The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Changing the way I read

Last week, I bought an ASUS Transformer TF700, in part to help out with our seriously-cool Galahad project, and in part so I could read a bunch of heavy technical books on tonight's flight to London. And yes, I had a little tablet-envy after taking the company's iPad home overnight. It was not unlike fostering a puppy, in the sense that you want to keep it, but fortunately not in the sense of needing to keep Nature's Miracle handy.

Then yesterday, Scott Hanselman pointed out a great way to get more use out of the pad: Instapaper. I'm hooked. As Hanselman points out,

Here's the idea. You get a bunch of links that flow through your life all week long. These are often in the form of what I call "long-form reading." Hackernews links, NYTimes studys, academic papers, etc. Some folks make bookmarks, have folders called "Links" on their desktops, or email themselves links.

I have these websites, papers and interesting links rolled up and delivered automatically to my Kindle every week. Think about how amazing that is and how it can change your relationship with content on the web. The stress and urgency (and open tabs) are gone. I am naturally and organically creating a personalized book for weekend reading.

I have a bookmarklet from Instapaper that says "Read Later" on my browser toolbar. I've put it in every browser I use, even Mobile Safari. I've also logged into Instapaper from all my social apps so that I can Read Later from my iPhone Twitter Client for example. You'd be surprised how many apps support Instapaper once you start looking for this.

What this means it is that Instapaper is ready and waiting for me in every location where an interesting piece of long-form reading could present itself. I don't stress, I click Read Later and the document is shipped off to Instapaper.

I'm sold. I actually have it updating my tablet every 12 hours, because I do a lot of my reading on the 156 bus. Or, today, British Airways 226.

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