The last post I wrote mentioned a website called LibraryThing.com which helps you organize all your books online. It had a lot of interesting functions, but I recently came across a very similar website that may be better. GuruLib.com also allows you to organize your collection of books online, but has more of a web2.0 feel to it. You are able to drag and drop things, label them with tags, add them to “Shelves.” You can even import a list of books from a spreadsheet and it will automatically find them.
One of the most impressive features, was the option to view your books in a “cover view” style, an obvious takeaway from the iPhone, but impressive nonetheless. Below is a screenshot of that view.
Like LibraryThing.com, GuruLib.com draws its information from Amazon and other places so you can easily find your books. Both of the sites offer a great way to organize and catalog your books.
Know of any other websites that might be interesting to readers? Share them with us by adding them to the comments.
Think about all the books you’ve read throughout your life. Wouldn’t it be nice to organize them all? If you love reading and are looking for a way to catalog your books online then LibraryThing.com is definitely for you.
I came across this site recently which allows you too easily search for books you have read or plan to read and add them to your catalog. The site’s search goes through Amazon and even the Library of Congress to find the book you specified.
The site allows you to tag your books, see what others are reading and make notes to your book. There are many other functionalities that I am still exploring, but from a first impression LibraryThing.com seems great for anyone that loves to read and wants to keep track and organize their books.
If you do a lot of reading online and use Firefox as your browser, this application is a must. The RSVP Reader is an add-on to the Firefox browser and makes reading on the computer much faster.
You simply highlight what you want to read, set your reading speed and press play. The words are then blinked in groups on the screen at the speed you set.
RSVP stands for “Rapid Serial Visual Presentation” and the methodology behind it was originally developed by the U.S. Air Force to train pilots in recognizing enemy planes at the blink of an eye.
Although the technology is still fairly new, initial research at Wichita State University is showing the technology to be pretty promising in helping people not only read faster, but also comprehend better.
Here’s a webinar I did demonstrating the RSVP Reader Add-on for Firefox. Know of any other RSVP Readers? Feel free to add them to the comments.
This post will be part of a series I will try to do every day on cool websites and applications that I find. Most of these will be reading or productivity related with an occasional divergence to something completely random.
Earlier this week I came across, ReadBag.com. This is a great website if you do a lot of reading online. If you’re like me, and do a lot of reading online, sometimes you don’t have the time to read everything in one sitting. You might resort to bookmarking the link in your browser, emailing it to yourself or adding it to some social bookmarking site.
Readbag.com puts nifty spin on bookmarking while making it ridiculously easy. Below is a quick demo I did to show you some of the cool features.
Know of any other cool websites for readers? Let us all know by commenting on this post.
-Paul-
Today we launched a new website (www.irisreading.com) that is re-designed to include a number of helpful features to anyone interested in learning more about speed reading.
The site now includes some speed reading webinars that are free to watch. Please check them out when you get a chance. We’ll be adding more webinars in the coming months so make sure you bookmark the site, or subscribe to the RSS feed on this blog. If you’re not familiar with how RSS works, it’s actually pretty simple. Here’s a Wikipedia article that gives a good explanation of it.
The site also includes articles on speed reading tips and strategies. We will be adding more in the coming days and you can subscribe to the articles feed as well.
I hope you find the website helpful and please feel free to add comments to this post on what you’d like to see on the website in the future.
Although these tips won’t have you reading like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, they will help you get an immediate boost in speed. Speed reading does take practice, but these are the simplest things you can do to start. More …
So what is speed reading? I teach speed reading workshops to college students and business professionals and the most common question I get is: “What’s the trick?” Everyone wants to know what’s the secret to speed reading. The truth is, there are no tricks and it takes practice, just like anything else.
My goal in writing this blog is offer useful tips to those interested in learning speed reading without all the ridiculous hype. And since speed reading is a productivity tool, I also plan to sharing various websites that I find to be helpful in boosting my productivity and efficiency.
There are a ton of interesting websites out there (Web2.0 is the new buzz word of the year) and I hope to separate for you the ones that can actually make you more productive in your everyday life.
This blog will be geared mostly toward college students and business professionals, but I welcome any other readers that are interested in learning more about speed reading. Especially those with a passion for reading.
