All To The Good

“Read It Later” ( http://readitlaterlist.com ) is a useful tool to “save” articles that you want to read later. Pretty aptly named. This differs from an RSS reader in that it’s for any article what-so-ever. You don’t need to be subscribed to the site’s RSS feed (if the site even has one). Of course, you may want to subscribe to a site’s RSS feed if they continually have articles you find you are wanting to read.

Very often, however, you’ll run across solo articles on random sites. ReadItLater is great for this. I previously did a quick comparison with it’s major competitor, Instapaper. In summary, I concluded that ReadItLater is far more along in terms of integration and UI than Instapaper is at this time. Instapaper in no frills, no thrills. It may be good for grandma, but not for a nerd like me.

Here’s a couple not-so-obvious things I’ve found useful to activate with ReadItLater:

1. Install the Firefox add-on (or whatever browser you use- they also have plugins for IE, Chrome, and Safari) . This makes it real quick to add a URL to your reading list from your
   desktop / laptop.



2. Install the “plugin” for Safari on the iPhone (they support other smartphones as well). This accomplishes the same thing as #1, but for mobile use. In order to do this, go to the iPhone app’s home screen (pictured: right) and click the ‘Add’ link at the bottom left, then follow the instructions. It’s a bit quirky to setup / use, but it’ll do.
3. Add the ReadItLater unread RSS feed back to your normal RSS Reader (I use Google Reader). This will get you back to having one place for all the articles you want to read. It also then allows you to share / star / etc the articles using the old familiar format you’re used to. If you want to do this, it’s a bit difficult to find the RSS link, so I’ll just post it. It’s http://readitlaterlist.com/users/[username]/feed/unread . Replace [username] with your username and you should be all set.

If there’s anything else you find useful with ReadItLater, post it in the comments!

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