It’s pretty basic right now, as you can see.

Pretty sparse, right? And it certainly doesn’t tell you anything about me. Matt Cheuvront over at Life Without Pants has a GREAT post about improving your About page…and WHY you should put in the effort. Inspired by this, I am moving on with the process of making a truly rockin’ About page. But I need some help in figuring out exactly what direction to go.

What more do you want to know?

Content would be job one here – what more can I tell you about me? Should I include autobiographical information? Would a link to my résumé be interesting? Do you care about my family?

Format and presentation

It seems like having an introductory video on your About page is the new hotness. I suppose this is also way more popular if the person in question is a mondo-hot specimen, but I can see the value and engagement potential of adding video. What do you think? Do I need more pictures, maybe? What else can I do with the presentation of this page to really make it feel engaging and personal?

Speaking of engagement

I’ve got comments enabled on my About page. Does this make sense? Is this the kind of page people comment on? Or would I be better served just adding a link to my Contact page here?

I’m looking forward to any feedback you, my loyal readers, have on this topic. I really do want to open up this blog and make the experience more rewarding…and polishing up the About page seems like a great place to start. What do you think? What have you done with YOUR About pages? What do you like about other About pages you’ve seen?

2008 – I expected this to happen, just not so quickly: Shortly after moving the suburbs, I went through a point when I felt completely disconnected from my friends. The good news is, looking back a year later, I can see I was totally over-reacting. My relationships with my city pals are just as good as they were before we moved – they’re different, don’t get me wrong, but they’re still strong. Lesson to be learned? Don’t be such a whiner.

2007 – eBay Annoyances: Actually, there were a bunch of blog posts in Nov 2007 about my new job, but I think that the eBay post is more interesting. Basically, I was going back and forth with an eBay seller who didn’t ship me some books…and decided to “out” them in my blog. This didn’t actually accomplish anything.

2006 – Gilmore Girls = downgrade: If I recall correctly, this was the beginning of the last season of Gilmore Girls…and clearly, I didn’t think it got off to a good start. And looking back three years later…I still agree. The last season of Gilmore Girls was full of fail.

2005 – I like taking pictures of things: This is not really an in-depth blog post (it’s mostly just a link to a Flickr set) but it’s an important one. It represents a trip that Carrie and I took together which ended up being the final catalyst for the two of us getting back together…which turned into getting married…and now we’re having twins.

2004 – Fine. Run away: Posted right after the 2004 Presidential election, it’s my response for everyone who was claiming they were going to move to Canada since George W. Bush had been re-elected President. Looking back, my predictions that everyone world-wide was going to be impacted when GWB started WWIII were a tad bit over-dramatic, but my core comment (which was “Don’t be such a cowardly wimp”), still stands.

2003 – Girly update: Carrie and I met in October of 2003. This post, from early November, is an “update” on how things were going. My favorite part is the last line: “I feel good about this, I think.”

2002 – Quickies: Some random update postings. I had just moved in with Sarah and Chris, and was out of work (but doing some side consulting). Also, there were a bunch of random girls I was involved with, but nothing really good. Nov 2002 was a pretty cruddy month for me.

And that’s as far back as my blog goes. Seven years worth of Novembers…and I have to say, things are sure looking up!

Step one is for her to gather as many votes as possible, to prove her command of the wonders of viral marketing. Voting ends on November 7, 2009, so there’s only a few more days left, but we need to get her up to at least 2,000 votes. And I’m hoping you, my loyal readers, can help out.

If Doni’s undying gratitude is not enough incentive, she’s also offering up a bit of a contest. Every time you vote for her, blog about voting for her, or tweet about voting for her, you can be entered into a drawing for a free Nintendo DSi just by posting a comment on her blog. That’s pretty awesome. Of course, if you’re not interested in winning prizes, that shouldn’t keep you from voting anyway. As an added incentive – if every time you vote for Doni, you post a comment on THIS blog post, I’ll enter it into a drawing of my own for a special prize (no, I’m not going to tell you what it is…but trust me, it will be cool!)

