture something on the screen, just hit the designated keystroke, select the section of the screen you want to capture and Skitch will do the rest. That’s not even the best part. Let’s take a look at the free goodies included in the Skitch interface.

First of all, I wasn’t sure how to take a screen shot of Skitch itself, but I opened up the tool menu at the top left and one of the options is “Snap Skitch itself.” I love this app even more. There are plenty of features in this little guy but I’ll point out the necessities and you can explore the flourishes.

Mark It Up

Usually, when I’m taking a screenshot I’m making a correction on a webpage or giving a tutorial on selling potted plants on ebay. Thus, I need to mark up my screenshot with arrows, circles and text to help illustrate and/or dumb down the processes or corrections I’m trying to communicate. Allow me to fittingly highlight these tools using Skitch:

I love the drawing feature because it smooths out and adjust your lines to make them look like you know what you’re doing. Marking up your captured screens is easy with Skitch, and there are many more customizable options than what you see in the menu bars. You can adjust fonts, add shadow, crop and resize by using features available in the tool menu. Another cool feature is the Cam option in the upper right side. Click this and take a picture of whatever is in front of your webcam.

Share It

Once you’re finished telling a story with pictures, you can tear off that tab at the bottom and drag to Mail.app, Evernote, or the desktop. If you want to change your filetype, click on the filetype drop down menu. I also love that the dimensions and file size are listed in the bottom corner.

So I made a coworker use this app to mark up a publication that was to be submitted to our marketing department. I wasn’t sure if marketing would go for it but they loved having the corrections in an easily illustrated digital copy. There you go: Marketing people everywhere love Skitch.

Give Skitch a try. You can also share your clippings online at Skitch.com.

My author friend David Athey is doing this film festival thing for his first novel, Danny Gospel. I wanted to give his event a little boost so I put my facebook page making skills into action and created this page.

I wanted to add a little flair (no not that dumb FB application) to the page, and I remembered that when I was creating my NACCAP presentations, Keynote gave me tons of saving options. It turns out that you can turn your Keynote slideshows into flash banners or quicktime movies. Here are a couple of pointers when trying this out:

• 3D transitions in keynote won’t convert over. You’ll have to use the 2D generic ones or just let keynote convert them for you
• You can’t use an FBML or HTML box in facebook for flash or video, but facebook has created a special application for flash on pages. Add it to your page, and then upload your flash presentation along with a preview picture.
• FB flash is limited, meaning that the presentation will not autoplay or loop. To counter this, make your preview image something that encourages clicking and duplicate your presentation in the slide window so that it will seem like it’s looping.
• If you’re not a mac user or don’t have Keynote, you can use PowerPoint to create a video of your slideshow, but no flash. The only way to add video to your facebook page is to upload the video to the facebook video app (Boooo!).

Check out the Danny Gospel Facebook Page to see what I mean. Click on the main picture to see the flash presentation, and click on the video titled banner to see the quicktime version. While you’re at it, go pick up a copy of Danny Gospel!

One Must Become Nerdy To Achieve Awesomeness

I am always limited by the programs that I have available on my computer. Instead of running out and buying software that I don’t know how to use, I do what I always do… I scoured the internet for free stuff. 

Most sites dedicated to helping noobs with video editing or clothing creation for second life direct readers to open source downloads. Open Source programs sometimes are a pain to install, so be sure to completely read the read me file before installing the software. This has come in handy when I’ve needed to do some photo editing that went outside the realm of what iPhoto could do. I downloaded a program called Gimp, and I’m Photo-shopping away for free. Nice!

What It Means

You can think of Open Source software as a sort of Wikipedia in software form. These programs are being continuously developed by separate developers who donate their contributions for the purpose of making the program more useful/powerful/better-than anything-Microsoft-could-come-up-with/ etc.

A Couple Of Links To Get You Started

This is a blasphemous article in Mashable with 480 open source downloads, though
they’re not listed by platform (OS X, Windows).

Mac users can go here. PC users can go here.

I Obsess Over Restaurants

Come to think of it… I obsess over a lot of things. If you have a couple of conversations with me, you’ll know that I love this restaurant called holé molé, that I got my Macbook Pro for 400 bucks, and that there’s an AAMCO just down the street that won’t rip you off (you can also shop for telescopes while you wait).

Apparently this means that my word of mouth marketing is like me spreading a disease. I’m not the normal person when it comes to word of mouth stuff. If you’re hitting certain switches for me such as tabletop video games, free wireless internet, or returning my call when even though you’re not open I’m going to tell everyone who I think will adequately appreciate. But normal people will tell their friends about safe stuff so they don’t look stupid. Stuff that’s funny, stuff that is free, stuff that will assuredly blow their minds.

Let’s keep it clean

I’m pretty sure that the most effective viral marketing happens on accident. I’ll use YouTube or MySpace TV to convey a message. Why not communicate a basic process over video such as the application process? Or do a video tour of the residence hall for a student who lives a time zone away. Whatever you do, you probably won’t have students flocking to your school because of a hilarious video, but you may have a prospective student show their friends where they’re living their freshman year. And you’ll cut down on phone calls when they watch a video announcement.