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Thanks for visiting my blog. Hope you find some helpful hints for organizing your time and space. My passions are to help you make home a refuge instead of a crisis center, and to help you function in peace rather than chaos - at home or at work. I have switched my main blog to 1-2-3 ... Get Organized on WordPress, so please visit me there.



Monday, February 28, 2011

Clutter-Free Reading on Chrome and Firefox with iReader

     
I learned about iReader from Maboot and love it! It allows you to read web articles without all the ad clutter. Plus it takes that pesky article with multiple pages and puts it on one page. Here's Maboot's review (sorry about the grammar and punctuation):

"Readability has now long been used to get a simple reader friendly article out of all the crap found in the form of web links and graphics on the web pages. However catering to additional much better requirements and demands highlighted by the users, such as restoring pages to normal much easily and also the ability to loading multiple pages simultaneously. I have tested an extension that delivers just the same.

The web’s is just not as reader friendly place as it should be. For instance unnecessary glowing screens and moreover the advent of innumerable ads, unnecessarylinks and the articles divided into more than one pages, make reading annoying for the reader rather than a pleasure.

The app named iReader, is just what we were searching for. This app is from a company named Samabox and distinct from Readability, the iReader which is for Chrome and Firefox offers to handle multiple pages at one time. Moreover similar to Safari’s ‘Reader’ function, it can also be closed with the hit of a button. We should rather take a look now. 

Via iReader
For instance you have found found an exciting article on a jumbled page. In such cases you address bar will show an iReader icon. Now on clicking this icon you will simply get the same article free from all the clutter offered to you on a fresh white background .... Its that simple, however for accessing more features you can simply follow the remaining article. 

Features
Scroll over the button bit of your article and you will notice this bar. Starting here you can:
Create text bigger or smaller.
  • Take a Print of the clutter-free copy of the article.
  • Share the article via email
  • Share via Twitter/ Facebook
  • Remove all the pictures
  • You can even configure iReader, as required.
Features also include setting up the black color’s opacity to cover the clutter, whether you want the article to be emailed from Gmail or your default email application, how presentable you want your article to look and even if you want a smooth scrolling, you can just set it accordingly.

While you are configuring your iReader you will also be having an instant preview of the changes you are making, enabling you to make better judgements according to your taste on the way.

You can download the iReader now, selecting chrome or firefox as the source. 

As mentioned earlier, after you install iReader, the readability icon will appear on every website displaying an article. Just click on it and iReader will take on from there. Though its been observed that it takes a little longer on some heavily cluttered sites but you will soon realize that its worth it."


More reading tools:

Planning for Your Child's Reading Success - A Book Review of "Anytime Reading Readiness"

100 Free and Essential Web Tools for the College Bound

 More Tips for Helping Your ADD Child Stay Organized