Charlotte Street
Kindle Tip: MacWorld has a great tip to insure that you can keep books synched across devices. It’s all in how you load the book. Instead of “side-loading” a book file using the USB cable or iTunes (for Kindle apps on your iThings), use the free Send to Kindle app to send it to each device you might use for reading and check the box to keep a copy in your Kindle library. Now, if you’re stuck waiting in the dentist office, you can pull out your iPhone and start reading right where you left off on your Kindle reader.
The talented folks at Photoshop Elements Techniques have put together a 2013 calendar template along with a guide on how to use it. If you are an avid PSE user, this magazine is always full of great ideas and the subscribers section of the supporting website has video tutorials and more. Although it’s a bit pricey, it’s a great value.
Blurb has introduced an enhanced ebook designed for the iPad. This format supports both audio and video and can be built using their online ebook editor. The resulting publication can be sold through Blurb or at Apple’s iBookstore.
Springpad board example.
If you’re running the Android version of the Dolphin browser, you can take advantage of the Evernote add-on to clip the text from any website you’re viewing. There’s also a Skitch add-on that lets you annotate the displayed web page and send it to Evernote. You’ll find these add-ons by swiping left to display the add-on toolbar then tapping the gear icon. Unfortunately, add-ons are not available for the iOS apps at this time.
Springpad has introduced several new features and one, the Board, provides a visual look at the contents of your notebooks giving it the look of a bulletin board. Oh, and you can make notebooks public so that people can follow them and keep up with your latest additions. This delicious example caught my eye. It’s been a while since I spent any time with Springpad. Maybe it’s time to go take another look.
Sigil ebook editor [Win, Mac & Linux - open source] has released version 5.9 beta with a newly-designed interface and lots of new features. If you are fed up with the errors found in machine-converted ebooks and want to control the layout process of your book yourself, this is just the app. You can work in the WYSIWYG view or get down into the HTML weeds. In this version you can now paste the contents of a Word document into Sigil’s Book View and it will pull in the heading styles and character formatting such as bold and italics too. This is a beta version so it will have its hiccups, but the app’s improvements are worth the effort.
That’s it for this edition of Tech Notes. Enjoy your weekend!
