John Lagomarsino
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The most popular post on this blog, by far, has been what I wrote about using Evernote like Instapaper. Well, time has passed, and that post is completely outdated, yet it continues to get hits. Here’s what’s different these days.

First, both Instapaper and Readability have become a lot more useful as standalone tools. Instapaper is supported in just about every reading app on every platform, mobile and web. Both Instapaper and Readbility support really rich Kindle delivery, and really nice rich formatting. And as of last week, both services are free. Personally, I’ve been using Readability to manage my reading list, and I’ve given up on Evernote.

However, I know a lot of you are still looking for a good method. The bookmarklet in my previous post linked Readability’s formatting to Evernote’s storage. Well, it turns out that Evernote has removed the middleman, and created a totally self-contained service called Clearly.

Their website does a nice job explaining it, but in a nutshell, it strips away the formatting from a page, presents it in a nice readable format, and allows you to save this unformatted article to your Evernote account. It even parses multi-page articles to present the whole thing at once. Essentially, it does what my bookmarklet did, but better.

So if you really want to use Evernote as your Read Later list, that’s the way to do it. No more janky javascript, no more hoping Readability still supports that script, and the whole thing is streamlined right into Evernote.

[NOTE: This post is now woefully outdated. I've added an up-to-date method for achieving this at this post.]

I’ll come right out and say it, I’m an Evernote junkie. My brain lives in Evernote: To-dos, bookmarks, records, receipts, notes, parking space reminders, beers I like; everything. It’s really great, and runs on every computer I use, my phone, and the web. I can get to it anywhere.

I also spend a large amount of time finding things to read on the Internet, but don’t necessarily have the time to read them when I find them. And even more often, when I want to read them, I have only my iPhone, and intermittent connectivity (commuter train, subway, etc.). For a little while I was using Instapaper to save articles for offline reading, but I had to think ahead and sync the Instapaper app before going off the grid. And frankly, another bookmarking service wasn’t something I was really into at all.

Now, Instapaper does this crazy thing where it magically finds the content of an article and formats it so that sane people can read it, but that wasn’t really enough to get me to keep using it. However, I also knew of another service called Readability which essentially does the same thing, minus the read-it-later aspect. And also, I knew that Evernote comes with a web clipper that shoots the content of a web page into your cloud-brain with a single click in the bookmark bar.

How great would it be if I could reformat articles and send that stripped-down version, with only the relevent content, into Evernote to read later? I’m always syncing Evernote on my phone, and I’ve always got it open when I’m on a computer, so everything should stay in sync really well.

Well, turns out that’s possible. Thanks to some helpful articles (which I of course copied into Evernote), I made a little bookmarklet which Readability-izes the current web page, then clips it to Evernote. Just copy the code below into a new bookmark’s URL field and put it in your shortcut bar. Click it on a page you want to read later, and it’ll pull the article contents, then launch the Evernote clipper (you need to install that first), and clip it.

[codesyntax lang="javascript" lines="no"]

javascript:function%20enClip(){EN_CLIP_HOST=%27http://www.evernote.com%27;try{var%20x=document.createElement(%27SCRIPT%27);x.type=%27text/javascript%27;x.src=EN_CLIP_HOST+%27/public/bookmarkClipper.js?%27+(new%20Date().getTime()/100000);document.getElementsByTagName(%27head%27)[0].appendChild(x);}catch(e){location.href=EN_CLIP_HOST+%27/clip.action?url=%27+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+%27&title=%27+encodeURIComponent(document.title);}}(function(){readConvertLinksToFootnotes=false;readStyle='style-ebook';readSize='size-small';readMargin='margin-wide';_readability_script=document.createElement('script');_readability_script.type='text/javascript';_readability_script.src='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/js/readability.js?x='+(Math.random());document.documentElement.appendChild(_readability_script);_readability_css=document.createElement('link');_readability_css.rel='stylesheet';_readability_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability.css';_readability_css.type='text/css';_readability_css.media='all';document.documentElement.appendChild(_readability_css);_readability_print_css=document.createElement('link');_readability_print_css.rel='stylesheet';_readability_print_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability-print.css';_readability_print_css.media='print';_readability_print_css.type='text/css';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_print_css);})();function%20timedCount()%20{if(document.readyState%20==%20%27complete%27){t=setTimeout(%22enClip()%22,600);}}timedCount();

[/codesyntax]

Some caveats though: be sure to turn off the Evernote clipper’s formatting, or you’ll actually wind up with a carbon-copy of the Readability page, with no wrapping text, and some colors and fonts that won’t look so good on, say, a phone. But once you sort that out, you’ve got yourself an Instapaper alternative that integrates with everything else in Evernote.

