Alternative webpage readability extensions for Google Chrome

Searching for a replacement for Clearly, which has disappeared from Chrome extensions, I found a pointer to the following GitHub page in a comment on an Apps User Group post: 

• Alternatives for the Clearly readability extension (Eric Curts, 2016.01.21).

• GitHub - ZachSaucier/Just-Read: A customizable read mode extension for Chrome

(Zach Saucier, 2016.10.28)

A few alternatives mentioned either in Curts' blog post and embedded YouTube video about alternatives (Control Alt Achieve, 2016.01.20), or in comments on it, included:

• BeeLine Reader (http://www.beelinereader.com/)
• Featured in Curts' blog post and YouTube video
• https://youtu.be/Q0sLceZAPDY (2016.01.20)
• 3.9 star rating by 150 (Chrome Web Store, 2017.09.06)
• Just Read: 
• Maintained (Unknown, 2016.10.27)
• Mercury Reader (https://mercury.postlight.com/reader/)
• 3.9 star rating by 1426  (Chrome Web Store, 2017.09.06)
• Readability:
• Obsolete (Michael, 2017.03.21)
• Reportedly replaced by Mercury Reader (Anonymous, 2017.05.21)
• The Readability site said, "[C]heck out Mercury Reader" (c. 2016).

At present, Easy Reader:

• 4.7 stars by 472 of 30,587 users (Chrome Web Store, 2017.09.06) 

seems to be right up there with Just Read:

• 4.7 stars by 376 of 72, 480 users (Chrome Web Store, 2017.09.06).

If you favor either Easy Reader or Just Read, please share your rationale(s) in comments on this post.

[205 words]

Speed tests for Internet connections

Hmm, not so fast today (2015.03.30) compared to last week (2015.03.24-26).

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4242315478

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4239010192

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4236864186

After Google Reader: Getting organized in Feedly

The transition into Feedly from Google Reader is seamless, and what you can do there is amazing! Once you have your feeds in Feedly, you can add them to new categories, and reorganize them into multiple categories.  All will backwash to Google Reader, till it goes belly up on the first of July:

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. (Official Blog, A second spring of cleaning, 2013.03.13)

For example, in the screenshot below, there is a Language . . . feed in a topic grouping (Languages and Learning), as well as in another source grouping (Facebook). Likewise, there are social groupings, such as KGUW_13-14, new mash-ups for an instructional cohort, and Learning with Computers, connections from a series of professional development workshops.

It is also possible to rename feeds in Feedly displays. For example, in the Wikispaces (source) category feed  listing above, all five current items look the same. The feed names need to be trimmed back to the essential wiki titles, for ease of reading at a glance in Feedly displays.

[212 words]

[1 of] 7 Ways to Avoid Inbox Overload When Collecting Assignments

Richard Byrne made DROPitTOme sound like a winner:

"DROPitTOme works by synchronizing with your Drop Box account. After connecting the two services DROPitTOme provides a url that you can give to others to upload files to your Drop Box account." (Byrne, 2011.09.06, 7 Ways..., DROPitTOme, ¶2).

Free Technology for Teachers: 

7 Ways to Avoid Inbox Overload 

When Collecting Assignments 

(via Blog this)

This two-minute, silent video shows how to get started:

YouTube video: Uploaded by DROPitTOme on Oct 8, 2010

Networked Student - YouTube (2008.11.26)

Networked Student - YouTube: Uploaded by Wendy Drexler on Nov 26, 2008

"The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler's high school students." 

(YouTube description, link added)

The Networked Student (Drexler, 2008)

'via Blog this'

Spell with flickr

Thanks to Isabelle Jones for point[ing] this out as a tool capable of supporting "development of both writing and speaking skills" (My Languages, Memory Joggers..., 2012.06.01). Check it out!

Which Google Docs for Beginners?

The presentation below recap's a pilot study I've undertaken to gather opinions regarding the most suitable Google Docs for beginning Google Docs users.

If you are willing to take part in the survey itself, please submit your responses, once, in a form you'll find here (opens in a new window). If you have questions or concerns about either the pilot study or the current survey, please post them in comments on this post. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Google Docs for Collaboration

2012-01-13_1456-GoogleDocs_project

The video in this post represents a Jing screencast recording with embedding code from Screencast.com. The default dimensions, 984 pixels wide by 667 tall, I've reduced to 338 and 222, respectively.

