The magic is enabled by a $10 app called AirDisplay that runs on the iPad, along with its free desktop companion that runs on the Mac (or PC). I found out about it from a post on Practical Practice, a blog by Tim Tyson, where you’ll find very clear and detailed instructions for setting this up yourself if you want to. Essentially, the app on your iPad talks to the application on your computer, provided both machines are on the same wifi network (or a private network that originates from the computer). You can use a projector instead of an external monitor to turn your iPad into an interactive whiteboard, and you can connect several iPads and use them in turn, like in a classroom setting.

So far, I’ve only experimented enough to have first impressions: I used SketchbookPro instead of trying Ink2Go as Dr. Tyson recommends, and I found it a little difficult but promising. I used the wifi hookup and haven’t yet tried the private network. I’d like to try that, and maybe Ink2Go, and I’d like to test it over WebEx to see how it might look in a virtual meeting setting. (Any volunteers to attend and give me some feedback?) If it’s workable, it means that you could visually record a web meeting even without owning a graphics tablet, if you have an iPad. And no wires!

More on this later, after more experimentation. Meanwhile, take a look at Dr. Tyson’s post for more details on how he did it and what he used it for.

Here’s a terrible picture of me making squiggly lines so that you can see the bristles fan out:

drawing (well, markmaking) with the Nomad Brush

Click the photo for a closer view of the bristles. Neat, eh?

First off, how do you manage to not run out of paper (the page) when taking notes?
Practice, mostly. The screen size is good for about an hour’s worth of a keynote or presentation-style talk. A lecture might take more space, because I’d want to take more detailed notes. A conversation takes less space, because there’s a lot more pausing and back-and-forth. Or, to look at it another way, since the space is the same (one screenful), it’s good for 1 hour of keynote, 45 minutes of lecture, and maybe 2 hours of conversation or meeting. Sometimes I don’t fill up the whole screen, and sometimes I do need to continue on to a second one.

I also break up my notes with larger headers and smaller images and detail text. If you compare my earlier work with some of my later work, you’ll see that it took me a few tries to get control of the sizing so that it’s consistent throughout the page. Sometimes I still don’t nail it ;-)

How do you manage to write the dot above the letter “i”? Every time I try to touch the screen with one finger, the menu shows up.
You’re not the first person with this question. It turns out I didn’t discover it because I don’t usually punctuate, I use all caps most of the time, and even when I use lower case, I don’t dot my i’s. You need to move your finger (or stylus) in a tiny circle, curve, or up-down motion to dot your i’s or make a period. It takes a little practice to break yourself of the tapping habit.

What zoom level do you prefer to take notes in?
I’m all over the map. The first thing I do is to make a sizing mark for my header — a little stroke at 100% zoom to show myself how tall to make the header letters. This varies depending on the number of words I want to write. Then I zoom in so that size is comfortable and I write the header. Then I zoom out to make sure I got it straight and didn’t switch sizes in the middle and so forth. Everything else kind of keys off that — topic headers are the next largest thing, but smaller than the page header, and detail text gets smaller in varying degrees. Sometimes I emphasize something by making it larger than the header. When I’m writing the smallest details I’m often zoomed in all the way. I move my screen a lot while I work. It’s one reason I hesitate to project from my iPad as I work — I’m afraid of making the audience seasick.

How do you color the background (the paper) and the inside of the letters? And do you do that after you’ve finished notetaking or while doing it?
I add a layer, drag it under the text layer, and use a wider brush to put the color where I want it. This way, I’m coloring under the outline of the letters so it looks neater. I usually have one layer for the lettering (the black text and outlines), one for the coloring of letters and objects, and another one at the bottom for the background colors. Sometimes there’s an upper layer with borders, and usually there’s one more layer with miscellaneous stuff that gets added at odd times. Layers are a great way to experiment with different coloring options, too.

I usually go back and forth between coloring and writing. Sometimes, there’s a rambly part of the talk or conversation that doesn’t need to be recorded, and that’s a good time to color. Other times, the speaker is so jazzed and spot-on that I end up doing all the coloring after the talk is over. Both methods work. I usually add the background coloring last.

