Interface

Winner: Readability

Interface plays a big role, after all, these two apps are intended to make an article clutter free and put it on a neat interface for comfortable reading.

Readability has a really clean interface allowing you to customize the background color, spacing between the letters and font size. If you use Kindle to read articles, then you can also use the ‘Send to Kindle’ feature. One thing you may miss when you navigate from the article page, is the sharing buttons, but with Readability you can even share the article on Facebook and Twitter.

Compared to Readability, Instapaper doesn’t offer much customization.

3rd Party Apps and Integration

Winner: Instapaper

There are tons of apps which use Instapaper’s API, notable are Readnow for Mac, Instafetch for Android and many more. Instapaper is integrated into more than 50 popular iOS apps including Feed Readers, Twitter clients, for example if you use Hootsuite on your iPhone, you can send the links which you come across in your timeline directly to Instapaper.

Readability has released API very lately, apps using it are The Telepaper, Readit for Android and a few more. It’s integrated into very few apps.

Available Platforms

Winner: Instapaper

Instapaper is available on iOS, web, also available as a bookmarklet. On the other hand, Readability doesn’t just have a dedicated iOS app, which is a total let down, although there are addons and bookmarklets.

Other

Winner: Instapaper

If you ever want to quit Instapaper, you can download the list of articles you saved for reading later, along with you, similar to Google Takeout. You can also organize the saved articles using folders, which isn’t available in Readability.

Final Note

Instapaper and Readabilty are great apps for no-nonsense reading, but the 3rd party apps supporting Instapaper makes it better, but that’s more of my personal opinion. Trying both the services is the best way to know the right one for you.

Tell us which one you use, Instapaper or Readability?

Link: Instapaper | Readability

-- This Post Showdown: Instapaper Vs. Readability is Published on Devils Workshop .

Note that, by news aggregators I don’t mean feed readers like Google Reader, Feedly etc., instead I mean the services which grab and show trending links.

#1. Google News

One of the most used news aggregators, Google News covers news of all kinds gathering posts from 4,500 sites. It has great options for customization, you can add custom news topics, add news sources you like and more. Another cool new feature is, Badges, the more you read the more badges you get which you can certainly show to your friends.

Link: Google News

#2. Techmeme

Getting featured on Techmeme is like a dream for every tech blogger. It’s totally confined to technology, great for tech enthusiasts. Unlike Google News, you get everything on one single page. They also have a mobile optimized site so you can catch news on the go.

Link: Techmeme

#3. Popurls

Popurls is more than a news aggregator (we did a full review, back in 2008), apart from the fact that it has dedicated apps for iOS, Android, Blackberry and more, it also has other services in its network like PopShuffle which randomly opens popular links. You can signup with Google/Open ID and get access to customization features.

Link: Popurls

#4. News Map

A flash based news aggregator, great for looking up world news, again, it shows everything on one page. It is actually based on Google News but shows the content more visually, looks great on wide screen computers.

Link: News Map

#5. Twitter

Last but not the least, who can I forget Twitter? Keep an eye on Twitter trends and make sure you follow the right people (or bots) to get the news you want. You can also make use of Twitter lists, one of the most overlooked features of Twitter, to build lists of Twitter handles of BBC, CNN etc. for more organized way to follow news.

Twitter Search is great for looking up news of live events, Twitter also has an official search addon for Firefox and in Chrome, you can manually add Twitter to the list of search engines.

Check out these tools and do tell us what’s your favorite news aggregator.

-- This Post 5 Best News Aggregators To Keep Yourself Updated is Published on Devils Workshop .

Clipboard is a new service which lets you save the part of webpage you want. Apart from that you can also organize your clippings (pieces of content), share it to your friends and discover new content by following them.

They provide a nifty bookmarklet which you can use to clip any part of a webpage, extensions coming soon! One major thing which separates Clipboard from other bookmarking services is that, it preserves the HTML and CSS of the clip, so it doesn’t look like an image.

Clips are private by default, but you can publish them so that your friends can see what you’re saving. You can search for content/friends and follow them in the feeds tab. You can even embed clips in your website/blog from the share menu.

How to get Invited?

Clipboard is in private beta, if you want to try it now, we can provide you an invitation. All you need to do is, drop a comment below this post and we’ll send the invitation right away!

Link: Clipboard

Do you use web clipping services? Tell us in the comments.

-- This Post Save and Share Pieces of Content with Clipboard is Published on Devils Workshop .

Glossi is a webapp which does just this. If you like Facebook Timeline, you will like Glossi too!

• Glossi features your Social Networks’ updates on a magazine styled page, it helps you to dive into your past.
• Glossi currently supports Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr and Faceboook. Apart from that, you can also add RSS feeds too.
• You can even see at how many places you have checked in, number of photos you have shared, through the bottom bar.

• If you ever want to share your Glossi page with friends, you can do that, click on ‘share’ on the sticky navigation bar and get the public URL.
• If you care about privacy, then you can lock your Facebook updates (for instance) from being public, go to your account page and click on the lock icon beside Facebook logo.

If you’re a SocialMedia-holic, check out Glossi.

Link: Glossi

-- This Post Get a Timeline for all your Social Networks is Published on Devils Workshop .

