Ich bin Klein mein Herz ist rein,
mein Popo ist schmutzig.
Ist das nicht putzig!

Im Augenblick des Zusammenkommens beginnt die Trennung.

Je stärker die Bindung, desto heftiger der Ruck, wenn sie reißt.

Mögen die Scharniere unserer Freundschaft nie rostig werden,
möge die Fallstricke des Bösen
nie um deine Türschwelle gespannt sein,
möge dein Geschirr so zahlreich sein,
dass du immer einen Teller für einen hungrigen Gast hast.

Mögest du immer einen Freund an deiner Seite haben,
der dir Vertrauen gibt,
wenn es dir an Licht und Kraft gebricht.

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Und hier eine Menge Sprüche zum Nachdenken

Alles hat sein Für und Wieder.

Aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben.

Besser spät als nie!

Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm.

Ein gutes Gewissen ist ein sanftes Ruhekissen

Frisch gewagt, ist halb gewonnen.

Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall

Jedes Ding hat seine zwei Seiten.

Kleinvieh macht auch Mist

Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn.

Süße Träume wünsch ich Dir, wieso bist Du nicht bei mir? Meine Augen fallen zu, mein letzter Gedanke, der bist Du!

Siehst Du die Sterne, sie rappen nur für Dich. Ich Liebe nur Dich, wenn ich im Bett liege, träume ich, wie Du neben mir liegst.

Wenn du Nachts zum Himmel schaust und Dir dort ein Sternchen klaust, küss es lieb und denk an mich, denn dieses sternchen, das bin ich.

Ich könnte 1000 schöne Träume träumen, doch sie wären alle nicht die meinen. Ich mag alle nicht, denn Du bist in keinem! Du hast es mir nicht leicht gemacht, doch jetzt wünsch ich Dir eine gute Nacht! Süße Träume wünsch ich Dir!

Ein kleiner Fratz aus weiter Ferne schenkt Dir eine Hand voll Sterne, wünscht Dir eine gute Nacht, bis das Morgenland erwacht!

Leise liege ich in meinem Bett und denk an Dich. Siehst Du da draußen den kleinen Stern, der sagt Dir leise, ich habe Dich sehr gern! Sage Dir hier ganz still gute Nacht!

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Nothing is better then a good kaffee

Washington Post:

Furious at the tempest over the Tea Party — the scattershot citizen uprising against big government and wild spending — Annabel Park did what any American does when she feels her voice has been drowned out: She squeezed her anger into a Facebook status update.

let's start a coffee party . . . smoothie party. red bull party. anything but tea. geez. ooh how about cappuccino party? that would really piss 'em off bec it sounds elitist . . . let's get together and drink cappuccino and have real political dialogue with substance and compassion.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

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Know something we don't? E-mail us at huffpolitics@huffingtonpost.com

Coffee  filters …… Who knew!   And you can buy 1,000  at the Dollar Tree for almost nothing even the large ones.

1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the  microwave. Coffee  filters make excellent covers.

2. Clean windows, mirrors, and chrome…  Coffee filters are  lint-free so they’ll leave windows sparkling.

3.  Protect china by separating your good dishes with a coffee  filter between each dish.

4.  Filter broken cork from wine.  If you break the cork when  opening a wine  bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.

5.  Protect a cast-iron skillet.  Place a coffee filter in  the  skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.

6.  Apply shoe polish.  Ball up a lint-free coffee  filter.

7.  Recycle frying oil.  After frying, strain oil through a  sieve  lined with a coffee filter.

8.  Weigh chopped foods.  Place chopped ingredients in a  coffee filter on a  kitchen scale.

9.  Hold tacos.  Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for  messy foods.

10.  Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot.  Line a  plant  pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going  through  the drainage holes.

11.  Prevent a Popsicle from dripping.  Poke one or two holes  as  needed in a coffee filter….

12.  Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows?   Use  strips of coffee filters..

13.  Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries,  chicken  fingers, etc on them.  It soaks out all the grease.

14.  Keep in the bathroom.  They make great “razor nick   fixers.”

15.   As a sewing backing.  Use a filter as an  easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics.

16.  Put baking soda into a coffee filter and insert into shoes or  a closet to absorb or prevent odors.

17.  Use them to strain soup stock and to tie fresh herbs in to put  in soups and stews.

18.  Use a coffee filter to prevent spilling when you add fluids to  your car.

19.  Use them as a spoon rest while cooking and clean up small  counter spills.

20.  Can use to hold dry ingredients when baking or when cutting a  piece of fruit or veggies..  Saves on having extra bowls to wash.

