I’m obsessive compulsive…
…When it comes to the consumption of information. Once I come across what looks like an interesting article which I have no time to read, I have to flag it for later consumption.
Different people have their own ways of dealing with articles they come across – and want to read later.
- Some people write an email to themselves with the links to the articles.
- Some also use social bookmarks like del.icio.us
- My browser is strewn with bookmarks of articles which I wanted to read later (but rarely get to)
“toread” is a free bookmark service, which aims to bring those ‘read-later’ articles directly to your email.
Once you sign up, you can bookmark your “toread” web pages by just clicking the bookmarklet on your browser. The entire webpage is then stripped down, and sent to your email.
Let me just say this. It just works.
- I don’t have to click on a link or open my email to send myself the link
- I don’t have to worry about tagging and untagging an entry in a social bookmark engine
- I don’t have to wade through my disorganized bunch of browser bookmarks
Everything is just done in one single click on your browser.
“toread” also has a link suggestion engine which analyses those pages you bookmark and suggest other similar pages for your consideration.
The server can be slightly on the slow side at times, but on the whole – it’s one easy way to deal with articles you flag for later reading.
How do you flag articles for later reading? Tell us in the comments!
[tags]bookmarks, email [/tags]
I’ve recently started using the Read It Later (http://www.ideashower.com/ideas/active/read-it-later/) extension for FireFox. It’s so good, that I’ve even gone through some stale emails and stuck their links in there too. It’s a similar concept, but completely outside of email, which I like. You just click the bookmarklet when you find a page/link you want to read later. Then, when bored, click on another button and a random (or not) page comes up for you to read. It’s much better than the old way of creating “temporary” bookmarks.
readeroo is a firefox extension that stores items in delicious for you and uses tags to keep track of what you have/haven’t read yet
http://www.monsur.com/projects/readeroo/
I just wanted to follow up about toread.cc – I was actually starting to think I was the only one who knew about this great little service. I have my own little system, just wanted to share.. :-) I will post it again in my blog with screenshots etc
Firstly, I created 6 or so toread.cc accounts, using 6 different email addresses. I have assigned a particular common theme to each one, (e.g. All the stuff I find about music get sent to mymusic@myemail.com ). Each time you sign up to toread.cc, you are provided with a link that can be saved just like any other favourite/bookmark. So in my case there are 6 links, and I have a little bookmark folder in my favourites with each link. I named the folder “File as…” and every time I want to save a web page about, for example, music, I will click on the “Music” entry. Clicking this automatically sends the page to my mymusic@myemail,com.
It is important that the email addresses enable forwarding. (Luckily enough for me I pay for Premium fastmail.fm – which allows me to create new email addresses in seconds and have them foward to wherever I want.)
So, what I’ve then done is set up a Gmail account dedicated for all my ‘web stuff’, knowing that all my 6 email addresses are forwarding to this account. Within Gmail, I have created labels and filters that correspond to the 6 different topics. The filters ensure that emails get labelled according to theme (For example, I tell Gmail to label all emails sent to “shoppinglist@mailbox.com” as “SHOPPING”).
I think it’s a great service because not only does it automatically store all your stuff, it’s in fact more reliable that bookmarking the page the standard way because it sends the page as stored in the cache. This guarantees that you will always be able to see that page, even if it is eventually removed online.
So anyhow, I hope other people will find my ‘system’ helpful
Joanna
While this is fabulous, what about if you’re NOT logged in on your own computer? What tools could you use, let’s say at a public library or at your university?
@GTDWannabe, Engtech and Joanna: Thanks for your awesome systems and tips! Really appreciate all the value add!
@Corvida: You could utilize the same system. Just delete the bookmarklet from the public browser when you’re done.
i too use read it later firefox extension. it is very convenient to use.
If you’re using the different computers, I think its hard for you to read it out. Anyway we should give it a try.
I received a wrecked copy of the saved page, as frames are “not always” kept. A pity, but I unregistered.
great post. thank you.