Please vote for Doni once a day, every day, until Nov 7. I know if I can marshal up the Good Old Rock army, we can put her over the top and make her blogging dream come true.

Vote for Doniree!

Initially, I was only going to come for the SharePoint Conference – I booked this last spring, and Carrie and I both thought it would be a cool idea to extend the sweet conference rate on the hotel room for the weekend prior, and have a fun little weekend getaway.

Of course, this was BEFORE we knew she would be 6 months pregnant with twins at the time.

Needless to say, the idea of a four hour (each way) flight was NOT appealing to my wife. Not to mention the fact that Vegas just didn’t seem fun for her pregnant state. So I was left on my own. I decided to take advantage of the fact the BlogWorld was happening during that weekend, and take part in some of those events.

I arrived yesterday around noon, and checked into my room at THEHotel. Here’s a quick little video tour of my room:

Before meeting up with my pal Jenn (of Free and Flawed), I played a little blackjack at Mandalay Bay and won a quick fifty bucks. After meeting up with Jenn at her hotel, we hit the convention center and picked up our registrations for the expo. We walked the floor for a bit, picked up some swag, and I talked data center nerdology with a cat from ServerBeach. Oh, and the folks at BlogCatalog gave me a really nice t-shirt.

Jenn has NEVER been to Vegas before, so since we had a little time to kill before the parties that night, we took the monorail (which I’ve never been on before, despite my many, many, MANY visits to this town) to the Strip and I gave her the Matt Stratton tour (which consists mostly of “there’s the hotel where my friend Tom dressed like Elvis and we met three Danish au pairs” and “there’s the hotel we stayed at when my friend Tom convinced us that we could walk down the Strip at 3 AM in January without any coats”. Are you sensing a trend here?) We had a quick bite to eat at the Planet Hollywood tiki bar restaurant (half price apps during happy hour):

Given that the plate of nachos was approximately the same size as Jenn, I think we might have over-estimated our requirements.

After our hearty repast of nachos and hot dogs, I headed back to my hotel. I remembered seeing the monorail from my hotel window, so I figured it couldn’t be too far.

I was so very wrong.

I left the monorail at the MGM Grand. After walking about 3/4 of a mile to actually get outside, I looked up and saw…way in the distance…my hotel.

It took me almost an hour to get back to my hotel after leaving the monorail (if you include the time it took to walk through MGM Grand). The “monorail” I had seen from my window was the shorter one that runs between Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and the Excalibur.

Needless to say, for the rest of the week I plan on taking cabs to and from my hotel.

After a quick video chat with my wife (and Scout!) I headed down to JET at the Mirage for the Opening Night party for BlogWorld. It might come as a surprise to you, but I’m not the most extroverted person in the world. I do VERY poorly at networking events like this when I don’t know anyone. But I had made it my mission to make sure I talked to someone BESIDES Jenn all night.

Eventually, I actually DID succeed at this. I met a bunch of cool new folks, including @dan360man and @Krynsky, and the night finished up at a small bar in the Wynn, where we had quite the geeky conversation about topics including Agile, how IT can become a “partner” for the business, SharePoint vs Drupal, and whether or not those hot girls walking around the lobby were, indeed, prostitutes.

Today I’m planning to play a little cards this morning, and then spend the afternoon at the remarkable pools here at Mandalay Bay. I’m also keeping my eyes peeled for celebrity sightings, as tonight at my hotel, Justin Timberlake is having some kind of big charity event, so I’m hoping to see someone famous.

Besides Joel Oleson.

You may or may not be familiar with the term “SEO” – it stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, and it’s kind of a catch-all term for “making your blog or website show up higher in Google.” There are TONS of tricks and tips about increasing your SEO, and frankly, quite a few of them are snake oil and probably have nothing to do with actual results.

