On fun 15-minute breaks.

I’m taking a 15-minute break from studying, and since I don’t smoke anymore, I thought of blogging via email, which is still amazing to me! I mean around 5years ago, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to send an email via my cellphone (here in the philippines at least. Smartphones just went mainstream here about 3-4years ago)

Now, with just a few taps on my ‘berry I am able to not only send an email, but post an entire blogpost complete with pictures! it truly is amazing to me. Yea. Simple pleasures like that get me high. (Or maybe it’s just my way of justifying my full-feature blackberry plan, when I could easily get a bbm-facebook-twitter plan for half the price. Lol. Of course I can use my iphone to, but I prefer tapping on keys instead of glass. Lol.

iPad App Review: GoodReader for iPad

i realized i keep on saying how much i love my iPad, and its usefulness for me as a lawstudent, a blogger, a bookworm, and just your average geek. lol!

i found out about this app when my classmate (crush) recommended it to me. we have the same model of iPad. i believe that the (future)couple that geeks together stays forever. we even have the same mac laptop. i also believe that the couple that macs together stays forever! haha!

i am reviewing this app in my capacity as a law student. this can also be useful for students in general who have saved documents they need or want to access in class.

Text-To-Speech on the iPad

I am an avid user of my kindke3’s text to speech function. It is one of the main reason that i bought the kindle3. Before committing to the kindle, i was really torn between the nook and the kindle. Kindle’s text-to-speech function won over the nook’s expandable memory.
I use the text-to-speech function all the time to read me my ebooks while driving or merely travelling. I send personal documents to my kindle email address and i use the text-to-speech function to listen rather than read. This is especially helpful when i am studying and need to memorize bucketloads of law provisions. I just find it a lot easier to Memorize stuff when i hear it rather than merely reading it.

I am also guilty of using the function to lull me to sleep. I use it all the time that i barely listen to music nowadays. It helps that the kindle’s text-to-speech voice, especially the male vsion, is very human sounding and not that robotic.

So it surprised me that the iPad has a text-to-speech function!

Still on books and Ondoy

i realized that i have had a lot of posts about my kindle.

it is still amazing to me how this little gadget has changed my life completely but not my reading habits.

i want to share my story on how i became an e-book convert. but first, let me give you a little background on my book affair.

November is Reading Month

Last November 2, 2011, Education Secretary Armin Luistro, otherwise known to La Sallians as Bro. Armin, declared November as Reading month and November 25, 2011 as “Araw Ng Pagbabasa” or “Day of Reading.”

There are other activities and programs that encourage and promote reading for the youth such as a proposed 15-20 minutes a day for the entire month where everything is dropped to be able to read a few pages.

There are other fun activities and you can read about it through the Official Gazette or you can find the link HERE.

Being a self-confessed bookworm myself, (hello kindle love!) i find this such a marvelous idea! with my kindle, i find myself having access to all these classic books that I’ve always wanted to read but never found the time to do so.

I would like to join in the Reading Month with my own way. I will challenge myself to read at least 3 classic books for the month of November, as mentioned in my Steve Jobs Biography blogpost.

I’ve already pre-selected the books to read:

1. Gone with the Wind

2. Pride and Prejudice

3. The Scarlet Letter

I hope you can join me in this challenge! Come on, you know you want to pick up that book and get lost in the author’s alternate world!

even if you don’t have a kindle or an ebook reader, you can still access those free classic e-books through Project Gutenberg or by simply clicking the link HERE. 

So there’s no excuse! Let’s all read!

You know you want to… Reading is sexy!

Wishlist: Paulo Cuelho Moments Day Planner

Okay, so i cheated a little. There is one more thing i want this christmas aside from the ones i mentioned in my
Christmas+birthday wishlist

it’s the Paulo Cuelho Moments day planner.

this planner is priced at around 500pesos in powerbooks but if you buy it bundled with the new book Aleph (priced at 545) you can get it for 900 plus, so you save a little.

i fell in love with it the moment i saw it on powerbooks last week and i’ve been itching to buy one eversince! the only thing that held me back was the lesson i learned from last year.

last year i had not one, not two, ot even three but four planners! can you imagine that?! seriously!

i received four planners last year as gifts! maybe well-meaning friends and family think i mismange my time too much!! lol!

last year, i had the belle de jour planner(thanks roommie!) the starbucks planner(thanks gems!), “this planner will change your life” (i bought this one myself), and the travel planner (thanks auntie! and thanks for the eurotrip!! lol) from the same makers of the belle de jour planner. and it became so chaotic updating all of it, i still ended up using the calendar in my iphone! lol

the year before that, i had 2 planners (i think). the belle de jour one and the starbucks planner.

(taken off of google images)

but i’ve always been a planner person. back in college i was that girl whose planner was literally bulging with post-its, receipts, and whatnot. i guess that’s why friends and family always give me planners. i’m rarely seen without one.

but with excellent planner apps in the appstore (such as bento which i adore) i was kinda psyching myself to go all digital this year (i dont think i can tho.) and seeing the Paulo Cuelho planner, all that went out the window! i dont think i will be able to stop using physical planners despite the fact that i embraced digital books (ebooks) and digital music and movies wholeheartedly!

the Paulo Cuelho Planner wth its fantastic images and quotes from various Cuelho books is just too good to pass up! i want one! (and maybe the belle de jour planner and the “this journal will actually change your life” planner)

i hope Santa or a kind-hearted friend or family member will put this planner in my stockings this christmas! lol

are you a planner person? or are your loved ones planner people? this is a great stocking stuffer!!