Even though I shouldn’t own a car, I do, and as every car owner in NYC knows, dealing with alternate-side parking is a hassle.

That, combined with my recent itch to write a small mobile app, has lead me to the following idea:  the “Dude, Where’s My Car?” app for mobile.   Here’s what it will do:

• When I park my car, I’ll open the app, and it will prompt me to enter where I’ve parked.  I’ll enter “Warren” under “Street” and “Smith & Hoyt” under “Between”.  Or maybe I’ll click on a map.  This seems like a silly step, but if you’re like me, it’ll come in handy four days later when you forget where you parked.
• The app home screen will show the car’s location, either in text or map form.
• Then, the app will query the Alternate Side Parking Calendar, and show if alternate side is in effect for the next few days.
• For bonus points, it will send me a text or email the night before I need to move the car.

I plan on trying to make this for blackberry, since that’s how I roll, but of course it would be sexier on the iPhone.  Maybe I’ll try out PhoneGap and kill two birds with one stone.

(I know some people have already been thinking about this problem, so I may be able to recruit some help)

I stumbled upon SmartyPig this week while looking through the Happy Cog website, after reading a Zeldman post, linked to by Daring Fireball, which was brought to me via Melkjug. Gotta love the blogosphere.

Now, after all that, not only do I have a new Favorite Web App, but I have a new bank. My friends know that I’m a bit of a Web App Slut, willing to give away my most personal information for a chance to try out a shiny new web app (here’s looking at you, Wesabe). Well, I’m not doing anything to dispel that notion today.

Here’s the gist of it: Smarty Pig is a social savings bank, where you create personal savings goals and then set up automated deposits to reach them. They have a noble goal: to get people back in the habit of saving, by making it fun. And I must say, I think it’s a great idea.

I haven’t gotten into the social side of it yet, but the idea there is that you can create public goals that your friends and others can contribute to. So far, I’ve just been experimenting with creating private goals; for example, saving a little $$ for our federal income taxes (for which we always seem to come up a bit short):

As you can see, your personal savings goals are tracked using a cute little piggy bank, which you can watch fill up and feel good about your progress (I already do, with my measly 10%). More importantly, the money is actually in a completely separate account, making it that much more difficult to spend in a moment of weakness. Meanwhile, you’re earning 3.9%.

I’m going to give this one a shot and see how it goes, but I have a feeling I’m going to like it

This isn’t a post about how Sendible works; I wasn’t even able to get that far. This is a post about inspiration and, dare I say, plagiaration. What struck me from my first interaction with sendible was the remarkable likeness it bore to Facebook, in terms of visual design. Take, for example, the login screen:

I thought: “Wow, those look a lot like the Facebook blue buttons. Interesting… perhaps Facebook is inspiring some sort of standardization in UI elements”. Then, I thought: “Wow, look at the sidebar over on the right side; that kinda looks like Facebook too. Lemme take a look”:

That was enough to get me thinking, and mentally prepare this blog post. But I waited and decided to give Sendible a little more time. Next stop: my homepage:

Maybe it’s just me, but I was again really blown away by the near exact likeness this (albeit in reverse) that this bears to Facebook:

Of course, I’m all for “fake it till you make it” and “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” but this seems to take it perhaps just a step too far. At least make it green or orange! Thoughts?

Now, time to me to get back to the real business of deciding whether or not I need a message scheduler in my life…