One thing that DOES make a difference in your SEO is the format of your URL’s. By default, each post will have a URL kind of like this: www.yourblog.com/?p=138. That URL doesn’t tell anyone (be they a person or a search engine) anything about the content on that page. So we need to change the URL to be more “SEO-friendly”, i.e., to a URL that gives a teasing little peek into the content of the post.

The first step is to go into your Wordpress control panel, and scroll down on the left to the link for “Settings”. Under that heading, you’ll see a link for “Permalinks”. Click on it. You will see a screen that looks kind of like this:

I have my permalinks set up to use the format of “day and name”, which means that I can have multiple posts that have the same name, but they are made unique by the inclusion of the year/month/date. You might be more interested in doing just month and name…or even go into “custom structure” and make it in yet another format.

Once you’ve made this change, you will now find it essential to create an SEO-friendly title in your permalink when you create new posts. For example, if I look at the default permalink for this post, it just takes the title – which is a little wordy:

If I’d rather have a bit of a shorter permalink, I would click “edit” to change it to something I think is better. In this case, I’m pretty pleased with the permalink, so I’ll leave it as it is.

Basically, think about the ways in which someone might search for the post – that’s what you want the permalink to be. If you post was about cranberry sauce recipes, you wouldn’t want the permalink to be “Shane’s Super Awesome Cranberry Sauce Recipe” – even though that would be a great title for the post. The permalink should be “cranberry-sauce-recipe”. Dig?

There are several other things to bear in mind when it comes to SEO and Wordpress. There’s a great plugin called “All in One SEO Pack” which can help a lot. Unfortunately, the latest version of the plugin is not currently working on my installation. Once I get it working again, however, I’ll post a follow-up blog that dives into the advantages and tricks of using that plugin.

What SEO tricks and tips do you have for Wordpress? Share them in the comments!

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a photowalk (also known as a photostroll), it’s just what the name applies. As a group, we’ll be walking around the Vegas Strip, cameras in hand, taking pictures of things that strike our fancy. And along the way, we’ll have a great time and maybe share some photo tips with each other.

The Gory Details

The photowalk will kick off at 8:30 PM on Wednesday, October 21, 2009. We’ll meet at the lobby of the MGM Grand hotel (so that folks who are participating in #ShareSushi can join us). Follow me on Twitter (@mattstratton) for updates as we progress along the walk, in case you can’t meet us at the kickoff.

I’m still working out the exact route and stops along the way (so keep an eye on this page for updates), but we’ll try to hit some of the more interesting photo opportunities as we make our way north along the Strip. If the mood strikes us, maybe we’ll jump in some cabs and head downtown to Fremont Street, which is a great place for some awesome shots.

We’ll probably finish up around 11:30 PM or so, but it will depend on how everyone is feeling – so it’s not a “hard stop”. The important things to make sure you bring with you are comfortable walking shoes and clothing (don’t forget, it gets a little chilly at night in Vegas), and, of course, your camera. Heck, even if you don’t have a camera, you can feel free to join is, as it should be fun regardless. I also highly recommend bringing a tripod (if you have one), since night photography usually means longer shutter speeds, which means hand-holding is not a good idea.

If you’d like to join us, please head over to the RSVP page here – http://twtvite.com/8lok8y. If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can always RSVP by leaving a comment on this blog post, and I’ll add you to the list. If you have any questions or ideas for SharePhoto, please leave a comment here as well. Looking forward to seeing you all at SPC09!

This photowalk and blog post were inspired by John P, who is organizing a similar photowalk for BlogWorld Expo. If you’re going to the Expo (which is the weekend prior to SPC09), please check out his post about the photowalk occurring there.

First step, when you fire up Lightroom, go to the Edit menu and select Identity Plate Setup (it’s the last option in the menu. That will take you to this screen:

This is the “control panel” by which you can totally customize how Lightroom looks, with your own branding. All that I did was pick “Use a styled text identity plate”, and type in the name that I wanted – and then style the text using standard font editing options. If you want, you could create a complete graphic for your identity plate, and then drag it in (once you picked “Use a graphical identity plate”).