Cc:to me uses a very simple approach to note taking, simpler than Simplenote (which I use).

• If you spend a lot of time checking your Email, then it’s a good idea to convert it into a note taker, Cc:to me does this.
• After you signup to Cc:to me , you can install their bookmarklet which automates the process of note taking.
• Just hit the bookmarklet, select and drag text, images etc. into the window and click send. I tried it with Gmail and the formatting doesn’t get destroyed, although I’m not sure about Hotmail and others.
• The author of the app suggests to make filters in Gmail based on the hashtags which you can use while taking notes, just like you tag notes in Evernote. This makes note taking more organized.
• As it’s based on a bookmarklet, it’s universal, works on all platforms. To make a new note, you can also text your notes to the phone number given on the account page.

Try Cc:to me and shout out your opinions in the comments.

Link: cc:to me

-- This Post Send E-mails to yourself with ease using Cc:to me is Published on Devils Workshop .

Features of Apps & Oranges

• Apps & Oranges is basically a repository of apps related to all platforms, that includes Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and Web (sorry Linux!).
• To get started, fill the blank in “ What are the best _________ apps in Windows” (or any other platform). If you need blogging apps, fill the blank with “Blogging”.
• Next, you get a list of apps which are related to the question you’ve asked, you can vote the apps too.

• Click on the app to get more information, you’ll be provided with a link to the developer site.  Apps & Oranges doesn’t host any apps.
• Apart from voting, you can also add a review to the apps you’ve used.
• If you’re interested in a topic, say blogging, then you can even follow the question “What are the best blogging apps for Windows” (or any platform) and you get an email, when a person posts a new app in that topic.
• If there are none or fewer apps related to a topic, then you can add any of the apps you’ve used. Even the apps that are added by other members are editable, like Wikipedia.

Invitations!

Apps & Oranges is still in beta, so if you’re eager to try, we can give you some invitations for free! For invitation just retweet this post and drop in a comment with a URL of the Tweet.

RT @devils_workshop: Get invited to Apps & Oranges – An App Directory That You Can Edit http://bit.ly/r3OmRP

Try Apps & Oranges today and tell us how it works for you.

Link: Apps & Oranges

-- This Post Apps & Oranges – An App Directory That You Can Edit is Published on Devils Workshop .

Posterini is a nice online tool, to quickly make professional looking posters within minutes.

Posterini Features

• Just upload an image which you want to create the poster with.
• Then choose several poster styles and apply it. This can range from cinematic styled posters to even magazine covers types.
• Add the text as you want with your poster. The placement of the text can be customized by just dragging the text box around. Also the text can be customized for size and more importantly various fonts and colours.

Once you generate the poster it can be downloaded as an image or even shared on Facebook or Twitter. So next time you want to create a poster within minutes, try Posterini. Do drop in your comments.

Link: Posterini

-- This Post [Online Tool] Simplest Way to Create Beautiful Posters! is Published on Devils Workshop .

Privacy is a big deal on the web, especially in recent times when social networks makes finding individuals very easy. Anonymity and encryption are two vital way to maintain your privacy. Also there are many instances when we want to not share our Gmail or Skype ID but use something temporary but what to discuss something with someone from a forum or a group.

With free online tool PrivyTalks, we can chat anonymously and also have the exchanged information which is encrypted and hence safe.

Features of PrivyTalks

Just visit the PrivyTalks website and start the chat. A link can be shared to invite others to chat with them.

The messages are encrypted from the browsers using the service. The website claims they only transfer the encrypted data and does not have access to any of the chat messages shared.

This makes it truly anonymous and secure way to share and share information. People sharing passwords to a service might find this PrivyTalks very useful.

If you are interested in online privacy refer to this guide. Also check out this link for chatting on any webpage anonymously.

Link: PrivyTalks

Note: PrivyTalks is in beta testing stage as of now and will be launched on Friday, Sep. 2, 2011.

-- This Post PrivyTalks – Encrypted Anonymous Chatting Online is Published on Devils Workshop .

With Mmmmail.com, not only can you create a temporary email id, but also track the email sent to that address using RSS feeds.

Just add your nickname in the box and click on ‘Check mmmmail’ The email address is created and we get a new RSS feed to keep track of these messages sent to this address.

The URL of the feed is quite simple. It just add nickname.xml after http://www.mmmmail.com/

Also make sure that you are not tracking important email this way as considering it is a RSS feed, anyone who has the nickname can easily track it.

Try out Mmmmail.com and drop in your comments.

Link: Mmmmail

-- This Post Create Disposable Email and Keep Track of Messages via RSS Feeds is Published on Devils Workshop .

I came across one of the simplest methods of downloading a video from YouTube thanks to a comment left of an older post by Andy.

Lets say you love our ‘How to become a Devil’ video and decided to download it from YouTube.

The URL on YouTube is something similar to the image below.

Now in the URL of your address bar, type in ‘want’ before ‘youtube‘. So the URL of will look similar to what is shown in the image below.

This takes your to WantYouTube website and starts the download of the video you liked on YouTube.

Do try out WantYouTube and drop in your comments.

Link: WantYouTube

Related: Download YouTube Videos on Android Phones

-- This Post Super Quick and Simple way to Download YouTube Videos is Published on Devils Workshop .