IMG_1719

IMG_1719, a photo by veryuseful on Flickr.

Ode to #Pencilchat by MiddleLevelEd

Ode to #Pencilchat: Technology Integration in the Classroom
by: MiddleLevelEd

In honor of Twitter's #pencilchat, I put together some of the more memorable tweets to create this video. I plan to use it for upcoming professional development workshops about technology integration in the classroom. It's a light-hearted look at the spectrum of where we sit regarding technology in the classroom and meeting our students' needs. Enjoy! (Xtranormal, MiddleLevelEd, 2011.12.07)

pabeaufait's favorites strike again

This is more like what I was hoping for:



The Global Player graphic that appears first is © alles-schlumpf (May 28, 2009).

Another century post slips past

I figured it was time again for a human post when I noticed 300 for potpourri on the dashboard, and the month of February gone by without one. The 3ooth was an automated Diigo bookmarks compilation. Does extending the dashboard metaphor mean I was asleep at the wheel?

No, the three such automated posts last month represent about thirty Diigo bookmarks (February 2011). What with categories, highlights, notations, quotations, and tags as options, not to forget [group sharing,] Diigo-to-blog and -to-Delicious output options and other extensions, I'm beginning to think of Diigo as my micro-blogging engine of choice!

As the chart in the graphic and figures below indicate, total numbers of visitors and countries from which they hail continue on modest upward trends.

2010-10-15 79 2338

2010-11-00 n.d. n.d.

2010-12-15 80 2397

2011-01-00 n.d. n.d.

2011-02-15 81 2444

Import from WordPress

Using an export file that WordPress generated in XML format (Dashboard: Tools: Export), and an online, WordPress-to-Blogger converter, I successfully imported a small number of posts from a WordPress blog to this one. Directions for importing posts and comments to Blogger are available here:

• How do I import and export blogs on Blogger? (answer=97416)

Since the number of posts I had on that other blog was small, and around half of them were notes about getting up to speed in a WordPress MU installation; rather than to republish them all automatically on this blog, I opted to republish only a select few by hand.

Though user content in the Blogger Help Forum indicated numerous problems (see, for example: query=import+data+Blogger), I encountered no glitches. The crux of the conversion may be file size; according to a warning on the Wordpress2Blogger conversion utility:

• NOTE: This hosted application [that utility] will only allow downloads smaller than 1MB. 

OpenOffice Extensions: Four selections from the top 50

Sun PDF Import Extension

by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Presentation Minimizer

by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Professional Template Pack II - English

by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Web2.0 OpenOffice.org collaboration & document management extension

by O3Spaces B.V.

Martin recommends removing the collaboration and document management extension (Better remove that extension, 2009.11.24), while rmentink suggests Martin's comment is dis-informative and recommends that Martin (and others) "read the eula more carefully" (Please remove the above comment, 2009.11.24).

Earlier on, millm had suggested there was a Trojan in the code (Trojan --- Key Logger, 2008.12.04). Though rmentink disputed that suggestion promptly, at present the Open Office Extensions site indicates only one download, and none this week.

Virus Transmission: Test Drive of WriteToMyBlog

This post represents a couple of mail-related security tips that I gleaned from a Microsoft publication (perhaps a Mactopia Newsletter), and mailed to myself as a reminder in August 2004. I'm posting it now to: a) purge mail archives, and b) test drive WriteToMyBlog (TM). [WriteTo... is a web-based word-processing application that appears to have been superseded or supplemented by SourcedFrom (WriteTo... Blog, 2008.11.07).]

* To prevent virus transmission when attaching documents:
o Save & send Word documents as rich text format (rtf) files.
o Save & send Excel documents as comma separated values (csv) files.

* To prevent automatically opening messages which may contain web-based graphics or executable virus files:
o Disable Outlook preview panes in the view menu after selecting each folder (Deleted items, Drafts, Inbox).

(Microsoft, n.p., c. August 2004)

__________

Notes:

The dialog that opens when you click "Publish" in WriteToMyBlog includes the following warning:
Warning! This website has not registered with Google to establish a secure connection for authorization requests. We recommend that you continue the process only if you trust the following destination: http://writetomyblog.com/action/blogs_publish.cgi

The tags you apply get converted to Technorati tags.

...

