You can scrawl to your heart's content, add in text boxes and background images from your gallery or take new ones and then send the note off via email or some social network.

ENGADGET: LG Optimus Vu review: a 5-inch, pen-enabled phone to take on the Galaxy Note

But champions of the emerging markets note that some issuers have explicit or implicit government support and that the biggest private-sector borrowers, including multinationals such as Mexico's Cemex, a cement company, have geographically diverse revenues.

ECONOMIST: Emerging-market debt

If you have a pencil, you can probably exchange it for an eraser, or maybe a post-it-note or something, if you happen to be sitting at a table with some fourth-graders.

FORBES: To Fund The Federal Government We Don't Need Federal Taxation

Ms. JAMES: And I brought the note back with a tiny little bag, little plastic bag or something with some clothes in it.

NPR: Etta James: Still Singing Her Song

But I made a mental note to purchase some of the fragrance the next time I passed one of his stores, or at least determine whether it was in my price range.

WSJ: On the Scent of Luxury With an Upper East Side Perfumer