NimbleWorks’s TrackTime and IGG Software’s iBiz enable you to track the time you spend reading. ![]() LaunchBar and TextExpander can bridge related tasks (e.g., accessing annotations for a source document), provided one knows the right workflows.OmniServer, DropBox, iCloud, Google Drive, or good-old fashion WebDav help you to synchronize your resources across your devices.Scrivener allows you to conveniently annotate recordings.Mekentosj’s Papers and Mendeley help you organize your readings and manage bibliographies.OmniGroup’s OmniGraffle and similar tools enable you to draw diagrams about your readings.Diigo enables you to highlight, annotate and bookmark your web readings (compare Delicious).(For a review of iOS writing apps, see Brett Terpstra.) Notational Velocity, nvALT, and iA Writer help you take quick reading notes.OmniOutliner and Tree allow you to take detailed reading notes.OmniFocus and Things help you get your reading done.(Or, if you are very trustful you might commend your precious documents to an opaque database that bypasses your trusty file system, such as EverNote.).OpenMeta applications, such as Ironic Software’s Yep , Devontechnologie’s DEVONthink and CASEapps’s Tags allow you to tag, organize and search bookmarks, PDF files, notes and more-each in their own way.For example, PDFPen does OCR conversion so that you can then annotate the files in Skim and it has tools for editing PDFs (e.g., to insert and delete pages and text.) PDFPen aptly supports many functions that Skim does not. (Adobe Reader is painful.) But Skim is not available on iOS. Ironically, Skim is best-of-breed for deep reading on OS X. Many apps have built in PDF readers (e.g., Mendeley) or use PDF services (e.g., Safari) they are usually not as as useful as the best stand-alone readers.The trade-offs between PDF readers are complex. There is a bewildering array of PDF and ebook readers for desktop and mobile operating systems.Readability and Instapaper help you to remove distractions from web pages and to manage your reading lists.These applications, each in its own way, cover some of the routes traversed by our workflows. Software developers have been creating useful products to help serious readers process information. Diversity of helper-applications and services.This calls for different strategies and workflows. Some information is for future reference, some is for quick problem solving, some is for building products, some is for deep learning. ![]() We process all kinds of information for all kinds of purposes. Yet few applications support inner tagging. Some of these meta-data pertain to the entire document (for which we might use document-level tags or descriptions), some of them pertain to parts of the document (inner annotations). Assessments of it (e.g., its potency, usefulness or originality).Descriptive information about it (e.g., its topic).Our intentions with respect to the document (such as “!To Read”).In order to capitalize on documents, we often need to associate manifold information about them. To overcome this, we use OpenMeta applications. Even on a single device, our files are stored in multiple locations. ![]() Some of us choose to convert our e-books to PDF using Calibre and read them with Skim or another PDF reader. E-book readers (such as Kindle and iBooks) lack much of Skim’s functionality. Skim is one of the better apps (e.g., for annotating on OS X). ![]() Most of the software and hardware we depend on for reading is stultifying. We read files in multiple electronic formats (PDFs, web pages, ebooks -Kindle, iBooks, etc.) in addition to paper. We read on multiple devices (work computers, home computers, smartphones, tablets). In order to capitalize on knowledge, we need to understand and resolve these challenges to our cognitive productivity. Managing one’s reading today is more challenging than ever.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |