Evernote's Clearly V/s Readability V/s Instapaper V/s Read It Later

I currently use an springpad account as my go to do-it-all service like notes, to-do list of movies to download and watch, etc and Instapaper as my bookmark and read it later service as springpad does not support features to store articles (like Instapaper) and read it in a distraction-free mode.

But when I heard of Evernote’s clearly extensions, I thought of giving it a try and use it incase if its better than Instapaper. I also found that Readability was also providing this distraction-free reading and storing articles which it did not provide before for free users.

I just want re-visit these web apps which can be a bookmark-storage-archive with tagging and distraction-free reading and saving the article for later reading. I quickly found the four options that let me do these things. For my testing purpose I used chrome's extensions and bookmarklets.

Clearly

This is an chrome extension from evernote (do-it-all service similiar to Springpad). This allows for distraction-free reading and saving the article to evernote in case it is needed.

In one click you can see the ad-free and distraction free article. The interface of the reading mode is similar to readability and even you can change the font settings in this mode. If you click the back button(in the menu on the right hand side) in the reading mode, you will be taken back to the original article. There are also buttons to clip the articles to evernote in a single click.

But you cannot tag it from the reading mode it self. If you want to tag the article, you need to configure clearly extension to do so. With tag and sub-tags we can very easily replicate the unlimited articles archival that are present in both Instapaper and Read It Later.

Another great feature in Clearly which it is supposed to have is the pagination. Even if a particular article is a separated by pages, it should display the entire article removing those pages. But currently this feature is not working as intended. Although it fails in removing pages, I hope still this is a new product which when tweaked correctly will produce the exact results as intended. But until then Readability holds the edge in this feature.

Readability
Readablity is an web app which previously provided a way to read the articles without any distraction and Ad but they allowed only premium users to save the article. This was one of my reason for me to choose Instapaper over Readability. But now they have allowed free users to save the articles. I used readability’s chrome extension for the spin.

Just like Clearly, It took one click to go into distraction free read mode. While clearly does this very fast, readability took some more seconds to accomplish this job. The main difference in the interface between readability and clearly is that menubar is on the left side of the former while it is on the right side on the later. Also readability’s default font is a bit bolder than that of Clearly (you can achieve this in Clearly by configuring this)

From the read mode if you click the “Favorite this article” in the menu, your article will be saved in the reading list or you can click “Read Later” menu from the Readability’s extension icon. The menu bar also provides the option to archive the article but this option is reserved for premium users. Other than this you can share the article to email, twitter and facebook. Another nice feature which is present in Readability is its ability to convert links to foot notes and references.

Readability handles paging feature very nice when compared with Clearly. While Clearly fails at removing pages in many sites especially in blogs with many images(wherethe images are displayed as slides), Readability handles this correctly. In fact it is in msn.com articles where a set of images are displayed as slides, that Readability fails to remove the pages and in the end messes up with the page. The other two services does not provide the feature to remove pages from articles.

One important thing that readability misses is the tagging feature of the Clearly. Also returning to the original page is a bit cumbersome in case of readability where you have to come back to the top of the article and click the original link.

Instapaper
A service similar to readability which allows you to store and archive unlimited number of articles and it uses bookmarklets officially instead of extensions.

You have to install the “Read Later” bookmarklet if you want to bookmark the page and read it later. You need to install “Instapaper Text” bookmarklet if you just want to read the article instead of storing it. The distraction free mode of Instapaper is too simplistic and there are no feature to share it with twitter or facebook as in the case of readability. I simply prefer the interface of either Clearly or Readability over this one. You can change the font setting from its interface. But travelling back to original article faces the same issue of going to the top and clicking the link as in Readability.

If you save the article via the “Read Later” bookmark, you have to visit its web app to read the article and you can archive unlimited number of articles from also. Also you can create folders to save your articles in its web app which is definitely a plus for Instapaper against Readability where there are only two options(or folders) “Reading List” and “Favorites”. (“Archive” cannot be used by the free users)

Another issue that I faced while using Instapaper is that it clips the entire web page and not just the article. So, some junk paragraphs comes at the end of the article. 

Read It Later
Another similar service to Instapaper and Readability where you can store and archive your articles and read them later.

By using the official bookmarklets provided in the site you can’t read the read the articles directly as you did with the other 3 services. Using the “Read It Later” bookmarklets, you can store the article to the web app, then login to the web app to read the article.(Its cumbersome).

If you have already stores an article and read it, you can use the “Mark As Read” bookmarklets to archive it from your browser. If you have already login to the web app, you can use the “Reading List” bookamarklet to see the the list of articles in your reading list in a seperate window. Apart from the first bookmarklet, I don’t find the other two quite useful.

The reading interface by default is a very narrowed one and of course you can change this suitable to your taste. The major issue with this service is that it strips images completely from the article even if the images are very relevant to the article. This is a major drawback of this service. I definitely do not recommend this over the other 3 services.

Please note that these insights are specific to my needs alone. Please comment on it if you have some thing to share on these web apps.

ISPs not using the banks in alphabetical order in their billing service

Some internet providers in India do not make proper use of combo box. R U confused about what I'm trying to say, please wait

In their billing service they have most of the major banks listed but not in alphabetical order so what happens, When I try to see HDFC or any other bank in a birds view I am not able to find it. I hope this is what most of the normal users will do and think that their banks are not listed by their Internet Providers and they look for other means to pay their bills. 

But the question is: Is their banks really not listed? a big NO is the answer. In the combo box (drop down where you select your bank) check the list fully and you may find your bank and in my case I found HDFC bank after Union Bank. Did you know that I wasted around 6 hours to pay my bills online today

All the chaos is simply due to a single order by statement while designing the page. what the hell?

Sun Certified Java Programmer Dumps

Following is a dump which I got from Java Lovers facebook community and please follow this community on facebook. I used this dump to clear the SCJP 1.6 exams this week and I got 93%. There was only one question that came out of this dump. SCJP 1.6 Dump. 

How to find the url of a particular tweet

While participating in a giveaway, they asked me to post the url of the tweet in the comments. But I don't know to get the url of a particular tweet. I inquired about this to my friends and none of them don't know about this. Then I googled and found this out and this is very very easy.

Tweet

1. Log into your twitter
2. Normally all the tweets will be shown to you in "Timeline" tab as shown in the above image.
3. Find the tweet
4. Below the tweet you'll find a time stamp (eg: 6 minutes ago)
5. Click on this time stamp
6. This tweet alone will be displayed
7. Copy the url in the address bar of this tweet and use it as required

Two accidents yesterday in Chennai

Yesterday happens to be an unfortunate day for chennaites due some very heavy traffic. 

Reason: Two accidents took place.

Yesterday in my office we were having a team outing. So we were requested to come early in the morning for office so that we can compensate some more time for our clients. I set out to office. Since I'm in an IT company you'd definitely know where my office is. Obviously on OMR Road. It was around 9.50 AM in the morning that I was successfully crossed the Tidel Park signal where most of my would be consumed while going to office. I thought I'd reach the office by 10.30 AM. I was in a 19B office and it reached SRP Tools bus stop. Besides my bus was a 21H bus which took the route of Velacherry but normally that bus would always go thro' OMR. I thought that there was something wrong with that bus. But I was wrong. Our driver kept thro' our normal way. After few minutes, everyone of us inside our bus found that we are under a very heavy traffic. This is not the usual traffic that we face dialy. To be frank each vehicle on that road was crawling. Nobody knew the reason WHY???  It was while we were crossing the Lifeline hospital bus stop we found that there was an heavy container in the road. We were told that there was an accident that took place few hours ago due which there was such an hectic traffic. The container was really in a bad condition. I actually don't know whether it collided with another vehicle or it skidded and hit the ends of the road. But as fas as I know there was not another vehicle besides the container for such an accident. But once we crossed the Lifeline hospital's signal the traffic began to regulate itself and I finally reached office around 11 AM.

We set out to our team outing destination's around 12.30 PM and we were told that our boss will join us directly. We have reached the restaurant by 1 AM and we have actually ordered for the main course but still our boss is missing. When called, we're informed that our boss will join us shortly. But finally there was a sign of relief as our boss joined us for the team lunch. When asked, our boss told us about the very same accident that took my time in the morning. From one of my team mates I came to know that due the accident there was that hell of a traffic even from 8 AM in the morning.

We had our lunch and had our fun time and it was around the end of day for everyone of my team mates except me. Reason: I'm late in the morning and so I'veto compensate in the evening. Fortunately one my team mates' room was in the same locality as my office and he gave me a ride to office. I reached my place around 6.30 PM and started sorry resumed my work. It was around 9.30 PM when I felt that it was time to call it a day. As usual I took my favorite 19B and in the I was asleep ( normally I used to sleep while travelling in bus). It was the Anna university stop where I woke up. The next stop is where I've to get out and catch  another bus to catch the bus to my home. It was 10.30PM and 19B has just turned  around to the next stop of Chinnamalai stop where  it entered another heck of traffic. A great day for me really. After getting the balance from the conductor, I got down of the bus and took a walk to the Chinnamalai stop. I thought that there might be some problem or some accident near the turn from Chinnamalai to Saidapet.  On the way, I found many bus which were headed for my home but most of the bus were swithched off. This was a bit weird as a thought strike me that there was a very heavy accident or something like that. As I continued to rush my way, I still did not see the sight of Chinnamalai stop but I was able to see the last rows of vehicle afterwhich I would be able to see Chinnamalai stop. But since there was no bus to my destination in that row, walked back and in the way, I requested for entry in three of the buses. First two buses refused me as they were actually going to depot and not to my destination.  The third bus was to my destination and I get on it. I stayed in that bus for around 5minutes or so. During that time I enquired my co-passengers and conductor for the traffic @ 11PM. There was no clear answer from any of them. It is during this time the conductor told driver that he is getting down to see what happened and requested him to pick him back @ Chinnamalai. Two of us accompanied conductor since we wanted to know what exactly has happened at Chinnamalai. 

When we reached reached Chinnamalai, there was a heavy crowd of people like passerbys like me, police officials, press officials and bus conductors and drivers. Some bus were stopped in a manner so that there can be no bus that can enter in to Saidapet from Adayar or Guindy. There seems to be a burning issue there. I went near the crowd. I enquired as many people as I can to extract the information. From what they told me, there seems to a bus towards Velacherry or Adayar thro' Chinnamalai. In that bus, a passenger seems to hit the driver and ran away in the near by lane. Bus drivers and conductors have stopped their work and put each of their bus on-hold and they have told the police officials they will only resume the work only after the police arrests those suspects. I was there as the bus officials are revolting for a justice with the police officials. I was also a bit extra cautious due to the fact that I don't want to get caught in case of any bad circumstances that might suddenly arise out there. Finally a high ranking police officer promised the transportation workers that they will arrest the suspect before dawn and requeted them to clear the blockade they have created. During this time I came back to Chinnamalai and I hope that both parties argreed to some sort of agreement and they were slowly resuming their work. That crowd that was in the centre of the road moved slowly not away but to the farther bank of the Chinnamalai stop. By this time my bus to the destination came and I ran and get into it. Thanks to God that I reached home around 11.45 PM after a day full of heavy traffic, road blockade and some team outing stuff.

I still don't know the exact cause of these two incidents. Is there anyone who can enlighten me?