21.  Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments for storage.

22.  Use them to remove fingernail polish when out of cotton balls.

23.  Use them to sprout seeds..  Simply dampen the coffee  filter, place seeds inside, fold it and place it into a plastic baggie until  they sprout.

24. Use coffee filters as blotting paper for pressed flowers.   Place the flowers between two coffee filters and put the coffee filters  in  phone book..

25.  Use as a disposable “snack bowl” for popcorn, chips, etc.

OH YEAH THEY ARE GREAT TO USE IN YOUR COFFEE MAKERS TOO.

<P>–from Rev CarlR

Caribou Coffee, a distant No. 2 in the coffee chain category next to Starbucks, is attempting to bolster its appeal as a branded coffee company by playing down the ski lodge imagery and, yes, the caribou, with a sweeping rebranding.

More:
Why the New Caribou Coffee Logo Features Less Caribou (BrandWeek)

The truth is that cats will make themselves comfortable anywhere. On a bed of coals, or atop Mount Doom, or hurtling through space at 99% of the speed of light, a cat will somehow find a way to curl up and doze off. So the idea of including a special place for your cat to sleep underneath a perfectly good cat bed (in this case a glass coffee table) seems redundant. But let’s be honest — are you going to let a little redundancy keep you from buying a cat hammock?

Alas, like most things worth having, the cat hammock is not real. Sure, there’s one somewhere in Japanese designer Case-Real’s warehouse, but I don’t think they’re going to let you have it.

I think I’m beginning to fall in love with Case-Real — they also designed this stunning amplifier from a few months back. Check out the other stuff on their site; maybe we can convince them to start getting it manufactured.

[via 1designperday and Geekologie]

Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is no stranger to community service. Like many other coffee companies that trade directly with coffee growers and their cooperatives, they have championed a number of initiatives to better the lives of those coffee farmers who make it possible for the business to exist. Thus, it’s no real surprise to see that the organization is one of many specialty coffee companies that have contributed more than $25,000 to Grounds for Health, a Waterbury, VT based organization that has been taking on the problem of women’s health since the mid-1990s.

Grounds for Health was founded by members of the specialty coffee industry who traded with farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico. In the course of the relationships that they developed with farmers and others in the small mountain communities, they learned that women in rural Oaxaca suffer much higher rates of cervical and breast cancer than women in the United States. Part of the reason, they learned, is the lack of access to routine health care and cancer screening.

Thus was born Grounds for Health, a volunteer organization that provides cancer screening services to towns in Mexico, Central America and, most recently, Tanzania. Funded in large part by members of the specialty coffee industry, the program makes use of the networks created by coffee cooperatives to reach women in far-flung rural areas with medical services. According to the Grounds for Health web site:

In many countries where coffee is grown, cervical cancer rates are among the highest in the world. However, this disease is both preventable and, when caught early, one of the most treatable cancers.

Our work is made possible through partnerships with local coffee co-operatives, national and regional ministries of health, and specialty coffee companies. These partnerships have made it possible for us to bring better and sustainable health care to women in coffee-growing communities.

To maximize donations to the cause, Grounds for Health operates on a volunteer basis. With the exception of the office staff, everyone associated with Grounds for Health is a volunteer. Those volunteers include doctors and other health care providers who travel to the coffee growing regions to provide the screening and health care services. The services are provided in a one-stop treatment campaign as much as possible to maximize the probability that the needed medical procedures will be carried out.

The ultimate goal for each area with which Grounds for Health works is for the area to eventually be able to manage the health care services themselves. This is what happened in Huatasco, Mexico, where Grounds for Health worked for eight years and helped establish a dysplasia clinic and ongoing screening center for the women in the area.

For more information about supporting Grounds for Health – including information about the Specialty Coffee Auction that raised over $100,000 for the organization last winter – visit the Grounds for Health web site at http://www.groundsforhealth.org.

Most would agree that our Government hasn't been doing much to endear themselves to their constituents for quite some time. In response fringe and not so fringe groups have been sprouting up all over the place, the biggest of course being the Tea Party movement.