It’s THAT simple. Seriously. So what’s keeping you from doing it? Why give Adobe all the press in your Lightroom installation?

Usually, the gender of an unborn child is determined at the “20 week ultrasound”. As its name implies, this is the ultrasound that occurs 20 weeks into the pregnancy, and for most people, this is the first ultrasound that is performed. However, when you combine IVF with multiples, you enter into a category that the OB/GYN folks like to call “You Get Lots and Lots of Pictures Taken of the Inside of Your Wife’s Uterus”.

Two weeks ago, we had an appointment for an ultrasound, and there was a slight chance that the doctor would be able to see the gender at that time. Of course, the doc was far more concerned with measuring heartbeats and making sure the babies looked healthy, and wasn’t able to see the gender (as she put it “Unless they wave it in my face, I’m not going to spend time trying to find it.” Fortunately, Carrie had made an appointment for the following day with a place in Naperville that specializes in “extra” ultrasounds (it’s also one of those places where you can get a creepy 3-D ultrasound done).

After trying to sell us on some type of a teddy bear that had a microchipped recording of the baby’s heartbeat installed (we declined), the ultrasound techs went to work on looking for unborn genitialia. And almost immediately, they saw that Baby A was, as Luca Bratzi would say, “a masculine child”. This was somewhat reassuring, as we only had one girl name, so now we knew that there was no way we’d have two girls. Not that we wouldn’t have liked two girls…but it would have required thinking of a second name. And in addition to being impatient, we are also lazy.

After taking various snapshots of Baby A (and Carrie still being unable to see the “evidence” of boyhood), they moved on to Baby B. And lo and behold…it’s another boy.

Carrie had a bit of a meltdown on the ultrasound table (more from shock than anything else), and she said something that, taken out of context, would sound dirty (I won’t post it on the blog). All shock and awe has since passed, and we couldn’t be more excited about the future addition of two little (loud, dirty, and prone to breaking things) boys to our family.

Here are the ultrasound pictures. I had to give them the “Perez Hilton” treatment for the benefit of my mother, who had no idea what she was looking at the first time I sent them to her:

Baby A, in repose

Baby A - proof of manliness

Baby B - showing off the boyhood

Baby B - reclining

So now that we know they are boys, we are set for names – Henry Phillip and Joseph Steven. We’re also going to decorate their nursery in a vintage baseball theme. We’ve requested bids on Etsy for a custom Wrigley Field sign that will read “Welcome to Wrigley Field – Home of Henry & Joey”. So, yes, I am going to be setting them up for a lifetime of heartache as Cubs fans. Please don’t judge me for this.

We surprised Carrie’s family with the news by inviting them over to dinner, and having two cakes for dessert – one labeled “Baby A” and the other “Baby B” – the idea being, the color of the cake once you cut into it would reveal the genders (of course, both cakes were blue inside).

And now…we wait. There’s still many months to go before Henry and Joey come to meet us, and there’s a lot of work still to do (we did register at three stores last weekend, which was exhausting, but I’m glad it is done) and we’re trying like mad to squeeze in all the things we know we won’t be able to do once we have kids running around. But another milestone has passed and it’s getting more and more exciting. It almost feels more “real” now that I know they are boys – I can imagine them better and visualize more realistically what it will be like once they live with us.

It’s going to rule.

Note – I have only included apps that are available in the iTunes App Store. Apps that require jailbreaking to install have been left off of this list. Prices for apps are current as of 8/27/2009.

