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Hi, I'm Steve
Thurston also known sometimes as iPad reporter you can find me an iPad
reporter.wordpress.com
or if your are trying to find me on twitter
it's just simply @iPadreporter
Just so you know, the reason I started doing this iPad reporter stuff
was that I was
out using my iPad reporting stories for news website where I was working
it started to hit me I could bring in some of my ideas from my experiences in
that kinda thing, tell you what I like
and what I don't. Today I was going to talk a little bit about styluses
because if you have kept up at all with my blog, iPad reporter blog, you know that
I love
a good stylus. And when I first started
with my iPad,
I started first using this iClooly Multi-touch Pen
for iPad. One of these things what I loved about this
thing--what I absolutely loved about it-- was first of all
the brush. So you know, "brush" in my opinion
equals good.
What I love about it is that a good
brush simply slides over the face of the iPad.
It doesn't have any drag. The rubber tips
are bad in my opinion. They drive me nuts because of course
they drag when you pull them over surface
of the iPad
I'm what I loved about this brush to was that it retracted.
It was a little click pen, you know, and so the thing would
retract.
What I didn't like was that it did not survive the washing machine, but you know
that was more my fault and its.
The other thing that I don't like--and I really do not understand this--
is that the makers of styluses for some reason
think that the golf pencil is
the model or the size to mimic.
Of course you know if you're going to take serious notes, golf pencils are bad
and that iClooly multi-touch had not only
a narrow diameter barrel, but also was maybe two-and-a-half
or three inches long
Not a full pen at all. That's why
I like the PenGo. You'll notice first of all the size of this barrel.
It's a full-sized barrel like an oversized pen.
I love the size of this thing. I also love the weight of it.
Th weight then turns into the balance
on this thing. That is is what I love
in in this pen, just in general. Now when it first came
to me, when I first bought it, it came with
rubber tips. Two of those came with it,
and, as we know, rubber tips are bad. It also came
with one of the brush tips.
I did like the brush tip except for one thing.
You'll notice the issue is right here.
These two tips are new tips. The new silver tips--
the original color came in more of a black brush--
these are a little more silver, not that that really matters a whole lot.
You'll notice that they are threaded so that you can easily change
one tip for another. But you'll notice the problem here
is right at the top: that brush
is intended to be a paintbrush
You know when they make a stylus, I've noticed
with most of the styluses I've seen with brushes
they make them paint brush tips. The problem with that
is the paint brush tip tends to layover, they tend to flop over
as you're writing. The brush doesn't come off the surface of the iPad.
Unless you're touching with just the latest touches, it doesn't come off the
surface of the iPad quickly.
That's what drove me nuts. So I kept thinking
when I bought this thing what I should do
is I should just go ahead in try and
trim it. You'll notice that this one
is about 1/8th of an inch shorter than the other one. All I did was I took the
pair of scissors to it. Now, all of a sudden,
it feels like a pen.
And slides over the surface of the iPad.
like a pen, which is what I've wanted
all along. You know and the pen
has that resistance as well. The problem with the long bristles is they
don't have that resistance.
What I really like in a pen is to feel it sort of
pushing back at me a little. So I really like it. If you're looking for
something, go ahead and get the PenGo stylus.
Go ahead and get the extra bristles, the extra brushes.
It's a three pack for about $15 for the brushes.
The PenGo itself
is somewhere around 20 smackers. I could
be off a little bit
on that. But you know you can easily Google the thing and find it.
One last note: I created this little slideshow
with the PenGo brush stylus, as you know,
and also with the bContext app.
I do like this app. It allows you to record your voice and to create,
basically, pages. You can incorporate images and that kind of thing into the
pages.
It also lets you open up a PDF file and
write all over the PDF. Why is that important?
Well, I'm also a journalism professor. I can open up a student's paper in PDF
form and then write all over it as I'm reading to the student. It's a wonderful
tool for giving students some feedback.
I am Steve Thurston, iPad reporter. If you want to get a hold of me,
write to me at
thurston@mcadvocate.com
Thank you for paying attention.