Over at MacTips they have a nice tip which I figured would make for a good iPhone 101. If you find yourself needing to type an accented character (acutes, graves, umlauts, etc.), all you have to do is hold down the relevant key for a couple of seconds and voilà a nice pop-up menu will appear with the available choices. The trick works for a number of different characters besides the vowels (e.g. ‘z’ and ‘?’) and seems to function as well on the iPod touch.

This morning, I Farked my way over to this story about British Tea Cakes. The tea cakes, which appear to be nothing more than British mallomars, have been re-categorized from biscuits to cake. Far be it from me to dispute the accumulated wisdom of the EU high courts, but from this American vantage point if it looks like a cookie and tastes like a cookie, perhaps the tea cake actually is a cookie — and not a cake. I consulted TUAW’s in-residence Britishness expert Nik, who threw up his hands and asked (justifiably) whether this was actually related to Apple or its products.

Being in a cookie-minded mode, I decided to respond to a reader who asked about issues on the iPhone in visiting mobile versions of sites that were less than accommodating upon revisits. Some mobile sites hide “log out and log in as another user” details in their mobile formats. (I would point the finger at FireEagle/Yahoo–but lately they’ve cleaned up those problems rather nicely.)

You’re on a trip. You want to order in pizza. What’s the easiest way to do this on your iPhone? Open up Maps and tap the “locate me button” at the bottom-left corner of your screen. Wait for Google Maps to find you and then type “Pizza” into the search box and tap Search. Maps automatically searches near the “locate me” results–finding all the pizza delivery services near your actual location. Tap on any blue “disclose” button to find the phone, home page, and address for each item.

Of course, you’re not limited to pizza. Search for shoe repair or pediatricians or any other retail type or service.