But say you are someone that is not happy with the way our government is being run but don't want to necessarily be associated with the Tea Party lunatic fringe, the leader of which can't even spell his racial slurs? There is a new group that might meet your need to express your displeasure, The Coffee Party.

It all started with documentary filmmaker Annabel Park venting her frustrations on her Facebook page about media coverage that made it seem that the Tea Parties were representative of the “real America.” She vehemently disagreed and her comments on Facebook got a lot of feedback from people who similarly felt pent-up and frustrated.

Their name the “Coffee Party” directly references the Tea Party movement and presents itself as an alternative. Park argues elected officials who represent us should work towards positive solutions to the problems the country faces instead of adopting obstructionist political tactics that play on peoples’ fears and which are driven by deliberate misinformation.

The Coffee Party is currently organizing nationwide. It is stressing the message that its members are voters who intend to hold elected officials accountable to holding up progress. Its members will participate and be engaged in the political process.

In addition, the Coffee Party values diversity, is, itself, diverse and completely comfortable with the changing ethnic demographics of the US. Park argues that politicians are exploiting the anxieties people feel regarding these changing demographics for political gain and that it is wrong.

(Coffee Party USA)

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Passwords can be a key to many things, for example your emails, your Facebook profile, or your bank account. Did you know that some people still use passwords like “password” or “123456″? Needless to say, it’s dangerous to use one and the same simple password for all of your online accounts. Imagine a hacker cracked that one password? To be safe, you should create unique and difficult to crack passwords.

So do you know how to create a good password? And how can you remember more than one of them? Here are some tips and tricks to maintain individual strong passwords for all of your online accounts.

Know The Characteristics Of A Safe Password

• it cannot be found in a dictionary.
• it contains special characters and numbers.
• it contains a mix of upper and lower case letters.
• it has a minimum length of 10 characters.
• it cannot be guessed easily based on user information (birthdate, postal code, phone number etc.)

Create An Easy To Remember Base Password

You can use several techniques how to create a good password that you will not forget. Here are some suggestions.

• Randomly replace letters with numbers, e.g. flirt becomes fl1r7.
• Pick a sentence, i.e. your passphrase, and reduce it to first letters of each word only, e.g. “Everything I Do I Do It For You” becomes EIDIDIFY.
• Take a word and reverse spell it, e.g. neighborhood becomes doohrobhgien.

These examples are not very safe. While none of the words can be found in a dictionary, they are still failing other characteristics of a safe password. Try to find a combination that allows you to incorporate all characteristics.

The base password I’m going to use for this password is “E1d_1D!4Y:)“.

Note that my base password meets all of the above criteria. It cannot be found in a dictionary, it contains special characters, a mix of upper and lower case letters, it is 11 characters long, and cannot be guessed based on my personal information (unless you suspect that I like Bryan Adams).

Be Creative & Think Out Of The Box!

A computer may calculate faster than you can recognize patterns a lot quicker than any human brain, but one thing it cannot do is be creative. That is your great advantage over hacker tools!

As you see, in my password I replaced some letters with numbers or special characters. However, I didn’t use a stiff set of rules. I replaced the “I” with a “1″ or a “!”. Using rules for replacing characters, i.e. always replacing an “a” with the “@” symbol will weaken your password.

Here are some ideas how you can make it even harder for a hacker to crack your password:

• Don’t use common substitutions, e.g. @ for A/a.
• When you have recurring letters within your password, mix your substitutions, e.g. 8 or ( for B/b.
• Have a word and touch type it with your fingers in the etpmh (wrong) location. Keep in mind that you may switch keyboard types.
• Pick a pattern on your keyboard and type it with alternating use of the SHIFT key, e.g. Xdr%6tfCvgz/

Test Your Password

Do you want to make sure your password is indeed safe? The Password Meter will reveal details about the strengths and weaknesses of your password. However, if your password is too long, i.e. too safe, this test will actually fail.

Create Individual Passwords For Every Account

Once you have a strong base password, you can use it to create individual passwords for each of your online accounts. Simply add the first three letters of the service, e.g. “E1d_1D!4Y:)GMa” for your GMail account or “E1d_1D!4Y:)eBa” for eBay.

