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How to Borrow a Kindle Book from the Public Library

January 14, 2012 · 5 comments

The other day I was at the library and I noticed they had a “petting zoo” set up so patrons could play with all the different options for ereaders. I love the library but even more I love reading books on my iPad so being able to read library books on my iPad is a dream come true for me. Ask your librarian if your library has ebook borrowing options or visit your library’s website to figure out what is available to your community.

My library is a part of the Northern California Digital Library powered by Overdrive. Overdrive seems to be the most popular service powering digital libraries so if your library also uses Overdrive this is how you borrow Kindle books.

  1. Log in to the Overdrive website. My library has it set up so that all I need to do is enter my library card number, I didn’t need to do anything else to set up an account.
  2. Search the catalog for a book you’d like to read. I can search either via the Overdrive interface or via my library’s complete online catalog which provides a direct link to the book in the Overdrive catalog if it’s available digitally as well. This is what a search result looks like:

    (If a book you’d like to read is not currently available, it’s search result will have an option to “Place a hold” rather than “Add to BookBag”. When you place a hold, you’ll get an email as soon as it’s available to add to your bookbag and then you’d proceed through the rest of the tutorial in the same manner.)
  3. Click “Add to BookBag” which will take you to this screen:
  4. Continue to add other books of your choosing (my library allows up to 8 ebooks checked out a time for up to 3 weeks each). Once you’re ready to checkout click the “Proceed to Checkout” link:
  5. Use the “Lending period” drop down box to select how long you’d like to have the book for. I always go for the 3 week maximum. Then click the “Confirm Check Out” button:
  6. Make sure you have a Kindle or appropriate app downloaded before you proceed. I use the Kindle for iPad app. Then click the “Get for Kindle” button which will take you over to Amazon.com:
  7. In the green box in the upper right hand corner, select the device you want your library ebook sent to (I make sure my iPad is selected) and then click the yellow “Get Library Book” button:

Read your library ebook and enjoy! Kindle books (at least via the Northern California Digital Library) automatically return themselves when they are due (which is another dream come true).

But let’s say you’ve already got the maximum 8 books checked out and you want to return one you already read so you can get another.

  1. Navigate to Amazon.com > Your Account > Manage Your Kindle:
  2. Click the “Actions” drop down button next to the item you’d like to return. Select the “Return this book” link. Then press “yes” to return the book and clear up a slot to borrow another.

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Link Love: Evernote, Growth and Goal Setting, and Your Information Diet

January 6, 2012 · 0 comments

Lately I’ve been reading up on Evernote:

Letting my morbid curiosity get the best of me with other people’s New Years resolutions and goal setting strategies:

And changing how I read my emails and social media to make sure I’m consuming quality over quantity:

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8 Personal Statistic Tracking Tools

January 2, 2012 · 4 comments

I love reading people’s “by the numbers” end of the year lists and seeing their goals for the new year. Here are my favorite stat tracking tools that you can use to figure out what your numbers are and find out where you stand for 2012.

  1. Fitbit is a feature rich pedometer that also measures qualities of sleep. With the app and on the website, you can also track what you’ve eaten, how much water you’re consuming, and other daily activities. Read my complete review here.
  2. Runkeeper is an iPhone app that uses GPS to track distance and speed while you’re out walking or doing other forms of distance activity. You can also manually enter treadmill or elliptical activities. One of my favorite aspects of Runkeeper is that it tracks personal best distances per activity over days, weeks, and months. I mainly use Runkeeper as a supplement to my Fitbit data and as a way to measure more distance traveled while out walking my dog for entry into the Fitbit website.
  3. Dailymile doesn’t have any tracking features significantly different from what I get through Fitbit and Runkeeper, but I do like their visualizations and the lifetime stats. I started using it at the beginning of December and have burned 13.56 donuts walking, jogging, and ellipticalling so far. I also like the concept of getting in a “daily mile” even if I don’t do any other exercise for the day.
  4. Foursquare tracks where you’ve been every time you use the phone app to “check in” while out and about. I’m a bigger fan of the personal history aspect than I am of the social networking. Read my complete review here.
  5. RescueTime is a little app that runs in the background on your computer and tracks what apps and websites you spend your time using. It charts your data by your most used apps and websites and by productivity and helps you visualize how you are using your time while on the computer.
  6. Mint.com tracks your money. It aggregates all of your financial data and automatically generates complete pictures of net worth, net income, and spending.
  7. Goodreads tracks your reading. Tell it what books you want to read, what books you’ve already read, how many books you want to read per year, and rate the books you’ve already read for recommendations on more you’d like. Read my complete review here.
  8. 750 Words is a private journaling website that I particularly like because it collects statistics on your writing style, frequency, and analyzes your words for emotion, concerns, and mindset.