Apartments.com – Rental Search (free) – I’ll have to admit a bit of a bias here, as I am employed by Apartments.com, but I really do think that our iPhone app is pretty amazing. If you’re in the market for a new apartment, you can use this app to search either based upon city, state, or ZIP code – or based on your current location. The property listings include high-quality images (including floorplans) and even walk-through videos. Even if you’re not looking for a new apartment, I recommend checking this app out because I think it’s super cool. [Install Apartments.com - Rental Search]

The Weather Channel Max ($3.99) – There’s a free app from the Weather Channel, but I decided to splurge on the paid one, mostly for the “future maps” feature – on the radar map, you can see what the storms will look like in the next few hours, which is REALLY nice. Your mileage may vary, and you might want to just stick with the free version. [Install The Weather Channel Max]

Evernote (free) – This, to me, is a MUST HAVE app. I’ve tried various different note-taking methods, including Microsoft OneNote, but Evernote has really been my go-to for notes. I can access all of my notes from any web browser, as well as use a pretty robust application on my laptop – and they all sync with the cloud. The Evernote app for the BlackBerry was a JOKE – it was just a front-end to the mobile website. The iPhone version is lightyears beyond that. It’s a well-designed app that makes using Evernote on the iPhone a very pleasant experience. [Install Evernote]

Byline ($4.99) – In the comments of Part 1, this app was pointed out to me by my friend Jess. I didn’t understand at first why anyone would pay for an RSS reader that did a sync with Google Reader, as the Google Reader webpage works super great on the iPhone. But I always have trusted Jess, so I gave it a shot. And it was five bucks well spent. Perhaps the best feature is that it caches my feed content so it is available offline – my train ride is the time that I do most of my feed reading – and there are a couple of dead spots in coverage while I’m riding. It’s great to be able to still read through all of my feeds without worrying about signal. Don’t get me wrong – the Google Reader HTML5 page is a joy to use on the iPhone…but Byline blows it out of the water. I’d suggest skipping your Starbucks this morning and picking up Byline instead. [Install Byline]

WordPress (free) – If you run your blog on the WordPress platform (either WordPress.com or self-hosted), you owe it to yourself to install this app. It’s free, for one thing. For another, it lets you approve/manage comments on your blog from your iPhone. Granted, I am now using Disqus for my comments, so this feature doesn’t help me anymore, but I still think it’s great that it exists. If you do a lot of microblogging with WordPress, you’ll want this app as well – the iPhone is not well suited for long posts, but for a quick little update, or if you’re doing liveblogging or a blog marathon, you’ll get value from this app. [Install WordPress]

LinkedIn (free) – Facebook is fun and all, but for us professionals, we need another social network. At least that is what the theory is behind LinkedIn. I can’t argue too much, as LinkedIn helped me get my current position, so I am a bit of a success story. The iPhone app is somewhat useful, although unless you spend a LOT of time with LinkedIn, it might not really offer a lot of value to you. You’re supposed to be able to look up contact information with it, but I haven’t been able to find any cases where that actually works. [Install LinkedIn]

Darkslide ($3.99) – This is the premier app for using Flickr, which has been a major part of my internet use for the past many years. There is a free version of this app available as well, so don’t let the price tag scare you off. This app makes it possible to actually browse and search on Flickr easily from your iPhone, which the mobile site just doesn’t. There are a couple annoyances though – you cannot download a picture directly from the Darkslide app, so you have to open the picture in Safari…and since Darkslide doesn’t remember state, when you go back into the app, it doesn’t take you back to the set of photos you were previously viewing. This is very annoying. [Install Darkslide]

Quickpedia (free) – I assume there are other Wikipedia apps, including the “official” app. I’ve found this one to work easily for quick searches. I’m not a Wikipedia “power user” so I’m sure it’s missing a lot of features that someone who lives in the ‘pedia would find necessary. But it’s easy to use and I’ve not run into any issues, so I give it a recommendation. [Install Quickpedia]

Shazam (free) – Another “gee whiz” app – this is the app that can identify a song you hear on the radio for you. I can’t tell you how well it works, since I’ve not tried it yet (I installed it because “everyone” says it is awesome). Apparently the latest version is crash-prone and now has ads, which seems to piss off a lot of users. What’s been YOUR experience? [Install Shazam]