Be Super Safe

To be super safe, you should have TWO base passwords. They will be used to keep important and not so important accounts separate. You would use one password for sites which hold personal information or credit card details, such PayPal or GMail. The second password would be used for forums and similar sites that would not be of great harm if hacked. However, the passwords should be equally strong.

Update Passwords Regularly

This is the toughest part. To maintain safety with a strong password, you have to update your password every few weeks or months. The more often, the better. You can do this in several different ways. Here are some ideas that will keep it simple.

Change your base password only:

• Change the special character substitutions you’re using.
• Reverse use of upper and lower case letters.
• Type the password with SHIFT lock turned on.

Change entire password:

• Change how you identify the account you’re using, e.g. use the last three rather than the first three letters (GMa would become ail or eBa would become Bay).
• Change the position of the letters identifying the account, e.g. put them to the front or in the middle of your base password.
• Add the date of when you last changed the password at the back and mark it in your calendar.

In other words, use your human advantage: be creative and think out of the box.

If you don’t feel safe with “easy to remember” passwords, you will enjoy Stefan’s article on 5 Free Password Generators For Nearly Unhackable Passwords.

Do you have any additional tips on how to create a strong password?

Image credit: railking

Considering that laptops are designed to be easily carried and stowed away — and considering just how much important personal and financial information is often stored on them — it's no surprise that they're such a target for thieves. But there are some simple things you should do now in case it's stolen in the future.

Jake Guidry over at Chicagoist recently found himself the victim of laptop larceny and compiled this list of essential tips:

• Have Serial Number and Receipt On File — this will be necessary to prove you are the rightful owner.

• Backup Your Hard Drive — This goes for all computers. Everyone takes for granted just how much they rely on the stored bits and bytes… and just how quickly they can disappear.

• Install Tracking Software — Guidry suggest LoJack, which will help authorities find your computer and (for Mac users) Orbicule, which turns on the iSight camera to record the thieves in action.

And in the sad situation that your laptop is taken, here are some steps you should take to improve your odds of getting it back:

• File A Report With Your Laptop Manufacturer — This could be helpful if some unwitting recipient of your laptop attempts to get it repaired by the manufacturer. It's worth a shot, right?

• File a Police Report — Make sure you have the serial number so they'll know they've found your computer.

• Call the Pawn Shops — Even if they haven't bought your stolen computer off the thieves, they might remember someone trying to sell them one.

• Check Online Marketplaces — Ebay and Craigslist are occasionally used to unload stolen goods. And you never know, sometimes you'll actually find your stuff!

There are obviously many more things we can do to protect our personal property and data. Leave suggestions in the comments!

The Case Of The Missing Laptop: Precautionary Measures And How To Track It Down

What's Your Fantasy Craigslist Find?

When we're not working we're on Craigslist or eBay looking for the mint DSM in the rough. The hidden deal. We know you are, too. What's your fantasy Craigslist find?

There's rarely a shortage of E30 Bimmers for sale, but most of them you wouldn't want. A popular target for tuners and street racers, finding a cherry one is quite the challenge. But it's a doable challenge. There are a few one-owner and two-owner babied cars out there. What we're always looking for is the super rare E30 touring wagon version owned by some old woman who purchased it new, with a stick, and drove it to church, the grocery store and home every weekend. Oh, and her son is a BMW mechanic and she's only charging KBB value for it.

One of these days we'll find one without the word “modified” anywhere in the listing.

What about you? What are you searching for? Hope springs eternal and, thanks to the Internet, it's also searchable.

(QOTD is your chance to answer the day's most pressing automotive questions and experience the opinions of the insightful insiders, practicing pundits and gleeful gearheads that make up the Jalopnik commentariat. If you've got a suggestion for a good “Question Of the Day” send an email to tips at jalopnik dot com.)

Send an email to Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at matt@jalopnik.com.

We this ebay tipps could help you!

Hi Everyone,

I’m busy working on the second chapter of my Dinnerware eBook so there’s no ezine for this week.  But, I’m very excited to announce that The Queen of Auctions is now on Facebook!  You can find me at: www.facebook.com/TheQueenOfAuctions.  I hope to post lots of great eBay info, pictures, videos, and resources.  So don’t forget to become a fan of The Queen Of Auctions so you have full access to everything.  This is also a great place to post your success stories!  I love hearing how well everyone is doing.

So don’t forget to become a fan and check out all the useful things I’ll be posting there!