Do you prefer using the stylus or your fingertip while taking notes (in Brushes)?
My fingertip, by a lot. I have a stylus, but I find that it gets in the way. Zooming, changing colors and brushes, and even writing and drawing come more naturally to me when I’m using my finger. This is very much a personal preference — I know people who are artistic geniuses with the stylus, but can’t do a thing with their fingertips.

Any other tips worth listening to before I try making better notes?
You’re assuming any of these tips are worth listening to :-) The best thing you can do is to practice and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Any time you can, whip out the iPad and take notes, even if you only end up filling part of the screen. Pixels are cheap :-)

If you’re not confident about your lettering, practice that. Just write alphabets or spelling lists or shopping lists or journal entries. I’ve changed my handwriting several times over the course of my life, just because I wanted to see different shapes in my letters. Takes a lot of practice to turn it into habit, but if you’re taking handwritten notes, it’s worth it.

Layers are really handy for experimenting, as I said; if you think something might not work, just pop up a new layer and try it on that. You can always merge it down if you like it, or trash it if you don’t.

To capture a lot of thoughts really quickly, just write enough of the word to remind you what it was and you can go finish it later. For instance, if the speaker is giving a list of five things, and she’s going really quickly, just write the first one or two words (or partial words) and leave space to fill in after she’s done with the list. It’s very unsatisfying to miss things because you’re still writing the first few words.

Thanks for asking, and good luck with your foray into visual practice!

I discovered this a couple of weeks ago when the update came out, but forgot to blog it at the time. Fingers crossed they keep up the good work!

…IF the panel is selected. As you know if you are a SXSW veteran, the community has a 30% say in the selection of panels. All you have to do to vote is create an account on SXSW’s PanelPicker, which right there gets you some solid geek cred, and then you can vote for mine or any other panel that you like, whether or not you’re able to go to the conference. (If you can’t go, pick the ones you want to read about afterward, ’cause they will be all over the blogosphere.)

Oh oh oh AND there’s this neat little tool that links your Twitter account to your panel choices. Check it out! It’s called FriendsPanels, and it lets you tag panels you’re on as well as panels you like. It doesn’t automatically “like” panels you vote on (yay), so your votes are still cast in confidence, but you can specifically “like” a panel if you want to call attention to it. Nifty!

Um, what are you still doing here? Go vote for my panel! (Please.)

(Note: In the movie, AirSketch is attributed to “Grayon,” but the company’s name is actually “Qrayon.” My bad.)

How’d I Do That?
I started with a sketch of the outline of my talk:

initial sketch for my talk

While making the outline, I tried four different apps (Adobe Ideas, Qrayon’s AirSketch, Brushes by Taptrix, and Autodesk SketchbookPro). I made a quick, entirely subjective list of pros and cons for each one, using each app to make its own list:

Next, I transcribed my notes using Brushes, which automatically records the strokes as you go. I then sent that file to myself via email, opened it in the Brushes desktop application, and saved it as a Quicktime movie. This became the base content for my how-to video.

While watching the animation play out in Brushes, I recorded the narration using Audacity. I broke it into pieces so that I could match it up more easily with the different sections of the movie. I also filmed myself making the test sketches, using my Flip Mino camera mounted on a mini Gorillapod. Finally, I put all of this into iMovie, which let me split up the video from Brushes, add freeze frames to allow the narration to catch up with the drawing, speed up the drawing as needed to keep pace with the narration, and so on. I threw in a couple of still images and some lovely, Creative Commons-licensed music (Somewhere by Robin Grey), and there you have it.

Here’s the final image from Brushes:

Visual Recording on the iPad (in Brushes)

Creating Games: Labyrinth 2
Weeks ago, I wandered into an Apple store to pick up an iPad for the first time. Naturally, I dragged my son along, just to round out the playtesting. He had a great time playing Labyrinth 2, a beautifully-rendered marble-maze game by Illusion Labs. (Labyrinth is also available for the iPhone.) When I got my shiny new iPad, that was the first thing he wanted to play. I liked it too so I got the free one and then eventually bought the game. After we’d taken turns playing a few levels, David said, “I wish I could make a level. That would be COOL!”