Pandora Radio (free) – The industry standard in free, streaming, personalized radio. I used this app a LOT on my BlackBerry, but haven’t put it through it’s iPhone paces – but the theory is the same. Pandora builds a customized “station” for you based upon songs and artists you like. I’d be interested to hear from you in the comments on what the impact to your battery has been (assuming you use Pandora) as it drained the hell out of my BlackBerry. [Install Pandora Radio]

Yelp (free) – Oh, Yelp, how do I love thee? While Yelp has been less useful to me since I moved to the suburbs (there just are not as many interesting places to look up when trying to find somewhere to eat), their iPhone app is a thing of beauty. In fact, the experience on the iPhone is, in some ways, superior to the website. And the latest version even includes an augmented reality feature, which just blows my mind. This is a MUST HAVE if you ever leave your house. [Install Yelp]

TwitVid (free) -Sure, Twitter can be fun for quick little updates, but what if you want to show your beautiful face and voice to your followers? Enter TwitVid, which lets you record videos using your iPhone 3GS, and the upload them into your Twitter stream. It’s actually pretty slick, and I’ve tried a couple. Not that anyone’s that interested in any of my videos, but I figure it’s more important to have the ability to upload video to Twitter and not need it, than to need the ability to upload video to Twitter and not have it. [Install TwitVid]

Skype (free) – I have not tried ANY of the voice features in Skype on the iPhone (heads up – the voice and calling features only work when you are on wifi). I’ve just it just for some quick IM testing with people who I IM with on Skype. The main use case for Skype in our house is video chatting with my in-laws or my niece, so as long as you cannot do video chat with the iPhone app, it’s not going to get a lot of use from us. Still missing push notifications, and with the wifi limitation, this app just isn’t quite taking the cake. [Install Skype]

Pano ($2.99) – Absolutely fun app for creating panoramic photos with the iPhone’s camera. I’ve played with it a few times, and it’s dead simple to use – with pretty good results. The biggest problem is that since there’s a bit of a lag between each capture, if there are items in the photo that are moving, it can be difficult to get everything to line up properly. The results have been great every time I tried it though. [Install Pano]

Remote (free) - Another must-have app. This allows you to control iTunes on your computer from your iPhone (assuming that the iPhone is on the same network as the computer). Really nice if you stream the output of your iTunes to other speakers using an Airport Express, but even if not, if you aren’t right in front of your computer and want to change tracks, the Remote app is super handy. [Install Remote]

What apps did I miss? (don’t forget to check Part 1) Are there apps that are superior to the ones that I am using? What’s been YOUR experiences with these apps? Let me know in the comments!

Note – I have only included apps that are available in the iTunes App Store. Apps that require jailbreaking to install have been left off of this list. Prices for apps are current as of 8/26/2009.

Camera Genius ($0.99) – The iPhone has a pretty good camera for a phone. But it could be a LOT better. This app adds some great features, such as a timer, guides (for composition), and stabilization. It has a feature where the picture can be taken by someone saying “Cheese!”, but I haven’t found that to be super useful yet. Overall, a solid app and I recommend it if you use your iPhone’s camera more than once a month. [Install Camera Genius]

foursquare (free) – Location-based apps are very popular. For some reason, some of us feel the need to share our current location with our friends. I haven’t figured out exactly WHY we like doing this, but I do know that it is fun. Foursquare is different than apps like Loopt or BrightKite in that it takes the location concept further and makes a “game” out of it. Every time you “check in” to a location, you get points. You get “badges” for doing certain things (like checking into the gym a certain amount of times in a week, etc). It’s kind of fun. If you’re not terribly paranoid about this kind of thing, you might get a kick out of it. [Install fourquare]

Google (free) – As a BlackBerry user prior to adopting the iPhone, I’ve always been a fan of Google’s mobile apps. I drink the Google Kool-Aid freely, and am a user of Gmail, Google Voice, and Google Reader. Of course, the Google iPhone app doesn’t help with Google Voice, but it’s a GREAT springboard for Google Reader and Gmail (both of which have awesome HTML5 front-ends that make using them on the iPhone really great). You don’t *need* the app to access these services, but it does make a nice single portal to them. The “voice search” in the app is something that seems, to me, to be more “gee-whiz” than useful, but that summarizes a lot of Google things in general. [Install Google]