I don’t normally write how-to articles here, but I figured one out recently that may be helpful to other people.  I was on vacation outside of AT&T’s regular coverage for the last week and a half, and roaming charges are pretty outrageous.  I also figured that I would have some limited internet access while away.  Knowing these two things, I wanted a way to prevent my phone from ringing (therefore pushing all calls to voicemail), and get my voicemail over the internet, without having to use roaming minutes to listen to it.

About a week before leaving, I got the Google Voice invitation I had put in for.  The service is really cool, and does lots of useful things.  One of these things is “Do Not Disturb” mode, which routes all incoming calls to voicemail, which gets stored on the Google side, accessible from the internet.  Plus, AT&T offers call forwarding, which routes all incoming calls to another number, for free.  “Aha!” I thought.  Here’s how to get my way.

1. Turn on call forwarding so that all incoming calls to the cell phone actually ring the Google Voice number.
2. Turn on “Do Not Disturb” mode at Google Voice.  (This is very important, since leaving this option off could actually cause an infinite loop of the two numbers calling each other.)
3. Turn off all SMS alerts associated with Google Voice, to avoid being charged per text message while away.  Likewise, leave all email alerts on, so that you may be notified about all incoming messages.

With this setup, it’s extremely easy to log on to Google Voice (either the full website, or lightweight mobile version), and check your voicemail from there.  You can even check your missed calls if the caller didn’t leave a message.

But there’s one killer feature that makes this even better.  Google Voice transcribes all voicemail to text, and will forward these transcriptions via email.  This means, then, that all your voicemail meant for your regular mobile phone is basically converted to email that you can check and simply read while you’re away.  It actually worked while I was gone, and it’s something I’ll do every time I’m away from now on.

I have a Twitter account. I’m not proud, but I really do like it, and I read my feed at least daily. I use it to catch up with friends, follow trendy internety things, and pose questions to the ether, which usually go unaswered due to my lack of followers.

My issue with Twitter, though, is explaining it to other people. It’s at these moments when I begin to think that it really has no purpose, and I begin to wonder why I have it in the first place.

And then it ocurred to me. The perfect way to explain Twitter.

Imagine you’re out to dinner with a group of friends. You politely step out to use the restroom during the meal. Now on your way back, you need to think of that witty, mundane, and concise thing to say to the group about something you noticed while you were up.

That’s Twitter.

I’ve just gotten back from the coolest grocery shopping trip ever.  Stop & Shop has just started this new program called SCAN IT! which seems to be the way we’ll buy groceries in the future.  Exciting.

You grab a little handheld computer/scanner device at the front of the store, swipe your Stop & Shop card, and then run around the store scanning the things you buy.  Then you just bag them right into your cart, scan your card at any checkout (automated or real-person), and pay.

The device periodically beams you special offers as digital coupons, which are applied as soon as you scan the item they’re for.  And special scales in the produce and bakery sections let you weigh your items, then print a custom barcode that the scanner can use.

My Dad predicted a version of this a few years ago, and his initial ideas would make this system even better.  First, since it’s tied to your Stop & Shop account anyway, they should set up a website where shoppers can build a shopping list before hitting the store.  Then, the handheld scanner downloads your list at the store, and keeps a running list of what you’ve bought and what you still need to get.

Second, a database of where items live in the store would be perfect as a handheld reference.  Taking it one step further, why not stuff a GPS into the thing, and let it guide you down the aisles toward your items (the ones that you’ve added to your online shopping list)?  Then, the little computer will know what you need to buy, and organize them in the most logical order so that you only have to canvass the store once, through the most efficient route.  Like UPS delivery systems for grocery shopping.

But still.  I feel like I just got back from the future.  The future is cool.