Oh yeah, feels like new again. Today I downloaded the new firmware for my iPhone and in case you haven’t been following my tweets, pownces, plurks, or friendfeed I am very satisfied. I haven’t felt this good about the device since I originally bought it, of course jail breaking it did feel good too but now these apps are leaps and bounds ahead of the original third party apps. Now I have something to hold me over until the AT&T 3G network stretches to my neck of the woods.

Of course I hit all the free apps first and most of those were to all my social networks. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Pownce all have apps and I have a feeling that I may be using most of those more than their actual websites. All of these social apps allow use of the camera or your photo library to upload pics right to their site. They also speed up the delivery and surfing of all the essential data related to those sites i.e. who is eating cheese, who is playing with their new iPhone, and who is in the shower.

Another notable free app is the weather bug which far exceeds the included weather app. Now you can see which way the wind is blowing, radar maps, and any weather alerts.

The list of free apps that wouldn’t be complete without Apple’s own remote for iTunes and the Apple TV. Now you can surf and control the media in your library just like you are using an iPod. This will be handy in those party situations when you want to have your iPhone on you but still be in control of the tunes.

There are a few familiar programs in the app store that you may have seen in installer.app. I will look forward to supporting as soon as I have a few extra bucks lying around; Band, Mobile Flickr, and Sketches to name a few. I’m still looking for cameraPro or Snapture as I feel they include many features that are missing from the iPhones camera like a self timer. SummerBoard would also be nice as I like to customize the look of the icons and the dock.

One new app I went out and bought was the new MLB app. This app is a must for anyone who spends as much time refreshing baseball scores. It also has the option to watch video highlights of the games. You still have to use mlb.com to view the play by play, hopefully that comes in the form of an update soon.

I could go on and on about all the new apps but the jist of the situation is that all in all I am happier than ever with my old iPhone. I will someday go out and replace it but as it is I feel now I am in no hurry. Since I don’t have access to 3g I don’t feel like paying an extra $10 a month to have fewer text messages and a useless 3Gcard in my phone. The fact that it has GPS doesn’t sell me on the new one either as I have already noticed a big improvement in the “current location” that is already in google maps.

Lately I have been rewriting most of the code behind http://1stat.us to accommodate the inclusion of Pownce. In this rewrite I have been shrinking the size of the scripts and cleaning up the code to open it to other features I want to incorporate.

With the new Pownce support you can view your friends public notes and replies inline with your Twitter and Facebook friends status updates. The biggest update is the ability to post to Pownce which until I have more time will only be public notes. Not only can you post to Pownce but you have the option to post the same message to twitter if you like or choose to post only to twitter. (posting your facebook status is a bit far off yet)

Currently If you want to reply to a pownce post it will redirect you to either the Pownce website or Pownce mobile depending on if you are on an iPhone or not. (Again I will change this when I have time).

I have also added a cache so that you can let 1stat.us run it’s auto refresh in the background and it will hold up to 100 of the newest tweets, notes, and statuses until you come back to it. You can do what I do and leave it open in your docked iPhone so you can see if there is any thing new.

Along with the new features I gave 1stat.us a new look. Each site is represented by it’s own color border and links so you can tell where it is coming from.

A lot more is in store for the site so bear with me as I’m doing this in my spare time.

Not quite a month ago I got into this thing called twitter and have been hooked. I have finally found a place to keep all those one liners that pop up into my head and then fade out of existence. When I mean hooked, I mean hooked in. With the option to post to and receive updates from twitter via cell phone text message, im, or the web it turns your text and instant messaging into a conference message combining the protocols so that you can be reached by whatever means you deem suitable at the time.

Twitter lets you have control over who you are receiving messages from. You can shut off all messages at anytime by just sending the words “off” and to turn it back on, you guessed it, “on”. If you want to get updates from a certain person you just type “follow username” (replace username with the person’s username). To Follow all type “follow all”. The command “leave” does just the opposite in the same respect (add “username” or “all”). “Delete” or “remove” followed by “username” will remove that user from your friends list. “Get” will get all the most recent updates, add “username” and you will get that users last update. “Nudge username” will attempt to get a update from a user. “Whois username” will give a short bio and a web address for a user and “d username” in front of a short message will send a direct message to someone. more lingo here.

None of that is necessary to use twitter, but it comes in handy when on the go. If you find your way over there I’m at http://twitter.com/artifishall