If you haven't noticed the low-res image in the sidebar, I caved and got myself a "camera-equipped cellphone":http://getitnow.vzwshop.com/html/phones/lg_vx6000.jsp over the weekend. I've already set up "a moblog":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/ on "TextAmerica":http://www.textamerica.com/. I can send a picture as a message from my phone to a special email address, and it automatically gets posted to the site. They were even nice enough to provide an "RSS(Rich Site Summary) feed":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/rss.asp for the pictures, so you can include data from the moblog on any other site, like this one. They had a Javascript file that you could use to do it more automagically, but:

# the link opened in another window. # the link was to the moblog homepage, not the larger image of the thumbnail picture used for the link # you didn't see descriptive text (if there was any). # there was a TextAmerica ad button below the image.

So, being a programmer, with some help from "an article":http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/031903-1.aspx from "Scott Mitchell":http://datawebcontrols.com/, I used the RSS(Rich Site Summary) feed to extract all the data I needed, and created the link and description text myself. I'm even caching the data once a minute so the page doesn't have to wait for the image data each time.

There are some other neat things besides the camera. I can put my own photos on the phone, as wallpaper or startup/shutdown screens. I can also put pictures as CallerID notifications, so when Ryan calls, "his face":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20030524_robin_joshua_wedding/P1010023.JPG comes up.

My 2nd-most favorite feature has to be downloadable ring tones. I admit, I thought that ringtones were stupid; everyone just getting the latest song from 40 cent or whatever. But "take a look":http://vzw.modtones.com/verizon/index.jsp?cid=VZW&mid=VZW_LG&hid=10 at some of the ringtones that are available! The "Alternative":http://vzw.modtones.com/verizon/mainEntry.jsp?categoryId=103&searchType=searchByGenreDrill section is a bit thin, but still has good stuff in it; Stone Roses, etc. Right now my ringer is "Let's go to bed" by The Cure.