DailyLit: Read books by email and RSS.

To know me today, you'd never imagine how many hundreds of pages a week I read in college. Surprises me, anyhow. While I've devolved into an accomplished skimmer of Harper's and the The New York Times Magazine, I rarely find (or, make) the time to finish a whole book about anything that's not related to "work." That's why I'm intrigued by DailyLit, a service that leverages rather than battles the tendency to hang out online.

The idea is simple enough: select a "free" book that appeals to you, then, every day or two, via either email or RSS, the DailyLit robot sends you a section that's readable in about five minutes. If you want more at any time -- the digital equivalent of turning the page -- just click to have the next installment sent, then keep on a'reading.

The variety of available selections is handsome, including favorites like Tristram Shandy, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The Devil's Dictionary and over 400 more. Feeling ambitious? Try War and Peace (675 5-minute parts), The Count of Monte Cristo (581 parts), or Don Quixote (448 parts). Want something a little lighter? You can't go wrong with Candide (42 parts) or A Modest Proposal (4 [still hilarious] parts).

• MacUpdate Promo [CocoaTech’s PathFinder] - For today only, get the simply sublime PathFinder for $19.95 (43% off the retail of $34.95). Great deal. [via: Joel Mueller]
• Albert Ellis (1913-2007) - “He was considered by many to be the grandfather of cognitive-behavioral therapies and…one of the most influential psychotherapists in history.” R.I.P., Dr. Ellis.
• GuitarLog - The Practice Tool For Guitarists - Guitar productivity. "GuitarLog is the place for you to organize your practice sessions and record your progress." [via: deli/lorinator]
• get-omnifocus.sh version 1.0 released - The Omni Group Forums - Wrap this bad boy up in a Platypus app, and you’ve got yourself a super easy (GUI-ified) way to stay updated on the OmniFocus alpha.
• Fox News Updates Cavuto Transcript - “The transcript still claims Apple had projected 'half a million' opening weekend sales (they didn’t), and still uses the adjective 'hotsy-totsy'.”
• A List Apart: Articles: Reviving Anorexic Web Writing - She's right. My team used to call it blah blah text, and I'll admit it's something that I, for one, have again gotten really lazy about. [via: Anarchaia]
• Monastic Musings: Inbox Zero, Day #6 - "Do I keep every letter I receive on my desk? Of course not! Some I toss without opening."
• Rabbit rabbit - “The most common modern version states that a person should say ‘rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit’ upon waking on the first day of each new month, and on doing so will receive good luck for the remainder of that month.” Happy August.

Rule the Web show: Merlin Mann, Wednesday, July 18, 5pm Pacific

Forgot to mention that my pal, Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder, recently was kind enough to have me on his Rule The Web podcast (which is a companion to his swell new book).

We talked about jobs, procrastination, clutter, and a bunch of other stuff. We also took calls from a couple people, dishing out advice on topics like where to park ideas and how to fight distraction.

You can listen on Mark's site, download an MP3, or listen using the player below.

Mentioned in passing: del.icio.us, DEVONthink, Yojimbo, Mental Case (app whose name I forgot), In Our Time, and The Sound of Young America.

rooSwitch - Shuffle Your Settings Around

When you're testing a new version of an application (or just being a little paranoid), it can be a pain to deal with protecting your "real" data from being corrupted or overwritten. While something like SuperDuper is priceless for backing up a drive to a disk image, you want something that's not only lighter in weight, but that is smart enough to deal just with the settings associated with a single program. That's where roobaSoft's rooSwitch comes in.

rooSwitch's smarts come in being able to recognize which Preferences, Application Support folders, and related files belong to an app's settings (but, not -- it should be noted -- its documents), so that you can then backup, switch, and restore a group of settings whenever you need to. This can be quite a lifesaver.

Recent remaindered links you might enjoy:

• The best time to post to MeFi is between 2 and 3 EST. | MetaFilter - Great MeFi post on the best times to do certain stuff: to buy, to eat, to travel -- even when to give birth.
• The Doorknob Condition ensures privacy - Geekologie - Clever design puts your need for privacy into stark functional terms.
• Nelson's Weblog: tech / iphone / switches - "You can measure the disaster of cell phone UI by how many button presses it takes to silence the damn ringer."
• Getting Things Done, in Emacs - Emacs implementation of GTD [via Anarchaia]
• Parents' stress and sleep deprivation can be a danger to children - "Always place something in the backseat...that requires you to open the back door every time you park." (scroll down) Life-saving life hacks in the sidebar for a tragic story.
• michael-mccracken.net » Processing Email - "[If] you’re really just tracking bugs, use a bug tracker. If you’re coordinating things in real time, use IMs or IRC." True dat, Michael. (and c.f.)
• ATPM 13.03 - Review: ScanSnap S500m - Ed's review of the ScanSnap for OS X is thorough and includes great workflow tips.
• Roo Reynolds: Merlin Mann’s tech talk - Roo Reynolds has written up a detailed set of notes based on my Inbox Zero talk. Thanks, Roo!