Susan Van Sciver

Tag: reading

  • Create your own magazine or newspaper

    Create your own magazine or newspaper

    I am on an ongoing quest to make technology my friend and not my foe (see Techs and Balances).  Lately, my favorite technology friend-maker is Flipboard.

    I’m seriously late to the game on this one.  Apple named it App of the Year….in 2010, and Time proclaimed it one of the Top 50 Innovations…once again, in 2010.

    So I’m 2 years behind?!  Whatever…in my everyday life, I couldn’t find one person I know who was already using Flipboard.  So either we’re all collectively living in the dark or it’s just not mainstream, yet.  Well, as I promised you, when I find something incredibly sensible and useful, I will share.

    What is it?

    It is a social media and news aggregator that puts all the stuff you already like to read and put it into a pretty format.  In fact, that pretty format looks remarkably like a magazine complete with “flippable” pages.  So you can basically be your own magazine editor, which always sounded like a pretty cool job to me.

    How does it work?

    You create a Flipboard account and sync it to social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and then you add categories (News, Recipes, Lifestyle, etc).  Flipboard puts it all together so that you can access all of this content in one graphically pleasing spot.  Flipboard saves you from having to visit multiple sites and is ten times better than just using “bookmarks”or “favorites” on your web browser.

    In the old days of “favorites” or “bookmarks” you had to do all the work by individually visiting the sites you liked.  Now, Flipboard brings the content of your chosen sites and/or categories and brings it to you, in addition to providing you other content it thinks you may be interested in.  I like things that do work for me.

    Each category or source is displayed as a pretty little box on your Flipboard pages (so far you only get 2 pages).  You can “flip” the pages like a real magazine, and you can even save an article to read later by using the ReadItLater option (more on this below).

    What devices is Flipboard compatible with?
    iPad and iPhone.  Coming to Android soon.  Not sure if it is coming to Kindle.

    Are there are other apps like this?

    RSS:  “Really simple syndication” is a way to follow blogs or sites, similar to the bookmark concept, but it pulls the information together in a standard simple text format without all the pretty images and layouts.  Most sites now have an icon called a “chicklet” that looks like this:  .  Clicking on this button will let you subscribe to get updates on when there is new content on that site.  These subscribed updates are typically called feeds.  To access your feeds, you’ll need an RSS aggregator or feed reader.  Such as…

    Google Reader:  If you have a Google account, you can sign up for Google Reader which will aggregate your RSS Feeds based on when each is updated.  Unlike Flipboard, it doesn’t add any other things for you to read and the layout is very basic.

    Zite:    This app populates your Zite page with content it thinks you would like based on what you’ve already put into your Google Reader and what kind of Twitter feeds you subscribe to.  If you don’t subscribe to these things, Zite will still let you setup an account, and you can manually choose which categories you want to follow.

    Zite uses a special algorithm to figure out what content you’d like, and then delivers that to you, as well.

    One advantage Zite has over Flipboard is that it puts the original article in its entirety in the app, while Flipboard often makes you read the rest of the article in a browser.  The layout is prettier than Google Reader, but not as flashy as Flipboard.

    GoogleCurrents:  this is Google Reader’s attempt to be more magazine-like.  Like Flipboard, you can sync with social media, but it doesn’t really support Facebook choosing instead to try to focus on and push Google+.

    There is also Pulse, which is similar to Flipboard.  I haven’t downloaded this, so I can’t really opine on it, but it seems to be the 3rd most-liked news-aggregator based on my informal internet research.

    What if I see something I want to read but I don’t have time to read it now?

    Flipboard lets you opt to “Read it Later” using either Instapaper or Pocket (aka Read it Later).

    Both of these are services that enable you to save web content in one area for you to read it later.  Once saved, you can login to these services and read your saved material even without an internet connection.  Both of these are great, not just for Flipboard, but for any web browsing.

    Can I make SensibleSusan a Category in Flipboard?

    Absolutely!  In Flipboard, there’s a red ribbon in the upper right hand corner than lets you add sources.  You can type “http://sensiblesusan.com/feed/” into the Search field and SensibleSusan.com should pop up.  Click on my blog and it will come up in Flipboard.  There will be a button on the upper left that says “Add”.  Click this and you will have added SensibleSusan to your Flipboard.

    In addition, if you want the RSS Feed to access through some other reader, just click on the RSS button on the sidebar to the right of this site.

    What are the limitations?

    Flipboard is only available on iPad, iPhone and Android as of now.  It would be great it there was a desktop version, as well.

    Bottom Line:

    Google Reader is the easiest way to aggregate RSS feeds but it looks the least exciting since all feeds are converted to plain text.

    Zite makes your life easier by bringing content to you and putting it into a newspaper-like format.

    Flipboard also makes life easier by bringing content to you, but it incorporates social media, too and looks more like a magazine.

    Personally, I like to use Flipboard to read mostly fun, image-driven content and Zite to read news.  In other words, Flipboard is my magazine and Zite is my newspaper.

    I have only presented a handful of the options out there.  I’m curious to know what you’re using that you think is great  – please share!

    *Oh, and in case I didn’t make it clear enough above, please make sure to sign up for your SensibleSusan updates either through email  or RSS (see the sidebar where you can put in your email address or click my chicklet).