What tracking tools do you use?

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Music to Match your Pace While Working Out

December 30, 2011 · 1 comment

I’ve been spending a lot of time at the gym lately (though this week I’ve got a terrible head cold with congestion, snot, and a nasty sore throat so I’ve been sparing the other gym goers and staying home).

When I’m at the gym I’m still chipping away at Couch to 5k. I’ve completed week 6 but now I keep repeating it because week 7, which calls for 3 days of jogging 2.5 miles or 25 minutes without stopping, intimidates me so much.

One thing that’s helped me immensely through weeks 1 through 6 is listening to the right music. I’ve been using a couple different tools to create my playlists.

How to Determine the right BPM for your walking, jogging, or running pace

The first is Jog.fm (free website). I tell it what pace I jog at (14 minutes miles for me – I can jog but not fast) and it tells me what the right BPM (beats per minute) is. Imagine each time I put a foot down being a beat and matching those movements up to the music. It’s sort of a subconcious way to maintain the right pace. I run on a treadmill at the gym so I have to keep the pace or I’d fall off the back but I’ve set up walking playlists that I’ve used while walking outside and can see from my Runkeeper (free iPhone GPS app that tells you how far you went and how fast) data that I naturally keep the pace my music sets when I use it there.

After I tell jog.fm that my mile time is 14 minutes, it tells me that the right BPM for that pace is about 110 and gives a list of songs at or very close to that number.

But I’ve already got a massive iTunes library and I love to make use of what I already have. So I found a second tool that helps me determine the BPM of the songs I already have.

How to find the BPM of the songs you already have

From the Apple App Store I purchased the app Cadence Desktop Pro for $6.99. I’ve experimented with other software over the years and this is the first one I found that really worked. It analyzes your songs (took overnight for the first go of many thousands of songs in my library) and then export that BPM data back to your iTunes library.

How to create playlists that will have your favorite songs at the right BPM for your pace

In iTunes, I make smart playlists for various paces so my 14 minute mile jogging playlist uses the rule BPM is in the range 108 to 112. I add a few other optional rules like the song should have 4 or 5 stars and not been played within the last week to keep it to the songs I really like but haven’t just heard and then play that playlist while I’m on the treadmill doing my Couch to 5k workout at the gym.

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you order through my link I’ll get a small commission that’ll help me pay my hosting fees. I’ve purchased this product myself at full price and truly recommend it.

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Set Your Browser Home Page to a Random Wikipedia Page

December 28, 2011 · 1 comment

I’m currently listening to the audiobook of The Art of Non-Conformity (while I walk my dog, while I drive around doing my errands – I’ve found audiobooks are a really awesome way to mix it up a bit when you get bored of all 9502 songs on your iPod) and I’m just in love with one of the tips in the book.

There’s a section where he talks about an “alternative graduate school experience” and one of the to do items for it is to set your browser homepage to a random Wikipedia article using this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

Then every time you open your browser you’ll be taken to a random page, you can read it (or you’ll probably just glance or skim it) and learn a little something new.

I’m also currently a little bit obsessed with The Art of Non-Conformity blog and recommend you check it out.

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you order through my link I’ll get a small commission that’ll help me pay my hosting fees. I’m currently listening to this audiobook (I got it free from my local public library) and truly recommend it.

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