Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Tabbloid + G-Reader + Evernote = Bliss

Total Recall isn't just an old Governator movie, it's also a goal for anyone that's ever forgotten anything.  Evernote goes a long way to making that possible, but you still have to remember to save or send items to it before it can "Remember Everything".

One thing missing from that equation for me is RSS feeds - I subscribe to several hundred feeds (of which I actively follow around 50).  But then later in the week when something I know that I read earlier might be useful, I have trouble finding it - often spending an hour searching my web history.

Enter Tabbloid (yes, that's how they spell it), a free service from HP which converts an RSS feed into a PDF "magazine" file mailed to you on a daily or weekly basis.  Twist that around a little bit, mix in Google Reader and Evernote, and you're one step closer to the Holy Grail, Total Recall.

The steps:

In Google Reader,
  1. Go to Settings -> Folders and Tags
  2. Determine how you want to mark the posts you want to remember forever - you can Share, Star, or Tag items.
  3. If you're Sharing your items to remember them forever, skip this step.  If you're Starring or Tagging, you'll need to enable "sharing" for that category in the Folders and Tags tab.
  4. Now click on "view public page" for that category. 
  5. Inside this new window, right-click and copy the Atom Feed URL.
Now visit http://www.tabbloid.com:
  1. Click the big "Get Started" button
  2. Paste the Atom Feed URL you just saved into the box labeled "Add a Feed URL".
  3. Enter your Evernote e-mail address into the "Email to" box.  (It's in https://www.evernote.com/User.action under "Incoming email settings".)
  4. Set your Frequency and Time fields appropriately.
  5. Save delivery options
Visit your Evernote default notebook:
  1. You should now have a Tabbloid Activation e-mail, click the URL to activate the Tabbloid account for that address.
  2. Wait a few minutes, Tabbloid will now format your Shared/Starred/Tagged Google Reader messages as a PDF magazine and send it to Evernote, which will fully index it for you.

Now if only I could get Google Desktop Search to index Evernote correctly...



2 comments:

Cassandra said...

This is soooo AWESOME! I was looking for a solution like this and you totally hit the nail on the head. Thank you so much for the post. You saved my life :-)

inquitech said...

wow that's a really nice blog.