Happy eBaying!

Tips for bidding & winning mentor auctions on EBay:

Identify your mentors.  Select your ideal mentor, and then identify two or three more people that you would be interested in learning from.  It's important to identify several possible mentors in advance in case you get outbid on the mentor you initially wanted.

Know what's included.  Some auctions only include a particular product, some are giving you a couple hours of their time and dinner at WPPI only, and some are willing to give everything they have.  Make sure you're bidding on a mentor that is going to give you something that you really need and value.  Personality alone may not be enough to help you out in the ways you need it, and some people you've never heard of may actually end up being the most helpful.

Watch your favorites.  Once you've identified the mentors you'd like to work with, click “Watch This Item” under the bid button to help keep track of the mentors you're interested in so that you have a quick link and summary for just the auctions you're interested in.

Place maximum bid.  I believe in having a budget and sticking to it, which is why I advocate placing your maximum bid right up front.  This doesn't mean that you are actually bidding your total budget right off the bat, it just means that you're telling EBay the maximum you are willing to donate and then letting the system incrementally bid for you against any potential competition until you've reached your maximum bid.  It's also useful to place your maximum bid an odd amount above the whole dollar amount you've budgeted.  So, instead of $500, bid something like $507.89, so that you're just above the other people who weren't savvy enough to think outside of the zeros.  With this method you may actually win for less than your maximum bid, or you will be notified as soon as someone has busted your bidding budget, so that you can move onto another option that might be within your budget.  It's the most efficient bidding method, so that you aren't spending your precious time watching an auction instead of doing things that will help your business.

Get notification.  You can set up EBay to notify you in a variety of ways, so set up a notification that works best for you- whether it's email, text to your phone, skype, or some other method.  That way you can be on the ball when you need to and not worry about it until then.

Note ending times.  Each auction ends at a different time in order to allow losers from one auction to find another auction they can win.  Note the order in which your favorite auctions end so that you can be proactive about the plan you'll take to find a great mentor so that you can put your donation budget to good use. (Note: It appears that this year's auctions end in alphabetical order by last name.)  If you find that all of the auctions you're interested in are bidding higher than your budget, than it might be a good time to start considering other mentors out there. Remember that your budget was established as what you are willing to donate to the Thirst Relief cause, not just what one person's time is worth.  Everyone in the auction has been invited because they have something valuable to offer, and they've all agreed to participate because they want to help others.  Taking a chance on someone you've never heard of means your bidding budget still goes to a good cause, and you may be pleasantly surprised by what you can learn from someone who spends most of their time working “out of the spotlight”.

User Name
 

  
Password
 

Remember Me?
  

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Alles hat sein Für und Wieder.

Aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben.

Besser spät als nie!

Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm.

Ein gutes Gewissen ist ein sanftes Ruhekissen

Frisch gewagt, ist halb gewonnen.

Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall

Jedes Ding hat seine zwei Seiten.

Kleinvieh macht auch Mist

Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn.

Süße Träume wünsch ich Dir, wieso bist Du nicht bei mir? Meine Augen fallen zu, mein letzter Gedanke, der bist Du!

Siehst Du die Sterne, sie rappen nur für Dich. Ich Liebe nur Dich, wenn ich im Bett liege, träume ich, wie Du neben mir liegst.

Wenn du Nachts zum Himmel schaust und Dir dort ein Sternchen klaust, küss es lieb und denk an mich, denn dieses sternchen, das bin ich.

Ich könnte 1000 schöne Träume träumen, doch sie wären alle nicht die meinen. Ich mag alle nicht, denn Du bist in keinem! Du hast es mir nicht leicht gemacht, doch jetzt wünsch ich Dir eine gute Nacht! Süße Träume wünsch ich Dir!

Ein kleiner Fratz aus weiter Ferne schenkt Dir eine Hand voll Sterne, wünscht Dir eine gute Nacht, bis das Morgenland erwacht!

Leise liege ich in meinem Bett und denk an Dich. Siehst Du da draußen den kleinen Stern, der sagt Dir leise, ich habe Dich sehr gern! Sage Dir hier ganz still gute Nacht!

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Ich ich erinner mich an die Zeit wie unser Hund noch niedlich war.
Das Hundebett war damals noch
viel zu mächtig für unseren Flohtaxi.
Das praktische war, das wir das Hundekissen einfach abwischen
konnten, wenn wir mal nicht schnell genug mit unserem WauWau draußen waren.
Das waren schon wilde Zeiten.

