My Favorite Firefox Add-On: Read It Later

How many times have you come across something while surfing the Internet that you knew you wanted to read but not at that exact moment? Perhaps the item is worth reading but not sufficiently important to add to your cluttered list of favorites. The free Firefox add-on Read It Later is one solution. Whenever you see an item you want earmarked for later, you simply clip it to your Read It Later list and it remains there until the appropriate time.

Today I had to reinstall Firefox because of frequent crashes. The major downside to this most primitive of solutions for software glitches, of course, is that I also have to reinstall all my browser add-ons. Worse yet, that could imply erasing my Read It Later list. But I shouldn’t have worried. You can create an account and save your links online. There is also an option for downloading your reading list to a folder specified by you, either in .html or plain text, and have it available after you reinstall your browser with all its goodies. This option, however, did not work for me when I tried it. It took forever to process the command and I really don't plan on dealing with software glitches on day when Barcelona and Real Madrid clash at the Santiago Bernabéu. Finally, I discovered a note from the developer stating that “Web based offline reading is a more complicated task.” So perhaps we’re looking at more of a work in progress than a finished product. Nonetheless, Read It Later is quickly becoming an app I use on a daily basis and, to be honest, 60% of the material for this blog comes from random stuff I’ve clipped to my reading list. A nifty arrow to have in your translator's quiver.

Miguel Llorens is a freelance financial translator based in Madrid who works from Spanish into English. He is specialized in equity research, economics, accounting, and investment strategy. He has worked as a translator for Goldman Sachs, the US Government's Open Source Center and H.B.O. International, as well as many small-and-medium-sized brokerages and asset management companies operating in Spain. To contact him, visit his website and write to the address listed there. Feel free to join his LinkedIn network or to follow him on Twitter.