  • My kid is a genius: Part 1

    My kid is a genius: Part 1

    Have you ever read the book, “The Carrot Seed” by Ruth Krauss?

    It’s incredibly simple and woefully bland to look at.  It is 12 pages of simple words and filled with only 4 dull colors – brown, white, beige and 70’s yellow.

    Surprisingly, my kid loves it.  Lately he has been making me read it to him 3 times before he falls asleep.  Why this book above the other more colorful books?  I initially had no idea.

    I understand wanting to read “Good Night Moon” – it’s a cool little story.  I really enjoy the newly illustrated “The Little Engine that Could” because I like to do the sound effects and it’s beautiful to look at.  But “The Carrot Seed”? After reading the first few pages, I’m ready to crawl into the crib and head for a snoozefest.

    Let me condense an already fairly short book for you:

    A kid wants to plant a carrot seed.

    One by one his family members tell him that it won’t grow.

    He doesn’t listen and waters the plant anyway.

    Nothing grows for a couple of days.  Then one day a carrot grows.

    The End

    Mesmerizing, right?

    So why do I think my kid is a genius again?

    He makes me read this book multiple times.  The other night after the second reading, he looked at me to make sure I was getting it.  I think he thought I was just going through the motions.  He sensed I wasn’t entirely “in the moment”, so he made me do it again.  Then a light bulb went off in my head – this is a story about persistence.

    Slight dramatization of the actual exchange:

    Owen turns to me and cups my chin in his hand.  He turns it slightly to face him.  With eyes wide he pleads, “Read it again.”

    I flip back to the cover and begin to read it again.  This time paying attention to the words and looking at the very simple drawings and simple colors.

    “And then, one day, a carrot came up just as the little boy had known it would.” I read aloud.

    Together we looked at the young boy carting off his giant carrot in his wheel barrow holding his head high.

    Owen turns to me and says, “He didn’t give up mom.”

    “You’re right.  He really kept at it even when it seemed like it was unlikely to happen.”

    The all-knowing blue eyes stared at me to make sure I got the message.

    “Yes, Owen.  Giving up can be easy.  I should keep at it and make sure it happens despite how hard it may seem.”

    My kid might be onto something.  Perhaps he sensed my defeatist attitude about my job lately.  Maybe he knew that I could do it but that I needed to be patient and keep at it until one day success would come.  By day I was getting pushed around by 200 lb men.  By night I was being put in my place by a 26 lb bundle of wisdom.

    So, I’m keeping at it and hoping to cart home a giant carrot one day, just as my little boy had known I would.

    Yep, my kid is a genius.

  • How to Literally Exercise Self-Control

    How to Literally Exercise Self-Control

    I have always thought that the world was divided into people with good self-control and the rest of us.  There are those who workout every day at 5:00am and the rest of us.  There are those who stay focused and ignore the office chitchat, and there’s the rest of us.  There are those who don’t watch the Real Housewives of Fill in the Blank City, and there’s the rest of us.

    Self-control for me has always been like a flaky friend.  I am always hopeful it will show up, but I never count on it.  Even when it does come through, I can never be sure when I will see it again…

    So I am always looking for ways to get that elusive self-control.  I am not a huge fan of self-help books, but I do like science and I can always appreciate research.  I recently read a great book called “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength”.  It is written by psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and NY Times science writer John Tierney.  They believe the key to self-control is willpower and that willpower is actually a muscle.  Like any other muscle, willpower needs glucose and willpower can strengthen with exercise.

     

    I was initially very excited to hear about this glucose thing.  Could this be another excuse to eat and not feel bad about the extra calories, like when I was breastfeeding?  Yes and no.  Not surprisingly, the authors suggest maintaining a healthy diet as key to strengthening willpower.  Apparently, that old wisdom of eating a good breakfast before school has some science behind it.  The authors believe that we lose self-control when our glucose is low, and that’s when we make poor decisions.

    The book gives real life examples of people (including some famous people) and their experiences with willpower (or lack of).   I found these stories fascinating, particularly the one about a former street performance artist.  There’s also an interesting section on Eric Clapton and his struggles with addiction.

    Once again, a lot of what I read in this book seemed like common sense.  For example, some of this stuff sounds like “practice makes perfect”.  That’s nothing new, but what is interesting is that practicing in one area of your life may be making you better in more than one area because you’ve strengthened your willpower muscle.  The authors caution against trying to tackle more than one area for improvement at a time because when you’re trying to build the willpower muscle, you don’t want to strain it until it is stronger.  This is the same philosophy behind telling drug addicts to wait to quit smoking until they’ve kicked their drug habit.  I am using this guidance as an excuse to continue pursuing hobbies.  If being disciplined about doing Sudoku makes me a better Sudoku player, then maybe it will make me a better worker in general…

    The authors also give examples of ways to exercise the willpower muscle that seem very easy and can be applicable to most people.

    One of my resolutions last year was to read more non-fiction books, and I am glad that I read this one.  It’s a quick read.  I read it almost as fast as the first Hunger Games book.

    Now I feel like I have the tools to get that self-control I have always been after.  Apparently, I just need to literally exercise it!