Sunday, September 5, 2010

What’d You Do With My Cloud?

Here is an improvement on a business idea for the firm who created Instapaper, the software that allows a computer user to save the content of a webpage to read later even if there is no internet connection. (Per the recommendation of Daring Fireball): Make an add-on for your program that will work like an RSS Reader. Otherwise how am I supposed to “read later” when I am offline if I can only access the saved webpages when I am online?

Perhaps I am not doing something correctly; however, the queue at Instapaper I created while surfing with a connection is on the cloud. Now that I am no longer with a connection I cannot access the cloud where I saved the webpages. I may not be a tech wizard but I am pretty savvy when it comes to getting around a computer: We had our first Apple/Macintosh computer in my home when I was in 5th grade and I had to take classes in Management Information Systems (Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer) last year in college. If there was anything I am average at, it is the computer.

Something is not right with the design of Instapaper because I am unable to make it work without an internet connection, when the whole point of the software is to be able to do work without an internet connection. It is a good idea; I suggest a new version, or perhaps the creation of an Firefox bookmark add-on that will store the queue of webpages to be viewed once the internet connection has been disconnected.

1 comment:

  1. Fun Instapaper fact - it's actually just a pet project of the lead developer at Tumblr, a dude named Marco Arment. He's a badass and is quoted rather frequently in DF. He built Tumblr, Instapaper and the Instapaper iPhone app, which incidentally does exactly what you're talking about and is awesome for plane rides with no network access.

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