Friday Night Links (8/14/2009)…

Before we jump to the links, I went with my buddy Mr. B to help him navigate the crazy world of cell phones. He has had his same phone for a while and was due for new customer pricing on a new one. He ended up getting the Palm Pre and I documented the whole thing for a new installment of In Action! with The Digitante.

The most exciting part of the trip was chatting with the Sprint rep (Kelly, I think?). I complained about the fact that I can’t tether my phone and she gave us an insider tip: the Palm Pre is getting a soft keyboard (on-screen keyboard) tomorrow, as far as she has heard. She said it will be free as well. This is big news considering that someone was so diligently hacking away to make one themselves.

Alright, on to the links:

• Build an air hockey table – For less than $100? Sign me up. A crappy table is $400 and a good one is over $1,000, so this is a heck of a deal.
• Battery monitoring – I’ve mentioned before, the shortest lifespan component on a computer is usually going to be the battery. Charging and discharging is really hard on a laptop’s battery and BatteryCare gives you the heads up on how worn out it is. Tons of features here, so pick it up if you have a laptop.
• iPhone deposits – USAA Bank (for military, ex-military, and army brats) will allow you to take a picture of your check to be cashed, upload it, and deposit it in your account. All you have to do is tear the check up! My credit union definitely needs this.
• Spotify – Spotify is a streaming music aggregation service. I haven’t checked it out yet, but the review is pretty comprehensive and I want to it out as it seems very intriguing.

Update: it appears that Spotify is currently available outside the US but is only available in the US by private invitation. I’ll update later if I find out more information.