Productivity week : Let somebody read you the web with Pocket.
May 13There are certain things in the universe that are constant. Toast always falls with the Marmelade coated side DOWN, cats land on their feet and Will Smith’s son Jayden will never be able to utter an intelligent sentence on social media.
And the same goes for interesting articles on the web. Their will be a constant relation between the moment you find an interesting article you want to read and the lack of time you have to do so. So how about fixing that problem. What if you could store those interesting articles and .. have them read TO you when YOU have the time.
No time right now ? It’s in the pocket.
Enter “pocket” : A notebook service that lets you store articles in the cloud to read them later (either on or offline). Pocket consists of a free cloud based account that lets you store articles and webpages and an application that allows you to read those articles when you have the time.
Adding articles to the “library” can be done with a Chrome or Firefox extension. You can access your collection of stored articles via Pocket’s website or use the application.
The application “syncs” your pocket articles so you can read them offline on your mobile device (Smartphone or Tablet) and is available on IOS and Android.
The one excellent feature you can use in the Pocket app is that you can have it READ the article out loud via text to speech.
Its a bit like listening to a podcast of articles you have collected on the web. The voices are fairly natural to listen to and you can adjust the speed AND the language so your Dutch article doesn’t get read by an English voice. (You should try it though , its hilarious).
The pocket service, the extension AND the pocket apps are free and available on all the major operating systems. Don’t read the web.. have somebody read it to you !
Links :
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kw802 : Storytime.
Feb 09Its storytime again on the Knightwise.com podcast. We bring together some awesome tunes and two great stories from the blog. Sit back, relax and enjoy our two columns ” I’m not a Gamer ” and ” Privacy is a statement”
Shownotes.
– Privacy is a statement (original article : https://knightwise.com/column-privacy-is-a-statement/)
– I’m not a gamer (original article : https://knightwise.com/column-im-not-a-gamer-im-just-retro/)
Music.
– Aural Planet : Hydropoetry Cathedral.
– Puff Dragon: Chinese_Radio.
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Talk to your tech : Dictate your terms in Apple Mavericks.
Dec 03There is not a lot that is really “New” in OSX Mavericks. Aside from braking a lot of stuff (Like for example Wiretap Studio, Mountain Lion-server, mail and more) there are a couple of interesting new tricks hidden under the hood. The voice dictation has been around in both IOS and OSX for quite some time. Unlike on Nexus devices, this worked by sending up whatever you “said” to the computer to Apple servers to be analysed, translated into text and sent down again. It was pretty cool to do once or twice, but depending on your internet connection it could be a little laggy. It would also keep breaking my concentration (and conversation) as the words on the screen would not ‘keep up’ with my trail of thought.
In OSX Mavericks you can now have that “voice dictation” ability available “offline”. No more sending your deepest thoughts towards a giant datacenter for analyzing .. Just a quiet one on one between your computer and you.
Do do this :
- Open system preferences – Go to ‘Dictation and speech’ – Select “use enhanced dictation”
- Select the correct language and wait for OSX to download the speech pack (about 700 meg)
- Open the text editing field of your desired application (Mail, Textedit, The blank form on your ‘I-still-love-hannah-montanna blog on Myspace)
- Press your function key (fn) twice and .. start talking.
How to let it work for you ?
- Great for typing out quick emails
- also nice for tweets and chats .. you are really FAST on IRC this way.
- Dictation of boring text
- Fantastic if your fingers are covered in peanut butter and you don’t want to ruin your keyboard.
So how do YOU talk to your tech ? Tell us in the comments section.
