Apple’s iPhone and Touch app, Brushes, is coming to the iPad.  The video above demonstrates how this tiny app can turn out true art work.

The buzz around the app on the iPad is the social networking built in. Images can be saved to Photos as before but can now be emailed, posted to Flickr, sent to Twitter, and sent to Facebook. The iPhone Users Guide has screenshots.

The Apple Event provided a Brushes iPad demo, please check out this video:

Based on these demos, I’ll be purchasing the Brushes app for the iPhone.

Is this an app you’ll be using? Would it be a killer app for the iPad for you?

Dave Winer and Robert Scoble took time out of their media maven lives to take a San Quentin field trip. Yep, San Quentin prison.  Dave and Robert spent time visiting prisoners and staff inside one of the most famous prisons in the U.S.

Dave shared his take aways on his blog. He titled his post “Our all-you-can-eat lifestlye.” And this quote makes his revelation clear.

We expect so much, and we get it. We live the all-you-can-eat lifestyle. But just a few miles away reality is very different.

Dave is right of course. We live in a world where we gripe not about being fed, or having Internet access, but how our smart phone misbehaves and the sushi prices are high. Even the most modest of my friends has a phone that supports messaging and has access to the net.

I’ve never been in prison but as Dave points out, it’s a drastically different life. He met a man who was unfamiliar with any of our modern conveniences. Heck, no Twitter for that guy.  Today in contrast a friend and I talked about trying to bring others on board with Twitter.  In a couple of days I’m co-leading a class on Twitter for real estate agents.

Dave’s article makes me stop and be reminded of how wonderful a time we live in, and what a wonderful set of circumstances, especially here in the States.

So this week, while you’re out riding the waves of the net, take a few minutes to read Dave’s take. Come back here, go there, or comment on your own blog.  One step better – go visit your own local prison, poor house, or orphanage.

foursquare sent out notice today of adding 15 cities.  One of those was mine, St. Louis.

Hey all -

If you got this email, you signed up to learn when foursquare launched in your city. Well, we launched 15 new cities today and you’re name was on our list! Want to play?

http://foursquare.com

(In case you forgot what foursquare is – Hey, it’s been a while, we know!
- foursquare is an app for your mobile phone that can help you find where
your friends are hanging out, recommends new places to explore and rewards
you for your adventures with points and badges!)

Now available in:

Baltimore, MD
Cleveland, OH
Indianapolis, IN
Kansas City, MO
Milwaukee, WI
New Orleans, LA
Omaha, NE
Pittsburgh, PA
Raleigh-Durham, NC
Richmond, VA
Salt Lake City, UT
San Antonio, TX
St. Louis, MO

Montreal, Canada
Toronto, Canada

Anyway, we look forward to seeing you on the site! Be sure to let us know
if you have any questions or run into any bugs!

Thanks!

-d

New Orleans is another favorite of mine. Lived there three years.  Canada also gets some love with Montreal and Toronto.

Cheers foursquare.

This year was my first at South By South West and I had a blast!

Making it a real success though required more than just showing up.  South by South West is all about community and living on the Internet, as well as meeting up in person.  If you couldn’t bring the right tools along, neither of those would happen.

I’d have considered myself very prepared. Laptop, check. DSLR, check. P&S camera, check. Flip, check. Money, check.  It turns out both yes and no.

A laptop seemed like a great choice for an online/offline event.  I chose my 15″ MacBook Pro.  It’s not huge.  Let me tell you, it was about too much, besides holding one of the things I hadn’t thought to check, a battery.

A 15″ laptop doesn’t sound like it’s going to get in the way. That’s until you see how little table space there is to be found.  Often your laptop literally ends up on your lap.  Not a good choice for anything awkward, hot, or needing more space than you have. A great alternative, and much seen this year, are netbooks.  Miniature notebooks of all brands on hand, running a variety of operating systems.  These little gems provided both a low footprint, low weight, and were easier to stow and carry than a full size laptop.  I’m so convinced of this that I’ll be purchasing one for next year.

Canon, Nikon, Sony and more make great DSLRs.  The problem? They aren’t something you can stick in your back pocket, shirt pocket, purse, or want to wear around your neck all day.  (Well maybe if someone is paying you to.)  My Canon XTi quickly wore out its welcome with me by Tuesday of the conference.

A great alternative is a good quality point and shoot camera.  I brought along a simple 5 megapixel Nikon, but even it was a bit bulky.  If you don’t have a camera that slides into your pocket and doesn’t weigh much, consider getting one for your next conference, especially one as heavy duty with picture opportunities as SxSW.  The addendum to this note is about batteries.  Bring spares.  By spares, I mean at least two, and charge them up at night.

