Many thanks to PDFpen for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. PDFpen is the all-purpose PDF editor. Version 6 now includes Microsoft Word export, an editing bar for faster workflow, Retina graphics, and more.

If you work with PDFs, you need PDFpen, the multi-purpose PDF editor. PDFpen can make changes, fix typos, resize images, fill and save forms. It can perform OCR (optical character recognition) to digitize scanned documents as part of a paperless workflow. It can even redact sensitive information by removing it permanently and completely from a PDF.

Jim’s note: PDFpen saved me in the past, so I am a loyal user.

Someday, I hope this happens to me.

I’ll be honest with you, as the owner of several Les Paul guitars, I’m not quite sure what to think about this guitar.

Great resource.

On this week’s iMore podcast, Rene and I are joined by audio engineer, author and Logic Pro X reviewer Jim Metzendorf. Topics of discussion include the U.S. cell carrier’s latest money grabs, whether the new Mac Pro will make your office look like Hoarders, and thoughts on Apple’s newly released Logic Pro X.

Daniel D’Addario for Salon:

But for a word that’s tossed around so frequently, its meaning seems to evaporate into air when grasped at. Trolling is bad. Trolling provokes a reaction, usually negative. Trolling is apparently quite easy to do. But, if only to better gird one’s own defenses against it — what is trolling?

We’ve all come across this on the Internet.

Apple has acquired the Toronto-based Locationary, a small Canadian startup, backed by Extreme Venture Partners and Plazacorp Ventures. Multiple sources familiar with the deal tell AllThingsD it closed recently and includes Locationary’s technology and team, both. The price of the acquisition couldn’t immediately be learned.

The best part is that the game is on your iPhone, so if you want to play at your friend’s house, you just connect to the Apple TV and play.

Impressive.

I absolutely love the Pultec EQ. The ability to simultaneously boost and attenuate frequencies gives you some unique possibilities when mixing tracks. All of the music I mix is done with Universal Audio plug-ins, including their Pultec collection. John Paterno gives you some tips and tricks on using this classic EQ.

While you can preview all of the stories from the most recent issue online, I made one article freely available for everyone to read. This issue I chose Patrick Rhone’s “Part of the Crowd.”

Enjoy.

In this issue, Matt Gemmell looks at the gadgets we carry around and choosing the right one for you; Philip Michaels takes you through the drinkers code of conduct in a way that will make you laugh out loud; Patrick Rhone may be the only African-American in the room, but it doesn’t faze him anymore; Monique Dalrymple explains the reasons she fosters dogs; and Michael Mulvey considers Zelda when starting a new project.

You can preview the entire issue online or download the app for iPhone and iPad from the App Store and get a free 7-day trial.

Seriously, something has to be done with these clowns.

In amateur art classes, artists are taught to keep three things in mind while designing: frame, positive and negative space. The frame is of course the border of the picture and positive space is the area occupied by the object drawn. Negative space is defined as the space that is around an object but inside the frame. Utilizing this space brings balance in the picture and harmony to its composition. The image created by the negative space may either be the subject of a picture or it may help that subject stand out.

Even if it were, I don’t see why anyone would want to buy this tablet. The screen is so bad that I can’t recommend the device to anyone. Even if you truly must have an 8-inch Windows tablet for some reason, you shouldn’t buy the W3. You should just wait and hope that something better comes along.

A new kickstarter project:

“Of Beards and Men” is a labor of love for graphic designer and photographer Joseph D.R. OLeary. Over the past 18 months, he’s photographed 130+ bearded men. Each portrait is an exploration into that man’s passions, personality and unique individuality.

Why wasn’t I photographed?

Oopsie.

Sometimes CSS can be frustrating. Learn about some tricky properties, the common issues they can cause and how to solve them.

As a side note: Everyone should have one of those coffee mugs.

Kirk McElhearn makes an interesting case for Apple leading the way to DRM-free books. I especially like the part about Steve Jobs’ open letter to music companies back in the day.

A PC built with the specific purpose of running Pro Tools. I can’t help thinking the new Mac Pro will eat this thing for lunch.

Farhad Manjoo for Slate:

It’s hard to call Android anything other than a resounding success.

Well, except for one small thing: Most Android phones are crap. As part of a New Year’s resolution, I promised to trade in my beloved iPhone 5 for an Android phone sometime in 2013. I reasoned that, as a tech writer, I should spend more time with the world’s most popular operating system. Phone makers and carriers have regularly sent me Android phones to test out in the past, but I’d never given most of them more than a passing look—I’d open them up, turn them on, get aggravated by their bad keyboards or poor touchscreens or frustrating add-on software, and I immediately package them up and send them back.

Pretty damning article for Android.

“My view is it’s working very well.”

WTF?