The layout got buggy after I'd opened and closed the Publish interface; the entire text of the draft post replicated itself in the word processing window.

When I went back to the publishing routine, after closing it once, and reviewing the explanation of Tags, the WriteToMyBlog interface recognized the fact that I was logged in to my Blogger account, but kept returning "500 Internal Server Error" messages:

Error Code: 564-5
Your Google session token may have expired, click back then [logout] and try again.

/////
I've captured what remained in the WriteTo... word processing window (Mozilla Firefox 3.0.8), and continued in NeoOffice.

Did that, but after logging back in to Google via the WriteTo... interface, no blogs or categories showed up A retry, after logging out again, generated the following garbage characters, but still no blogs or categories to select.

è��v ڻ͋rEÐïŒÕ@³##Öå?˜;±Ž¼«ÿ~��ï]ˆ0æÏóºê#$€VâtQõœ#–#x’Nø'#K7¿r áÆŸ#&€+Òàñš {å¾!æU¹5É_@ûÌÙ#§™z#ÿÇ.ÉWH¼¸�î5��?´¢û©ÔÔ†ÁŸ˜‡�EEKú�^��!�ï¿#Ú¹:\Oš÷è4W„ë-zÐ]ˆ0æÏóºê#åžØ•`2Û]ˆ0æÏóºê‰V
‡£½r’âe_ã�¸<ÿ]ˆ0æÏóºêb#Š2(0#­pdŠn¾¹îïÈlaÆû\@æç7…Mña" />

/////
Gut nut: WriteTo... is definitely a non-starter in Firefox! I'm going back to Flock.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Pageflakes for Educators

Check out this SlideShare presentation by Gladys Baya, with an embedded YouTube video (below). It introduces RSS feeds and a tool for aggregating them, Pageflakes.

Vance Stevens, who moderated an Elluminate Live! session for a TESOL workshop in which Gladys gave the presentation, has made a recording of the session available with a TinyURL. Thanks, Vance!

Thanks, too, to Gladys for publicizing this all in a blog post, Pageflakes for Educators (2009.02.10), in which she also notes recent concerns regarding the stability and viability of Pageflakes.

Pageflakes4 Educators

View more presentations from Gladys Baya. (tags: webheads presentations)

Exhibit A in PictoBrowser and Flickr displays

This post displays a Flickr photo set (Exhibit A, public), embedded with a new-found slide show tool, in which I'm just beginning to fiddle with display parameters other than height and width to fit this blog's template.



Thanks to Alan Levine for pointing out Pictobrowser on the CogDogBlog (Slick Flickr Browser, 2008.08.13). It sure is easy to use.

For purposes of comparison, I'm including a Flickr generated slide show the same size below.



The most noticeable differences apart from border shades (colors) and the like are:

1. Thumbnails and jump arrows for navigation appear constantly in PictoBrowser display, while only briefly after starting the show (">") or on mouse-over in Flickr;
   
2. Slides advance only manually in PictoBrowser, but automatically or manually in Flickr;
   
3. Titles get displayed in overlays at the foot of the graphics in PictoBrowser, but only in full-screen view with "Info On" in Flickr (or on the Flickr site);
   
4. Notes - Descriptions from Flickr - appear in PictoBrowser on mouse-over ("Notes"), but only in full-screen view with "Info On" in Flickr (or on the Flickr site); and
   
5. As Alan suggests, PictoBrowsers "spawn" - you can generate another PictoBrowser slide show on the spot, by clicking on the link at the lower right-hand corner of the display frame, while you must got to the Flickr site to accomplish the same feat.
   

Tools, types of site, and such

Without delving into the nitty-gritty of many actual sites, I've been tracking and listing up most of the tools and types of sites that I've used over the past week, since deciding to do so while writing Tools I use (2008.08.27). I've taken cross-sections of what's up and running on machines at work or home just after lunchtime, in the middle of an academic recess.

The spreadsheet below represents my current findings. It also enables me to continue working in details without necessarily having to tweak or follow up on this post. Such details may include:

• Future sampling periods, possibly:
  
• during academic sessions, and
  
• including computer laboratory applications;
  
• Other (unexploited) possibilities in my tool chests; and
  
• What's free or open source software.
  

