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I love my phone. But it sucks to use it while lying down, because no matter how I turn it, it tries to stay right-side-up. But I've figured out a coping mechanism. So here's how to use your iPhone while lying down in bed:

1. Lay down on your side.
2. Turn the iPhone on it's side, so it's actually usable.
3. Open Safari, or any other app that can't stay right-side-up.
4. Wait for the interface to turn all sideways and worthless.
5. Turn it so that the iPhone is completely upside-down. Most apps, Safari included, won't know what to do… so they'll freak out and stay in landscape mode.
6. Now the landscape mode is usable!

Last year was fun, but I don't think I'll be doing NaBloPoMo again this year. Maybe I'll focus on writing one solid blog post this month instead. :)

Google's messing with search engine results again, but this time it looks like they're trying to take on Wikipedia, not Digg. At least they're calling their editable search engine result experiment SearchWiki this time around. It still looks a lot like it did last time I reported on it (here and here). Check out a bunch of screenshots from this iteration here:

Things are a bit smoother this time. Moving results is a nice, polished animation. Overall, SearchWiki pretty rad. I can't wait for more community features to show up. Mebbe they'll even use these Google public profiles we all have but don't know about?

If you wanna give it a shot but don't see the fun little grey buttons next to your search results, try adding &swm=2 to the end of a Google search URL. (swm=2 was the same parameter they used in the last iteration. YMMV). If that doesn't work, try 0 or 1 or 2. Can't hurt, right? :)

Most geeks are enthralled by Swiss Army knives. "Look at all these features!" they say, "It even has a spoon!" … But the Swiss Army knife is, by definition, a compromise. When compared to actual silverware, a Swiss Army spoon falls far short of the mark. Fanboys and apologists accept this "Swiss Army" compromise because of the convenience offered. They no longer have to carry the right tool for every job, because they have one tool that's good enough for most jobs. In the limited capacity of pants pockets, convenience wins over suitability almost every time.

Application developers, being geeks, often fall into the same trap. They develop a "Swiss Army" application that does a lot of things poorly, but does nothing nearly as well as a single well-targeted app would. But a modern computer isn't limited like my pockets. I can comfortably fit as many tools as I want or need. My favorite apps to use are almost always the little ones that do one thing exactly right.

I'm introducing a new category on Technophobe for all the apps that are exactly the Right Tool for the job. It will soon be full of these amazing single-serving apps and widgets that do one thing and do it well. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Some of you might remember that I tried to start a grassroots movement a year or so ago. After a brief moment of success, my campaign backfired spectacularly. Within a week or so I became the target of exactly the effect I was trying to cause to cause for my friend Jacob.

I found something interesting in my server logs tonight. It turns out that my long-forgotten blog post is now the top Microsoft Live Search result for starting a grassroots movement. Who would have thought?