Guess what? You can.

On the main screen, there’s a little button labeled “Create.” If you tap it, you get a URL, an ID code, and a password. Put ‘em together and you get a drag-and-drop editor that lets you make all the levels you want — and then they magically appear on your iPad! I gather that the gaming community is disappointed that editing can’t be done right on the iPad, and I can see their point, but I was delighted to find out you can make levels at all. David was thrilled and immediately created a very challenging level. I playtested it and he made some adjustments, and now it’s tough but doable.

Conanza, Level 1

Maybe you can’t create all the same kinds of content on an iPad that you can create on a traditional computer, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe the kinds of content that you can create on (or for) an iPad or similar devices are sometimes things that you couldn’t create on any other kind of platform, like my visual notes or David’s latest Labyrinth 2 level, which was instantly delivered to my iPad all the way up in Vancouver, where I was stuck in the airport for a few hours last Sunday:

the Mom level

Best. Mother’s Day. Card. EVER. How cool is that?

3D Virtual Worlds: Avatar
I found Avatar (the game) while looking for Avatar (the movie) in the iTunes store. Created by Gameloft, it’s an actual 3D world, right there on the iPad. It’s pretty good, and I really admire what they’ve done with the controls given that you have to hold the iPad while you play it so you can really only use your thumbs. There are a few issues, but I expect those will be ironed out quickly. The premise is that you’re controlling an avatar and you have to go on missions. It’s a fancy levels game, kind of like Donkey Kong on steroids, where you run and jump and touch things and fight things.

Avatar, by Gameloft

The controls are very clever. There’s a thumb pad to move around with, and jump/shoot/other functions are handy buttons under the other thumb. The graphics are quite nice — not as stunning as the movie, but very pleasing — and the motion is smooth. And the fact that something like this can be played on a computer I can hold in my hands just blows my mind.

I do have a few issues with it. First, you can’t turn the camera around, at least not that I’ve seen, so if you have to retrace your steps you have to do it blind. Second, when you’re working on a quest (bring me 8 shrubberies*, for instance), the game doesn’t indicate how many shrubberies you’ve found. And dangit, I want to be able to pick a female avatar. Would that be so hard? And I want her to look like Neytiri, not like Barb Wire, please.

More 3D, plus Flying: Nanosaur II
I have Nanosaur II (by Pangea Software) on my iPhone, but it’s hard to play because the screen is so tiny and visual cues matter a great deal, and also because it chews through the phone battery. It’s much sweeter on the iPad. I can actually see where the little eggs are, and I can at last distinguish between mounted guns (that fire at me) and eye gate switches (that don’t) before getting close enough for an empirical test.

Nanosaur II

There are hundreds of games for the iPad, of course. These are just three that I like. Gameloft makes a whole set of action/adventure games (and others), as do Illusion Labs and Pangea Software. The games that are being developed for in-between devices are going to have qualities not found on games designed for other platforms, either larger or smaller ones. At first, a lot of them will look like games we already play, but gamers and game developers are wonderfully ingenious. Even the three I mention here are beginning to push the boundaries; I can’t wait to see what’s coming in the next several months.

I need an iPad because the iPad redefines portable computing.
It’s just possible that the laptop has too much overhead, and that we simply never noticed before. If I want to go sit on the back porch and read email, I have to unmount a couple of hard drives, turn on monitor mirroring, unplug my USB headset, and carry the laptop outside. That used to be fine because it was better than lugging a tower and monitor out there. But it turns out there’s another level of portability, almost satisfied by devices like the iPhone — but not quite. The screen and keyboard on the iPhone are too small for anything but really short emails. Forget document review or authoring — it’s really just too painful.

I want something bigger than the iPhone but smaller than the laptop, and I want to be able to pick it up in one hand and carry it outside — or pull it out on an airplane, even if the person in front of me leans back; or on a bus; or in the waiting room at the doctor’s office; or… you get the idea. I need an iPad so that I can overcome “the phone’s screen is too small” or “the laptop is too bulky,” which is true even though there’s no way I would have admitted either until there was a better solution. I need an iPad so that I can really work anytime, anywhere.

