The Best Thing since Sliced Bread

I think it was from my father I got the saying, "That's the best thing since sliced bread." When I think that about a product or service, it is truly a complement.

I felt that way the first time I obtained a word processor program, Sciptsit, on my old Radio Shack Model I. I was just two years out of college and I was giddy with joy, and wished I could go back and do college all over. Word processing would have made it so much easier.

Other products that fall into the sliced bread category are Visicalc (and all the spreadsheets I've used since), email, the web, and of course Evernote.

Now a new service has my attention. IFTTT.com, or If Then This Then That.

With IFTTT I can build a Task that watches my Google Reader, and when I Star an entry, it copies the item into my Evernote account.

Why would I want that? When I remember seeing something on the web, I don't have to first search Evernote to see if it is a link I captured with the Evernote Web Clipper, then if I do not find it, search my Google Reader starred items. They are all in one place.

I also have a Task to copy all my Favorited Tweets to Evernote for the same reason I want Google Reader items in Evernote.

Users can share the tasks they have created with other users by creating Recipes. There are many Recipes at IFTTT you can use to get started doing this for yourself. I am not bothering sharing mine, since all of mine are simply taken from existing recipes.

Unfortunately there is not yet a way to take the thousand items I already have Starred in Google Reader and using IFTTT move them to Evernote. IFTTT only works on current, new events.

And I must say, their support emails are written by adults to adults, and are the best I have ever received. Kudos to their support people.

Thanks to Mike Elgan's Google + post leading me to his Computerworld article about IFTTT!

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