I'm really captivated by sleek, flush fitting designed hardware at the moment having just rewired and installed wiring in my new house. Looking back, my old house was just the prototype for much of what I'm doing now except without so many wires visible.

To create an automated home setup which includes controlling the central heating boiler, PIR security and TV recording and streaming devices around the house, there's quite a bit cable running under the floor, between walls and through ceilings. Keeping the cables hidden is quite a challenge.

Chargers are often the worse with long cables, most of which is left hanging or laying around.

Maplin Electronics sell a UK 13A plug socket with a built in USB charging socket. A neat solution for de-cluttering any kitchen or lounge. Reasonably priced at £14.99.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, I also spotted that designer, Min-Kyo Choi has won the Brit Insurance Design Award 2010 for creating a flat-pack plug. See photo above. I really liked the way several plugs can folded up and still plugged into a specially designed multi-way plug. Really smart thinking.

Check out the YouTube video....

 

The iPhone travels with me everywhere I go. Most days it gets a lot of use from listening to music, taking photos, checking travel and weather reports, accessing email, diary, administering servers and my home (more on this later!) Some software on the phone drains the battery more than others, such as using it as a phone, or the GPS and Google Maps where data is constantly being downloaded. Often the iPhone struggles to even last the day without a top up or connection to my computer. Some days, this just doesn't happen as I'm constantly moving here there and everywhere.

I know about the battery 'jackets' you can buy for the iPhone, but I hate them, mostly because they make the phone chunky and who wants to lose the beautiful design?  No, I needed something I could just plug in, even momentarily and didn't rely on needed to be connected to the mains. There are hundreds of iPhone accessories out there, but few really make the grade.

The Mobile Power Station seems to be a pretty smart solution. It has a dock plug which is simply connected to the bottom of the iPhone with a simple battery level indicator to show how much charge is left in the device. It charges the iPhone and on a full charge will completely charge the phone in about 30 minutes. Of course the phone still works albeit with something piggybacked onto it.

When using Trailguru on the iPhone for tracking distance travelled on my bike this weekend, the iPhone rarely manages to complete a 2hr cycle because the GPS and screen power is just so draining for its battery. However, with the Mobile Power Station plugged into the iPhone which is mounted in the handlebar cradle it's just perfect. It's very inexpensive too.

Charging is simple, simply connect to a standard iPod/iPhone charger and if piggybacked into the iPhone, the charger will charge both.

 

The XCarLink adaptor is simply a box which interfaces between the iPod or iPhone and the CD radio head unit. The adaptor unit about the size of four match boxes and has two cables leading from it. One of the cables connects directly to the iPod or iPhone, the other to the CD changer port on the back of the head unit.

 

These instructions explain how I fitted the XCarLink adaptor into my VW Golf V (MK 5) TDI SE (2005)

The cable from the adaptor box plugs straight into the available CD changer socket on the back of the head unit. Before connecting, I ran the cable from the bottom of the centre console to behind the CD radio unit. In order to do this, the cigarette lighter and ashtray needs to be removed.

1. Remove the gearstick cover. It pops out easily with little force needed.

   

2. Beneath the cover reveals two screws. Remove these and the ashtray and cigarette lighter unit can be lifted up and out. You'll need to disconnect the cigarette lighter cable and ESP cable (if fitted.)

   

   

3. I identified a suitable spot for locating the XCarLink interface unit beneath the ashtray and cigarette lighter unit.

   

4. I routed the cable from the XCarLink interface box to the iPod / iPhone down a gap between the carpet and the centre console.

   

5. Once all the cables are in place, switch on the CD radio and test the setup before putting the gearstick cover, centre console and dashboard back together.

   

6. I use a piece of velco (the soft furry piece attached the iPhone) and the hooks attached the the dashboard. The iPhone isn't very heavy and the velco works well to support the iPhone in an upright position and within easy sight and reach for both the driver and passenger.
    

This was an easy install and took less than 45 minutes to complete from start to finish.

 

Good luck and enjoy!

 

UPDATE
I've checked out new iPhone accessories since posting this blog to find a suitable mounting system for the iPhone. See my later blog entry for more.

At the beginning of August I attended the Essex International Jamboree in Thorpe-le-Soken. This photograph was taken at the closing ceremony using my Apple iPhone 3G. This device has a built-in GPS receiver and is able to determine the exact position for latitude and longitude whenever required.

Usefully, location information is made available to the camera application when taking photographs with the iPhone. The latitude and longitude information is stored in the photograph's EXIF header within the file.

