Newest discovery: Pocket

I have this habit of starting posts, saving them as drafts and never finishing them. Example: On Nov. 16, I started a post called "Newest discovery: The Next Button." I never finished it. On March 28, I started a post called "Newest discovery: Read it Later." Well, I'm finally finishing that one, but it's taken me so long that Read It Later has changed its name to Pocket. I'm also going to combine it with what would have gone in the post about the Next button. So here goes....

First: Pocket. I am always finding cool articles at work or seeing interesting links in my Twitter feed, but I obviously don't have time to read everything that looks interesting right then. So, I just put it in my Pocket! It's a simple button you can add to your web browser that automatically saves that web page into a list for you to peruse at your leisure. As shown in these images (borrowed from the Pocket site), you can then access these articles on pretty much any device:

I already have it downloaded on my home laptop, work computer and Android phone, and I'm planning to add it to my PiPad this summer, as well! (That's what the Leadership Consultants like to call their iPads. Because it's Alpha Delta Pi, get it?) But the best thing about Pocket is that it automatically adds a button to my Google Reader, as well. So if I see something interesting in my Google Reader and don't have time to read it, but I also don't want to leave it unread, I can add it to my Pocket and then hit "Mark All as Read" at the top to save me some time, like so:

All the yellow arrows are things I've added to my Pocket, and the empty arrows are things I don't care to read. Then I hit "Mark All as Read" and I have a nice, clean Google Reader!

Speaking of Google Reader, I really love mine (as I might have mentioned one or two or three times). So, on to my next newest pretty old discovery: the Next button. It's pretty simple: Google Reader offers a "Next" button under its "Goodies" page in its settings. You just drag the button to your bookmarks toolbar, and then instead of having to read everything in your reader and click on a post when you want to go to the actual site, it will just take you on a little journey through your unread posts, from newest to oldest. You can even make separate buttons for different folders. (For example, on my personal laptop I have "Best" and "All" buttons to make sure I read my favorite blogs first, and at work I have "Travel" and "News" buttons to look for story ideas.) Check it out:

A little section of my bookmarks toolbar. Guess I can get rid of "My Brackets" now, huh?

So, there you have it! My two new(ish) favorite Internet add-ons to read my favorite sites. And, in holding with my Saturday tradition, I think it would be fitting to share some links I saved to my Pocket this week (but only a few because this post is already so long):

In 1978, a Chi Omega philanthropy went horribly wrong at Ole Miss. This is the tragic yet beautiful story of the survivors—and those who didn't make it.

I finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey last night. (Go ahead, judge me. I would.) I wrote my own review on Goodreads, but this post pretty much captures my feelings.

Both my undergraduate majors were included on The 13 Most Useless Majors list. Was yours?

And finally: Deadly booby traps on a hiking trail? Yeah, that happened. (And I wrote this brief! Whoop!)

P.S. — My Internet was being really janky while I was writing this post (hence why it's up so late today), and the photo uploader wasn't working, so I started playing around and realized you can drag and drop photos straight into the post instead of using the upload button! Or did you already know that?

P.P.S. — A Novel Challenge featured my Semi-Charmed Summer Book Challenge on its blog last week! If you haven't seen it yet, you still have plenty of time to join! Challenge begins May 1.