Video cameras were another great thing you’d think would be great to have along.  Again, a common mistake is to bring a full blown HD video camera.  The storage and carrying will kick your tail fairly quick.

One word answer:
Flip

Now, about the money.  Lots of folks brought cash.  Cash is a burden.  It’s a pain to dig in your pockets for. It’s easy to lose. Someone will always want to borrow it.

Bring a bank card, a charge card, or both.  Use them exclusively. It’s both easier to track expenses, and easier to spend.  There wasn’t any place I went that didn’t take a charge card as well as cash.

I covered everything in my small list in a bit of detail, but there’s a couple of other essentials.

Shoes – two pair – alternate them; bring three if you plan on dressing up

Hat – buy on site or bring

Business cards – 100 or so minimum – readable, interesting, easy to reach

Spare shirts/tops – BBQ

Last but not least of my recommendations can replace all but the money from the original list.  That would be a smartphone.

Smartphones, essentially hand held computers, provide for Internet access, photos, video recording, and can even work for contact information exchange.  The most common models I noted were the Blackberry and iPhone. Note that if this conference were in other parts of the world, likely it would have usable for charging purchases as well.

Some of the items in the short list, such as business cards, require a more in depth post. Those alone are probably worth more than one.  Just bring some please.

So I came prepared this year and perhaps overly so.  Next year my checklist will be shorter, lighter, and easier to carry.

What’s on your must have list for SxSW?

Yours,

Todd, @tojosan on Twitter

     So I’ve had the Blackberry Curve about a week now and the new toy feel has yet to wear off.  I purchased it as an upgrade to the Razr, by Motorola.  The driving factors included my carrier, and the application choices.

     The Blackberry Curve is one of the most popular types of smartphones on the market today.  Though the iPhone and others are giving it a run for the money, it continues to be a well respected choice.  Chief among the reasons are the full QWERTY keyboard,  great Internet access, and the wealth of applications. Among the other features I like on this phone are the 2 megapixel camera and the built in GPS.

     So what have I been using it for? Social networking of course.  You know I’m big into social networking. My top used applications are Twitterberry and Shozu.  A third runner up is the Facebook app.  Of course the beginning and root of social networking tools is the browser, and it’s also seen heavy use this past week.

     Twitterberry is one of the most popular Twitter clients for the Blackberry.  Twitterberry has a simple and functional interface that works well with the Blackberry.  When first launched, it presents a screen to update your status.  It keeps count of remaining characters as you type and has one button send when your done typing. Another key press away are your replies and direct messages.   One winning feature of Twitterberry for me is the integration to the browser.  If a link is provided in a tweet, you can select it open it in the browser.  All in all a well put together application and it’s free.

     Shozu is the Swiss Army knife of social networking for tools for smartphones. It allows posting to a variety of sites including Flickr, Facebook, and some blogs.  I’ve used it to post photos to both Flickr and Facebook and it works as advertised.  It finds files on your phone and allows sending to multiple services.  The send goes on in the background and allows you to continue working.  Another example of photo sharing that can be done is to Twitpic.  The interesting thing about this application is that all of the real set up is done on the Shozu website, where you can register all of the interconnecting services, including Blogger.

     Facebook is another free application for that Blackberry. Heck, it’s on their own site and recommended.  The Facebook application is a simple interface to a few of the common things you’d normally do on the site.  You can update your status, as well as see the status updates of your contacts.  Poking is allowed of course.  Wall writing is even available. This application is streamlined but very functional. Everything is a button slide and press away.  Oh yeah, and you can upload pictures to Facebook as well.

     There are more applications I’ve been playing with, including the Flickr application and the Google applications.  Google apps includes Maps, Docs, Mail, Reader and News.  Believe it or not, I’ve used Google Reader the most.  All of the applications are tied to your Google account.  This enables me to read my Reader feeds while I’m out and about and idle.

     Games are another story. I’ve not played one game the entire week.  Oh, the Blackberry has a slew of them to be sure, and even has some free ones that are supposed to be fun.  It’s just that I’m not all that interested in that feature.

     The features I’m most interested in, and have been using, center around keeping involved in my social networks.  Photos seems to be universally easy to share, as well as messages.  What I’ll be looking into more is ways to post to blogging type tools, such as my blogs, and Utterz.

    Utterz, Brightkite, and other sites have mobile versions to make things easier though, and I’ve used those as well as others.  Utterz might end up being my simplest ‘path’ to blogging for now.

     So what’s my conclusion after one week? The phone is a keeper. I’ve not even given any applications that require a fee or subscription yet.  Some of those should prove to be really useful.  I’ll check in from time to time to share more about the phone and our adventures together.