Using Yahoo Map's API, the EXIF data can be read and once interpreted, a location pointer can be layered on a given map.

Ultimately this means that viewing sets of photographs can be location specific. Imagine browsing your library of photographs by location. Using a map of the world I could easily find my photographs scattered in far away places including New Zealand, Thailand, Caribbean, and America.

Of course, this isn't new technology as such. Placing photographs on a map has been achievable for some years and the process of 'geotagging' images with location data is well understood by many. What the iPhone does is make geotagging very straightforward as all the location information is stored automatically at the point of taking the photograph. All that's required now is for a piece of software that can interact with the mapping API to do the rest.

With a little bit of work I was able to develop a little module that allows the location of geotagged photographs to be displayed on a map. So you kinda get a "I was 'ere" tool that shows exactly where you were standing when the photograph was taken. Unfortunately, this uses Yahoo Maps rather than the very impressive Google Maps interface - but hey, nothing is perfect.

...oh, and to see the map you'll have to view the full blog entry.

Having just written about mobile blogging and two online software solutions that I've been using successfully, here's another one, Twitxr.com. I saw this published on Tom Smith's blog, and thought I'd have a play too.

Jonathan's Moblog on Twitxr

From Tom's site, this then led me towards another moblogging site. This one slightly (!) more funky than any of the others I've seen so far. I really love the immediate sense of community and audience that my blog posts now have. The community 'feel' is something Blogger.com doesn't do particularly well.

 

 

I carry a little folded up piece of paper in my wallet of the London Underground tube map to help me find my way around the Tube network. It's also helpful to have a map to refer to when there are delays and cancellations on the tube network, and that's more usual than not - or maybe it just seems that way.

I found an underground map for the Apple iPhone, which has been specifically designed for the iPhone's screen size. A single jpg image doesn't work because when the image is optimised for the iPhone, the size and quality of the image is reduced, meaning station names can't be read.

How to use and install on the Apple iPhone

1. Download the underground tube network files from this site.
2. Import the archive contents into iPhoto.
3. Create a new album called something you can remember, such as "Underground" and drag the photos into the folder
4. Set your iPhone to sync with that album via iTunes.
5. Navigate to your Photos on the iPhone and the album name you created. Simply scroll between each section of the tube network map.

I've also installed a WebApp which shows the current status of the Underground Network.

The Register recently posted...

Most iPhone owners probably just chucked the handset's box in the bin seconds after leaving the shop. Not designer Scot Hampton - instead, he turned Apple's packaging into a 35mm film camera.

erm, not me - I love the way Apple package their products, so I tend to keep the boxes declaring them just too beautiful to throw away. In fact their boxes are just as pretty as the kit inside them!

 

If you think this is just a mock up image, read more to find out that Scott has actually put the components of a film camera inside. Incredible. 

 

I've been running a mobile blog site for a long time now (since 2006), and although my main blog has been rather quiet over the past few weeks, I've found time to reflect on some recent activities using my new iPhone. In the past, I have used the Sony Ericsson software on the handset to send photos captured by the mobile phone's camera straight to a Blogger.com site.

Clearly this software wasn't available on the iPhone, but as with all sites that have a programmable API, there are plenty of other routes for creating blogs, many of them not new of course. Email to webpage technology allows web content to be authored within an email client and then published by sending an email which is read by the server and published. It's a really neat solution and although it has been around for at least the last 6 years it hasn't, for me, had a use until now.

The iPhone has a great web browser, and handles forms really well, so it's great for posting to any website. However, it won't allow you to upload photos because of the restrictions to being able to access the file system (with the exception of hacked iPhones.) The iPhone also has a great email client, which overcomes the problem of uploading images to a blog site.

Using Blogger.com's email to blog option, I can take pictures on the iPhone, choose the Email Photo option and send it to a private address that only I know about, but one which Blogger.com receives and then publishes as a blog entry. A perfect solution, and quick too. Here are some of my most recent entries, all taken with an iPhone and blogged straight to Blogger.com using Mail.

Of course, it's not just Blogger.com that enables this technology as Flickr does this too, see my iPhone pictures on Flickr, in fact, you can see everyone elses iPhone pictures on Flickr.

Flickr will also publish your photos and accompanying annotation to most popular blog sites, or to any blog that supports xmlrpc, such as WordPress, Drupal, Movable Type.

For those of you who have a TypePad blog, the developers of TypePad have already created an iPhone interface.