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Google Buys iPhone Email Search App reMail and Pulls It From the App Store

The iPhone app reMail is email search the way it should be:

iPhone mail search is fine. reMail iPhone mail search is actually good, if it works for you. Two things: there's no Exchange support (sorry suits!), and there's only support for one account at a time. But within that one IMAP or POP account, reMail archives all your message text as far back as you want, letting you search full text-not just subjects-without a network connection.

But now it's gone from the App Store, because Google just bought the company, and its developer, Gabor Cselle, is now a Gmail product manager (he actually got his start working on Gmail).

Since Google and Cselle went so far as to pull the app from the App Store, you have to wonder what's next. [Gabor Cselle via TechCrunch]

Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.

Facebook game companies have become financial juggernauts. That’s because games spread in a viral way to lots of Facebook users. And a small percentage of those users buy virtual goods with real money. If the iPhone could duplicate that pattern, it might also one day generate lots of revenue for game companies.

That’s what Aurora Feint wants to make happen with its Open Feint X social game platform for the iPhone. If it works, it could make the iPhone much more like Facebook in generating business for game makers, said Peter Relan, executive chairman of the Burlingame, Calif.-based company, in an interview.

“We consider Open Feint X to be the beginning of a new business model for the iPhone game industry,” said Relan. “So far, it has been hard to build a business like Zynga on the iPhone.”

Aurora Feint’s existing Open Feint platform is the equivalent of Xbox Live for iPhone games. Developers use the platform to create games with features such as leaderboards, achievements, instant messaging and chat. With Open Feint X, Aurora Feint is extending the platform to be the equivalent of Facebook’s app platform. Developers use the Open Feint X platform to create games where players can create their own profiles that can be accessed from any game. Users can also invite friends to join the game or purchase virtual goods and give them to their friends. Players can create their own news feeds and post on friends’ walls, as they can with Facebook.

The platform is free for developers to use. If they want to tap Open Feint X’s premium service, they have to share revenue with Aurora Feint. The premium services include setting up an online store within Open Feint to sell games or downloadable assets. Other premium services include a game-specific currency wallet and detailed analytics.

If this sounds familiar, it’s like embedding Facebook inside the iPhone. Aurora Feint is essentially doing something that Apple or Facebook should do for the iPhone platform. But those big companies have had other fish to fry, so they left the opening for Aurora Feint to create a platform that socializes iPhone games.

It can do so, Relan said, because Open Feint has critical mass. There are about 13 million users of Open Feint-enabled games; the audience is growing 25 percent a month. About 1,000 games already use the Open Feint platform and another 1,800 are in the works, Relan said.

If Open Feint X succeeds with its ambitions, then it could change the dynamics of the iPhone game industry, which has been a kind of bloodbath. There are 140,000 apps on the iPhone; about 20 percent of them are games. But it’s hard to find companies that have come up with hit after hit after hit. Big brands dominate the list of top iPhone games, while independent companies largely dominate the top ranks of Facebook games.

Relan said that Aurora Feint had 25 employees now, with half of its team dedicated to Open Feint X development. They have worked on it for the better part of a year. Part of the key differentiator for Open Feint X, Relan said, is that it will have a native social network. If you play an Open Feint-enabled game, you can be a member of that network and it will be easy to communicate with friends and discover games.

“In the past, we just connected people,” Relan said. “Now we are talking about having a social network natively built into the iPhone. It will be exclusively focused on gaming.”

Relan said game partners are in a private beta test now and the first games should be launched in April using the Open Feint X platform. Among the partners is DeNA, the Japanese mobile services portal that invested in Aurora Feint last fall. Rivals could include Facebook, which has its own Facebook Connect technology that could be extended, Ngmoco’s Plus+ platform, and Scoreloop.

Please check out our GamesBeat@GDC conference on March 10 at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Next Story: Cloud computing: The pros and cons Previous Story: Social games can rocket to millions of users thanks to RightScale

You Can Now Download iPhone Apps Up to 20MB Over 3G

I think you'd have to nearly suicidal to attempt it—especially if you're in NY or SF—but Apple's doubled the max size of apps you can download over 3G to 20MB.

Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.

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