I need an iPad because I read and I write, and books are changing.
In this post, Books in the Age of the iPad, Craig Mod addresses the point that print is dying. He says that’s okay, though, and that having fewer books printed will result in higher quality of printed material overall. He also says:

“In printed books, the two-page spread was our canvas. It’s easy to think similarly about the iPad. Let’s not. The canvas of the iPad must be considered in a way that acknowledge the physical boundaries of the device, while also embracing the effective limitlessness of space just beyond those edges.

“We’re going to see new forms of storytelling emerge from this canvas. This is an opportunity to redefine modes of conversation between reader and content. And that’s one hell of an opportunity if making content is your thing.”

I think that’s just brilliant. “Let’s not.” Let’s invent formats that really work on this kind of device, and no other. Making content *is* my thing, or a big part of my thing, and I agree that devices like the iPad are going to change the way writers communicate with readers. I need an iPad so that I can imagine the possibilities for those new forms of storytelling — and so I can help invent them.

I need an iPad so I can use more of my skills in more places.
One of the things I do is visual facilitation (drawing on giant wall charts with big markers while a group discusses something). There are varying levels of portability: Sometimes I can just bring paper, tape, and pens, and tape the charts right to the walls or whiteboards. NMC has a nice set of portable walls for rooms where I can’t do that. But some rooms are just too small for the portable walls and also don’t have a place to tape the paper. I’ve also been in situations where the event was at a restaurant or other odd venue, where it’s just not appropriate or possible to set up the charts. And I’ve been in situations where the need for visual facilitation arises spontaneously, and I don’t have markers or paper or tape.

The iPad, and devices like it, may make it possible to do impromptu visual facilitation on the go. As Fred Lakin* points out in this post on graphic recording, it will depend on the resolution of the software, but if it does turn out to be possible, I could have an always-available set of “markers” and “paper” that I could use anywhere. It could be projected on a screen if one is handy, and the visual record would already be digital when I was done (I always spend time digitizing and cleaning up chart photos after meetings). I need an iPad so I can experiment with digital visual recording and, hopefully, help influence the state of the art.

I want an iPad so I can play games with it.
Okay, this may not be a need — although that could be arguable too, play being as important to learning as it is — but I really want to find out what kind of games we develop for devices like the iPad. Tim Bajarin says in a post on PCMag.com:

“There is some real innovation happening in the games space, as well. I downloaded the iPad version of Scrabble and found that it could be played with iPhones and iPod touches through the Bluetooth feature. You place the iPad down on the table between yourself and a group of friends. The iPad serves as the board, and everyone around the table uses their iPhones and iPod touches to create words, which magically show up on the iPad in the center.”

Okay, that rocks. What else can we do with this device? It reminds me of the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age (warning: link contains spoilers). This is a device — in Diamond Age, it looked and functioned like a book — that “contains” nearly all the information you could need to know, and lets you access it when you need it — the ultimate just-in-time learning device. I want an iPad so I can play games, watch movies, learn things, and be curious, in addition to reading and working, whenever and wherever I want.

But none of those is the main reason I need an iPad.
The main reason is the same reason I needed to build a web page in 1994 when a friend told me to. (I thought he was nuts, but I did it anyway. It changed my life.) It’s the same reason I needed a Second Life avatar in 2006 and a Twitter account in 2007. I had no idea what they might be good for, but there was a sense that they would turn into something.

The main reason I needed all of those, and the main reason that I need an iPad, is because I don’t know what the best reason is. No one does. But with some things, you can sense that there is a “there” there. You can sense that this train is going places, and that those are places you want to be.

The main reason I need an iPad is simply to discover why people need iPads. Or, if I’m really, really lucky, to help invent why people need iPads.

*Small update: The blog author formerly known as [the author who, despite my best efforts, I can only identify as Visual Raccoon] has been identified. Sorry, Fred!