The sturdy, rugged OtterBox Defender series case I got a year ago for my Blackberry Curve has saved me at least 6 or 7 times from certain phone replacement, as rough as I have been on my phone. But every  time I picked it up, the phone has always still worked. So when I finally broke my OtterBox case recently, I was shocked that it broke, and I was concerned that I might have to buy a new one. I chipped the end off the case and it would no longer snap together tight. But a quick note to the OtterBox people and I had a new case in the mail a week later.

So if you are shopping around for a new phone case, check the OtterBox Web site. The Defender series cases include the rubber impact case that is then encased in a hard plastic shell that sits in a clip holster. They also come with a plastic wrap-around keypad protector. They’re $49.95, which seems a bit much for a phone case, but well worth the extra effort compared to a new phone purchase.

Do you have a favorite BlackBerry case? Post a comment and let us know.

Case in point: "My Pet's Weekly Horoscope," a 99 cent app that lets dog and cat owners (sorry tropical fish lovers) get a weekly horoscope for their pets.

I know what you're thinking: what if I don't know when my pet was born? Don't worry, you can use the app's "Cosmic Pet Sign Finder" to match the character traits of your furry friend with one of the 12 signs of the pet zodiac.

Is your kitty "bold and inquisitive?" Then she must be an Aries. "Off the wall crazy?" Then you are dealing with an Aquarius.

The pet horoscopes come from Carol Jepson, billed as one of America's leading pet astrologers.

The concept and technology for the app were developed by Heather Eisenstadt and Dan Lambert of Orlando and the two worked with Seattle company Movaya to bring it to the iPhone.

Here's the current horoscope for a pet that's a Sagittarius, which is my sign:

I know many people think of their pets like members of the family, and according to a press release about the app, nearly 50 million people do, but getting your pet's horoscope on your iPhone seems a little crazy to me.

What do you think? Am I off base here? Do you read your pet's horoscope? Would you pay 99 cents for an iPhone app to let you do it? Post a comment.

And in recent months, Disney fanatics have also taken to micro-blogging site Twitter, where they share tips about visiting a park or post pictures.

So to commemorate Wuennenberg's life, a group of Disney fans created the Twitter hashtag #Austin and told others to include it in their tweets. Their goal was to get the term into Twitter's trending topics, which is a realtime reflection of the most popular words and phrases people are putting in their Twitter messages.

The effort appears to have begun on Sunday afternoon, with this tweet from @DisneyFrankness, a Twitter user named Frank from Missouri.

DisneyFrankness @DisneyDean maybe we could try to make #Austin a top Twitter trend as a tribute? 2:12 PM Jul 5th from Tweetie in reply to DisneyDean

After nearly two days of trying, #Austin made it into the Twitter trending topics about an hour ago. It's  currently the fifth most popular trending topic, after #musicmonday, Michael Jackson, Houston and MJ's.

Since the top trending topics are displayed on the right side of Twitter.com (pictured at right) when you log into your profile, supporters hope having #Austin near the top will raise awareness of Wuennenberg and the accident. You can also see the top trending topics at search.twitter.com.

Here's @DisneyFrankness reaction to seeing #Austin in trending topics:

DisneyFrankness I am sure #Austin is smiling upon us all!  9 minutes ago from Tweetie

UPDATE 4:15 P.M.: @DisneyParks, the official Twitter account for Disney's parks and resorts, just sent out this tweet offering condolences to Wuennenberg's family, friends and coworkers. This is the first tweet from @DisneyParks since the accident.

DisneyParks Our hearts go out to Austin's family, friends and co-workers as we continue to mourn his passing. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. 6 minutes ago from CoTweet

If you have cable service from a company such as Bright House Networks or Comcast, you may think that you need a digital cable box to get the HD version of the local channels. You don't.

If you have a relatively new HDTV with a QAM tuner you can get the HD version of the local channels just by hooking the cable wire from the wall to your TV. Just look in your TV's manual to see if it has a QAM tuner.

So you can get the HD versions of NBC, ABS, CBS, Fox and other channels without the need to install an antenna and without the need to pay for a digital cable box, which costs about $8 a month more than standard cable on Bright House. 

I recently bought a 19 inch Vizio HDTV with a QAM tuner and plugged the coaxial cable from Bright House into the TV and scanned for all available channels. 

Basically, Bright House is sending multiple versions of the local channels to my TV: the analog, standard definition versions (i.e. Channel 4 for WESH, channel 7 for WFTV) and the digital, over-the air HD versions that you could pick up with an antenna. So to see WESH in HD, you have to tune to channel 2-1, to see WFTV in HD, you have to tune to channel 9-1.