Facebook (free) – I think this is one of the most necessary apps to have on your iPhone…if you’re into social networking, that is. The Facebook iPhone app is somewhat useful, although it really has a lot of flaws. A new version of the app (3.0)has been submitted to the app store, but as of today, it still hasn’t been approved. There are a bunch of annoyances in the current app, but it’s still very useful for quick uploads of photos from your phone, or updating your status. The friend feed is sketchy (I don’t see all updates, and often times I’ll see old updates), and it’s difficult to see exactly when someone leaves you new comments on items (for example, it will tell me that someone left a comment on a link that I posted, but I cannot see the comments). The new version looks super awesome, and I plan to write up a full review on it once it is approved. [Install Facebook]

BeeJiveIM ($9.99) – This is my main go-to app for Instant Messaging on the BlackBerry platform, so I was eager to try it out for the iPhone. I don’t do a *lot* of IM-ing on my smartphone, but I do like to have it available when I’m on the commuter train. BeeJive (pronounced “beehive”) is very easy to use, and has several features I really like (for example, I can tie IM contacts to users in my Address Book, which is much nicer). It features push notifications of new IM’s, which is essential for an app like this, but the price tag is a tad steep. If you are a heavy user of IM functionality it might be worth it for you, but there might be better options. Let me know in the comments what you prefer for Instant Messaging. [Install BeeJiveIM]

Remember The Milk (free) – Task management was one of the hallmarks of PDA’s, and it extends to smartphones as well. Carrying your to-do list around with you at all times makes it much more likely that you’ll remember to actually do those things. The nice thing about Remember the Milk is that it works on multiple platforms – you can access your to-do list via the web, and with some hacking, you can even have it show up in your Gmail. By having this app on my iPhone, I can always see what is on my to-do list, and even have badge reminders of upcoming tasks. [Install Remember the Milk]

SimplyTweet ($2.99 with Push, free for lite edition) – I’ve tried a LOT of different Twitter apps, both on the BlackBerry and on the iPhone. SimplyTweet is my definite favorite for the iPhone platform. The biggest win for this app is the push notifications – I love getting a push when I get an @reply or a DM. The “conversation” display mode is neat too – it shows all tweets in a reply stream that is a great way to visualize it. SimplyTweet also has a feature called “saved views”, which works VERY similarly to groups/columns in apps like TweetDeck. It’s been very stable for me and has been my default Twitter app for the past couple of weeks. [Install SimplyTweet]

MLB.com At Bat 2009 ($9.99) – I’m a baseball junkie. This app was a must-have for me, even if most of the time I’m primarily using it just to check the score of the Cubs game. It’s worth the $9.99, however, simply due to that fact that it gets you full MLB Audio, which lets you listen to ANY game, anywhere, live, on your phone. The in-game video highlights is a nice feature, although I’ve not used it yet. If you dig on baseball, this is a must-have app. [Install MLB.com At Bat 2009]

ESPN ScoreCenter (free) – During baseball season, this app hasn’t gotten much use from me, since I rely on the MLB.com app. But now that football is starting off, I’ll get more use from it. I can’t tell you a whole lot about it, since it’s just been sitting on my phone doing nothing, but why wouldn’t you install it if you follow sports? It’s free, right? [Install ESPN ScoreCenter]

Ego ($1.99) – One of the first apps I installed, since I’m neurotic about tracking traffic to my blog. At a glance, this app will tell me the Feedburner, Google Analytics, and PageRank stats of my blog. It also tells me my Twitter follower count. To be honest, I rarely use this app anymore, and it’s a candidate for deletion. [Install Ego]

