Simply B&W Nice app for making black and white photos, free at the moment.

Draw Pad Pro Nice notebook apps, this one isn't vector, it's pixel based but it has a nice pinch to zoom and a variety of templated background sheets, also has the abillity to mail an entire notebook as a PDF. Free at the moment. It probably won't replace my favorite Notes Plus but I can see some uses that I'll use Draw Pad Pro for.

Eden - World Builder A Minecraft type game, free for the iPad right now.

Modern Grunge HD Nice Grunge photo app, it's the app I used in the stylus photo a little further down the page. It has a nice method for making rips and tears.

Poly Poly is an interesting graphics app that let's you make a triangle like mosaic out of your photos.

Mole Kart A very nice Mario Kart clone. May or may not still be available.

HTML Mail Editor Nice way to create or modify HTML email templates from your iOS device.

Auto Adjust Does one thing well, Auto adjusts color and contrast of your photos.

Taskboard Nice finger touch friendly task/todo list board. This has become a regular day to day app I use.

Toys

Got some various deliveries this week.

First up, the Polaroid Pogo Zink Instant Mobile Printer. About $45 on Amazon. Neat little device. It prints on special Zink 2x3" paper. The printer does not use ink. It actually raises a color image out of the special Zink paper. The paper costs about 40 cents a sheet. And each sheet is also sticker backed if you want to stick your photo somewhere. Since there is no ink, there are also no smudges. Printing was really easy. I just went into my phone's blutetooth settings, connected to the printer and then from the photo gallery I could send the photo to the printer and it starts printing immediately. No app needed on Android.

Next up, I got a cool external battery sled for the iPad 2. I just gave this a test drive this morning and so far it seems to be worth the $34. It has a 8500 mAh rechargeable battery, nice LED status indicators and it can charge/pass thru using the standard apple iPad connector. With the iPad in the sled my battery indicator went up about 1% every couple minutes with the device on. I haven't yet tested the charging speed with the device off. But the fact that it can positively charge the device while powering it is pretty cool. The iPad already has an impressive 10 hour charge, with this sled, I think my entire day will be more than covered.

Last but not least I got this kitchy 7" tall Steve Jobs figurine for $11, although the price seems abit higher at the moment. The figure comes with a little iPad 2 and a little iPhone. Probably not an authorized product, but a neat desk toy.

Protest

Here�s my thoughts on protesting.

Four forms of protest.

One. Be Visible.
Be visible, vocal and be somewhere that you shouldn�t. Be embarrassing or bring shame, and thereby damage the status of your opposition.

Two. Boycott/Blockade.
Deny new money to those you oppose. People with enough money can buy gated communities, country clubs, islands etc, and ignore your visible protest.

Three. Theft/Destruction.
The next step from a boycott/blockade (ie not giving someone something) is to take things they already have. If One, visibility and Two, denying new money doesn�t get their attention, then Three, taking things from those you oppose is the next step to get your point across. (re: Boston Tea Party)

Four. Violence.
If, One, Two, and Three do not work, then Violence is the next step. It is very hard to ignore people engaging in violence against you. (Re: Revolution)

One and Two, our society tolerates, there are hurdles to jump over before Three and Four are accepted by the mass public. There are also few loopholes whereby the government will tolerate much of Three or Four (or even an active rather than passive expression of Two). So by using Three and Four, you are likely to also make the government your enemy. That ups the stakes considerably. The government is larger than Disney.

As to SOPA, I think it�s interesting that government officials are as ready as they are to attack something as popular as the internet. But I think SOPA is not the real issue. The real issue is what it always is, extreme concentrations of wealth and power. That is what needs to be spoken out against and adjusted. I�m not sure if there is a black banner for that.

Social Media Musing

Facebook is a giant public space. Everybody is there.

We don't hangout much in giant public spaces though do we?

We hangout in small bars and coffee shops, a friends backyard or living room. We hang out in the work breakroom, a church lobby, or a school event.

But rarely do we go down to a local arena and mix with 500 of our friends plus each of their 500 friends.

Facebook has done big.

But how do we move back to small? How do we create the manageable suburban culdesacs, the gated communities, the private clubs, and the polebarn out at a friend of a friend's house in the social media world?

It won't be Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups or Google Circles. Those places all have advertising and big corporate logos, sponsorships and etc. The places we really like to hangout, don't have ads, aren't brought to us be a brand.

One service, can't set this up. The solution is going to need to be more atomized than that. A small black box on my home network perhaps, a background app running on my desktop, or maybe it's a bunch of independent apps all writing encrypted to some random cloud data store, don't have the keys? You can't enter.

Maybe it's not even available all the time, maybe such a hangout only goes online from 7pm until 10pm. Hangout, chat, share, download and at 10, flip the sign to "We're Closed" as everyone goes home.

Facebook doesn't seem to be the final answer yet though.