Evernote tip: Easier web clipping using Readability
May 21st, 2009 | I’ve previously written about how I use Evernote to organize my youth ministry, and my use of the program has only expanded since then. Consequently, I am constantly tweaking the way I use Evernote to make both the program and my time as efficient as possible.
I recently discovered a killer (and super simple) method for using Evernote’s Web Clipper in tandem with arc90’s Readability to import articles/blogs into the program. Here’s how it’s done.
I’ll be using this article from Youth Worker Journal as the example throughout. Here’s what the page looks like in a browser (you can click any of the images below for a full-sized version):
The article that I actually want to save and clip into Evernote is surrounded by tons of noise that I don’t want. If I use the Web Clipper to clip the entire page, here’s what I get:
If I scroll about halfway down the note, I am finally at the start of the text I want to save, but it’s still surrounded by all the noise from the original page:
At this point, some of you might be wondering why I don’t use one of the most useful features of the Web Clipper — text highlighting. One can highlight text and/or images from any page and clip it all into Evernote with ease, which is really handy, but in this case even if I highlight all the text and clip it, there’s still an advertisement stuck in the middle of my note:
Utilizing Readability, there’s no need for highlighting text in the browser and no unnecessary removal of unwanted text or images once the article has been clipped into Evernote. In fact, just two clicks does the trick.
Once I’ve added the Readability bookmarklet to my bookmark toolbar, I visit the page I want to clip into Evernote, and click the Readability bookmarklet. Doing so results in something like this:
Now, instead of a great article surrounded by distracting noise, there is only the text of the article itself — and without that pesky advertisement. I click the Web Clipper on my browser to clip the resulting page into Evernote and I get the following result:
Voilà! A clutter-free version of the article I want imported into Evernote with just two clicks. I hope you find this helpful; let me know if you do!
- Following in the footsteps of The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture and The Wall Street Journal’s Photo Journal, Christianity Today has launched Imago Fidei, a photoblog that bills itself as “a daily view of Christian life.” While not strictly photos, there are some gems in the archives. 05/15/2009
Bonhoeffer on youth ministry
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes these words on Christian community, which are rather applicable to smaller youth ministries:
In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978. 29.
Words that are just as convicting as when they were penned 71 years ago.
May we have the courage and humility to give thanks daily for the ministries we find ourselves in, however modest.
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