Kindle (free) – My wife and I own a Kindle e-book reader, so it was natural to add the Kindle iPhone app. Theoretically, this way I can read any Kindle purchases without having the actual Kindle device with me. In practice, I’ve found it more difficult to read using the iPhone than the Kindle, so other than just trying it once, I haven’t gotten a lot of use from this app. [Install Kindle]

Urbanspoon (free) – This app goes in the list of “apps I installed because I saw them on an iPhone commerical”. I think I’d have used this app a lot more when I lived in the city, and ate out more. Truth be told, when it comes to finding a restaurant, I’m still most likely to go to Yelp for a recommendation. The shake feature is nifty, but not really a killer feature. [Install Urbanspoon]

SparkPeople (free) – I’ve been working for a while on losing weight, and I use the website SparkPeople to track my calories and workouts. The free iPhone app allows you to track your calories and do quick lookups on nutritional information for certain foods. It’s proven to be essential for me to track what I eat when I’m away from a computer. [Install SparkPeople]

100 Pushups ($1.99) – HundredPushups.com is a program to help improve your fitness by guiding you through a set of pushup workouts to continually improve your strength. This iPhone app makes it very easy to follow the program – each day it will tell you how many pushups for each set, and it will walk you through each one (including a timer for rest periods). Not necessary for the program, but it makes it much easier. [Install 100 Pushups]

Weightbot ($1.99) – There are differing schools of thought on using weight as a barometer of fitness, but it’s clearly an easy to see metric. Weightbot is a very simple app the makes it simple to record your weight up to once a day, and display quick graphs about your weight loss targets. Other apps that I use for fitness (SparkPeople and iFitness) allow me to track my weight as well, but it’s a simple one-click app to do it with Weightbot. Might be a bit pricey for what it does, unless you really like the simplicity of it. [Install Weightbot]

iFitness ($1.99) – This is a new app for me, so I can’t tell you much about it. The main purpose of this app seems to be its database of exercises, and the ability to put them together into a custom workout. The app has images and video displaying how to perform the exercises, and lets you track your workouts. I’ve found the interface for adding workouts, especially cardio, to be a little cumbersome, and very difficult to edit after the fact (if you make a mistake), but I’m not ready to make a definitive judgment on the app just yet. [Install iFitness]

WalletZero (free) – Do you have a lot of “preferred shopper” type cards? Carry a bunch of barcode tags on your keychain for the gym, Jewel, etc? WalletZero is the answer. You simply enter the numbers of the barcode for each tag, and WalletZero will display an image of the barcode, which can then be scanned. This only works where the scanner is a “gun” type, or one you can pass the card over (”swipe” cards won’t work, as you can’t fit the iPhone through the swipe device, obviously). I’ve never really used this, other than to put my Jewel card in it…and scan it one time at the self-checkout, just for fun. But if you have a lot of these types of cards, this could be the app for you. [Install Wallet Zero]

Shopper ($0.99) – I really do like this app, or at least the concept of it. It’s so much easier for me to create a grocery list on my iPhone and then check the items off as they make their way into my cart. It has a feature that allows you to “share” lists with other people, but I haven’t tried doing that with my wife’s iPhone yet. [Install Shopper]

AP Mobile (free) – Are you a news junkie? The AP Mobile app keeps you updated with breaking news (including local) via push notifications. Not every story is a push, which is good, as that would get annoying – but “important” news that is breaking WILL get your attention. [Install AP Mobile]

BuddyFeed ($2.99) – Keeping up with FriendFeed can be tricky on your iPhone. The BuddyFeed app is a little spendy, but it really has made it much easier for me to see what’s going on with my FriendFeed…which, prior to using this app, I always forgot about checking. It certainly makes me more likely to interact with FriendFeed, rather than just reading it every now and again. [Install BuddyFeed]

What apps did I miss? (don’t forget, Part 2 is coming tomorrow) Are there apps that are superior to the ones that I am using? What’s been YOUR experiences with these apps? Let me know in the comments!