Box.net is one of the many online storage options now available. They have just  released an iPhone app that lets you access your “cloud-stored” files.

Box.net offers a number of different storage options ranging from 1gb of free storage to a $20 a month options that provides 15 GB of storage. I should note that the free option limits individual files to a max of 25 MB and a total of 10 GB of bandwidth usage per month while the paid options offer the ability to upload files of up to 1 GB in size with unlimited bandwidth usage per month. 
Since I already have both SugarSync and iDisk storage (with SugarSync offering their own app and A.I. Disk providing access to my iDisk) I opened a free 1GB account. Signup was a breeze and I was ready to go within 30 seconds.

I do a tremendous amount of my online reading with my iPhone / iPod Touch these days. One of the biggest changes I have now (since my handheld is always connected to wifi or 3G) is that I find myself using it almost entirely as my RSS reader (the computer takes a back seat).

This is, however, a mixed blessing. On the one hand, RSS feeds allow me to get exactly the kind of news that I want to get. On the other hand, since RSS feeds allow me to get exactly the kind of news I want to get, it also means I get a narrower perspective on the world. I don’t necessarily get the diverse perspectives I like to read about issues. Nowhere is this more pronounced than the current US presidential election. If you watch Fox news and MSNBC at the same time you’ll hear the exact same stories reported, but you wonder if they were actually looking at the same event. Of course, there is nothing wrong with taking in differing perspectives and then finding your own “truth”.

That is why I was excited when a new application was released a few weeks ago. Instead of giving me just the specific news that I want to get, iNewz allows me to choose a number of different news sources and get my information from them collectively. For instance, if I am getting information about politics, I can now automatically pull from three US sources, one British source, and one Canadian source.  This gives me a much broader world perspective.  If I want to know how the US is being portrayed outside of the country I can get US news from seven different Australian news sources, five Canadian sources, five Irish sources and more. It’s a great way to have a wide perspective in a global world.

Unfortunately, iNewz suffers from two major flaws.

Of all the voice note applications currently available for the iPhone I find Note2Self from WebIS to be the best.

The recording quality, ease of use and frequent update path make it a remarkably useful tool. It was updated once again today and is now an even better app. Among the new features…

– You can now add text to a note
– Volume bar now saves its position for next play
– An indicator to display unplayed notes.
-The addition of date stamp for played
– Improved performance in startup and in the notes list
– Ability to add text notes to audio notes
…and more.

In addition, the high quality, noise-canceling microphone on my new MacBook now makes it possible to record a voice note with Note2Self, play the recording through my iPhone’s speaker while the voice recognition software is running and have MacSpeech Dictate actually transcribe the voice note with superb accuracy.

How does it work? A quick video after the break will show you.

I recently raved about the app Say Where! I liked it in theory and in real world use it was fantastic.

The only issue I had with it was the need to scroll through a number of screen before you were able to actually Say Where you wanted to go.

Well, Say Where! just got updated and…

Zumobi, the maker of the Pro Football application series, has released an app for every NFL team.

For example, since my favorite team is the Jacksonville Jaguars, I was able to download Pro Football Jacksonville.

The application opens to four windows, three of which are the same for every version: News, Scores, and Stats. You can use these windows to find information from around the NFL, from viewing the upcoming week’s injury report to checking who has the most rushing yards in the NFC. These tabs work great at what they do, with a “e-mail to a friend” link in the upper right hand corner at all times.

The forth corner of the menu, however, is a window catered to the NFL you selected.

My "One Screen Challenge" got me thinking about how great it is when you are able to consolidate a number of functions into a single app. For example, Evernote can be used for text, photo and voice notes if I want to save time and space. There are others, and as the App Store matures the list will continue to grow.  There is one new app in particular that has the potential to replace many different apps.

The new app One Seek is, for all intents and purposes, a web app. It is useless unless you actually have a live data connection and there is nothing that a web-based app could not do that this resident app does (or could do- more on that later).  It does, however, have the potential to be hugely convenient by rolling numerous different search functions into a single app. With One Seek you can quickly and easily pull up numerous sites, including

??1) Google.com? 2) Wikipedia.com? 3) IMDB.com ?4) Amazon.com ?5) Ask.com ?6) Answers.com ?7) Dictionary.com ?8) Digg.com ?9) Ebay.com ?10) Facebook.com? 11) Linkedin.com ?12) MSN.com? 13) Myspace.com? and 14) Thesaurus.com

So for $2 you get a single web portal to some of the most popular sites. It might actually be worth it if…

Despite all the bad press, not to mention my frustration early on, I’m actually rather happy with the way in which Apple’s MobileMe has evolved. Overall, the process of syncing works well and allows me to have my most up to date PIM information no matter where I am and no matter what device I am using. That, combined with BackToMyMac, one of the best features of Leopard and MobileMe, means I have everything with me no matter where I am.

One of the many things I have been hoping for as part of an iPhone update has been the ability to use BackToMyMac and/or MobileMe’s iDisk on the iPhone. That would turn the iPhone into an easy to use extension of your desktop. Numerous applications have already allowed remote file access, but two recent additions to the App Store are particularly noteworthy. When used in conjunction with one another, they bring "back to my Mac" access to the iPhone and iPod Touch.