In addition to getting the HD versions of the local channels, you also get more channels than you would with standard cable on an analog TV.

For instance, on an analog TV with standard Bright House cable, you only get one PBS channel, WMFE-Channel 24. But when you connect standard cable to an HDTV with a QAM, you get WMFE, WDSC out of Volusia County and WBCC out of Brevard County. You also get many of the multicast channels you can get with an antenna, such as This TV (18-2) and the Retro Television Network (27-2).

Bright House offers one cable channel in HD, its own Central Florida News 13, though the programs are not shot in HD.

In other areas, cable companies offer additional channels in HD through standard cable if its a channel that the cable company owns.

So if you have an HDTV and a cable box, and are thinking of getting rid of cable to save money, you may want to consider just downgrading to standard cable so you can get local channels in HD. Yes, you won't get cable channels such as ESPN or CNN in HD, but it may be easier than setting up an antenna to get local channels in HD for free over the air.

It's also a good solution for additional TVs in your house, because if you pay for a digital cable box in your living room, standard cable is free on TVs in other rooms.

As I mentioned in the column, if you've been holding out on buying an iPhone, now is the time to get one. The device now has many of the features that have been found on other smartphones for years (cut and paste, video, better camera etc.). It also makes sens to upgrade if you have the original iPhone.

But if you have the second generation iPhone, the iPhone 3G, (like I do), the decision is  a little harder.

Besides if you can afford it, the biggest deciding factor is how important is having a better camera that also shoots video? The improved speed is nice, but the iPhone 3G is plenty fast for most people.

Although cell phones that can shoot video have been around for years, the iPhone 3G S is one of the few that can shoot, edit and upload a video directly  to YouTube, so there's no need to transfer the video to a computer first. You can also e-mail the video and in the future, you'll be able to send video in a text message or upload it to your Facebook profile.

That means anybody with an iPhone 3G S instantly becomes a reporter, ready to capture video of breaking news and quickly share it with the world. So expect to see lots more examples of citizen journalism.

For example, last night, I attended the July 4 fireworks display at Lake Eola Park in Orlando. I shot video of the finale with an iPhone 3G S, and as we were walking home, I uploaded it to YouTube. Here's the video I shot:

Still photos

Besides being able to shoot video, the iPhone 3G S has a 3-megapixel camera (compared to a 2-megapixel one on the iPhone 3G), and it has an auto focus feature. To see how the two cameras compare, I took similar photos on an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 3G S.

iPhone 3G fireworks photos

iPhone 3G S fireworks photos

Although a big key to take pictures of fireworks is timing, I do think the iPhone 3G S' better camera, particularly the autofocus feature, made a difference. It's also supposed to be better at shooting photos in low light.

Photos of dogs

I took both phones to "Yappy Hour" in Mount Dora.  

iPhone 3G

iPhone 3G S

iPhone 3G

iPhone 3G S

The differences don't seem as evident here.

Closeup photos

iPhone 3G

iPhone 3G S

Since the iPhone 3G S has an auto focus feature, closeup photos of writing on paper appear sharper.

Decision

I still haven't decided whether I'll spend the money to upgrade to an iPhone 3G S. I'm not eligible for an upgrade until December, so if I want to buy one now, I'll have to shell out several hundred dollars more. But my wife does have an iPhone 3G S, so I can always "borrow" hers when I want to shoot some video or take better still pictures.

Do you have an iPhone 3G? Are you thinking of upgrading? Post a comment and tell me why or why not.

1. Log into your Facebook account and click “Create” at the bottom of the sidebar on the top left side of the page. Give your list a name such as “Real friends” or “People I care about.”
2. Add people to your list by clicking on their profile pictures or by typing their name into the search field. Only add people to this list who you are really interested in keeping up with. 
3. Once you’ve selected all of your friends for this list, click “Create List.”
4. A link to your new list will be displayed at the bottom of the sidebar on the upper left side of the page. Click on the link to the list and drag it to the top of the sidebar, above the link to “News Feed.” Now, every time you log into Facebook, you will see a News Feed of only the people on your list (as opposed to the default News Feed of all of your friends. 
5. There are several ways to add or remove people from your list. Click the pencil next to the name of your list in the sidebar, or go to your list of friends and clicking the arrow next to someone’s name. When you approve a friend request, you can add that person to your new list by clicking the arrow next to "Add to list" before you click confirm.You can create multiple lists. Your friends will not know if they’re on a list.

To see photos of each step of this process, check out this post from the Silicon Alley Insider