Tools I use

At the first of the year, Heather Ross [(McToonish, 2008.01.08)] posted a list of the tools that she uses least once a week. She had gleaned the idea of making a list for comparison with those she may be using next year from Will Richardson [(Weblogg-ed, 2008.01.06, who had taken a cue from Michael Arrington (TechCrunch, 2008.01.01)]. This sounds like an interesting project, especially since Heather's MacOSX@home - WindowsXP@work situation is a mirror image of mine.

Listening to a podcast about open source software, in which Heather took part (EdTech Posse Podcast 2.1, 2006.09.18), while reviewing a number of posts in which she mentions or recommends tools, sites, and extensions, I've decided to make a list of my own, and will try to sort it out in terms of platforms as well as open-sourced-ness.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

[Note: I've detailed the references to chronicle the stream of the meme Richardson mentioned, and decided to do my list during summer academic recess, when I'm most likely to have a full rack open (2008.08.28).]

Diigo bookmarking for Learning with Computers

To increase visibility of a Learning with Computers group discussion going on in Diigo, just one of several venues in which members of that group interact, I'm going to cross-post here a bit that I wrote there:

I'd like to offer some reflections based on observations and suggestions that other participants have made already. To those I will add a few of my own ideas about collective bookmarking.

Joao Alves (among others) urges us to adopt the "tags Diigo suggests...[, and]... agree on a special tag for the group like 'LWC' that we would always add to every bookmark we tagged" (message 5).

Recommended tags are a start, but I'm always curious about who recommends them, and what for. I suppose they represent collective practices that may be more spontaneous or less focused than ours. LWC sounds quick, and easy to remember, yet may be quite obscure to other Diigo uses who don't already know that it stands for Learning with Computers.

After many hours on screen, I prefer tags with greater visual definition than all CAP's, so CamelCase is my favorite for MultiWordTags. I'm not sure, however, whether Diigo defeats capitalization. If not, I'd prefer something like LwC.

Joao goes on to suggest,"Organizing tags in topics or bundles like in del.icio.us would be helpful to find the most relevant site about the subject we are interested in." Though bundles in del.icio.us are quite powerful in that they enable multi-purpose uses of individual tags, as well as consolidation of similar ones, I have a distinct impression that bundling may work better with single word tags.

Having done most of my bookmarking in del.icio.us, up to now, I've hardly ever felt a need to double or triple up on words, since searching for intersections or conjunctions between tag sets in del.icio.us is a given. I'm looking forward to finding out whether Diigo offers such powerful search options.

Mary Hillis points out: "... [Y]ou could simply use quotation marks for "lesson plan". Maybe this is another advantage of using Diigo" (message 4), and Joao agrees: "... [Q]uotation marks are very useful to write tags that have 2 or more words. I have always appreciated this feature in Flickr" (message 5). The use of quotation marks to demarcate exact phases may be common to Ma.gnolia bookmarking as well.

Earlier on Susana expressed preference for using nouns as tags (message 3), a preference we share to some extent. I tended to use plural forms for countable nouns. I still do sometimes hoping that bookmarking tool search engines will recognize the word noun as a subset of the category nouns more readily, perhaps, than they recognize the word nouns as a derivative of the tag noun.

If such search parameters aren't available yet, they should be. Otherwise, generic web searches for exact quotations and partial character strings may more than suffice for finding content for which interpretation into special terminology is unnecessary.

I've also experimented with a greatest common denominator strategy that works, I imagine, rather like a bundling strategy for similar tags. Take, for instance, collaborat, a tag I tend to favor in de.licio.us to capture the essence of collaborate, collaboration, collaborative, and collaborators. Nevertheless[,] I realize that tags such as collaborat, like the tailor-made one Susana mentioned, edudiigolwc, call for awareness-raising, if not public definition and explanation, in order to be of use to wider and wider groups of bookmark browsers or connoisseurs.

Tag clouds added to blogs, for instance, or provided in group bookmarking tools themselves, for example: de.licio.us and Ma.gnolia, are means of raising awareness. Yet Diigo, as options for individual commentary, comments earmarked for groups, and discussions like this one illustrate, affords ample opportunities for explanation in situ to those wish to elaborate for the benefit of a community such as the Learning with Computers cohort. What a pleasure it is!

(How should we use the tagging system to better organize our group bookmarking, message 6, 2008.06.24 [JST])

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The Learning with Computers group venue @ Diigo is public. Please feel free to share comments here, or join us there.