The Marble Jar Channel

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll share my trick for getting just about anything read out loud to you using the Goodreader app for iPhone or iPad.  I really like the convenience of having things read out loud to me.  I spend A LOT of time in my car driving my kids to activities and practices. I also like to make use of the time I spend doing mindless chores like unloading the dishwasher, raking leaves, or cleaning the house.  I listen to books on tape with Audible and I’m fully addicted to podcasts, which I listen to using the Stitcher app, you can see my video on that if you are interested. But sometimes I want something else read to me — an article, a lengthy email, my notes from a class, or a webpage. iOS does have a way to do this.  You can highlight text in almost any app and choose the Speak option. The problem for me is that there is no way to control it once it gets going. You have to go i...

Hi, everybody!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I’ll show you how I use the Goodreader app to stitch together multiple PDF files. I have really resisted spending money on expensive PC apps when I can get the same thing done using much cheaper iPad apps.  I frequently need to join two or more PDFs into a single document.  The Adobe software that allows you to do this among other editing features is Adobe Acrobat DC.  Last I checked, it costs $14.99 PER MONTH.  That is nearly $180 per year and WAY too pricey for me.  The good news is -- you can do many of the same things on an iPad using the Goodreader app, which is a one-time fee of $5 and TOTALLY worth every penny to me.  I did a full tutorial on the GoodReader app if you want to check that out, but today I just want to point out one feature that I use all the time -- stitching multiple PDFs together. I seem to have to do this a lot -- particularly f...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll show you my workaround for getting around the export limits for Kindle highlights. I did a video a little while ago showing how I export Kindle highlights to Evernote and Google Sheets.  So, I ran into an issue recently that I hadn't encountered before.  I'm in a graduate program and am renting my textbooks for the semester in digital format.  As I do my reading for the semester, I've been highlighting passages and then exporting them into a spreadsheet as a means of taking notes on the reading.  The way I usually do this is by accessing the Kindle management website through my PC at this URL ( https://read.amazon.com/notebook ).   The issue I was running into was that I had apparently exceeded the number of highlights or amount of text that the website lets you export, so I was getting this message.  I was having to go back into an earlier cha...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share my method of organizing my notes and highlights from the assigned reading for graduate school using Google Sheets. I'm in a grad school program and there is a lot of assigned reading.  Since I now rent my textbooks, marking them all up with highlights and notes isn't really an option.  I suppose I COULD rewrite each passage that I would have highlighted in a notebook or something, but despite the fact that it probably would help my memory retention, it would take FOREVER and seems like busy work.  So, I've taken to renting my textbook digitally when at all possible.  That way I can highlight passages in the digital textbook and then export them, so that I'll have those highlights forever -- even after I return the textbook. So, let me start by telling you how I organize these notes and then I'll go into how I export them.  First, Organizing ...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll tell you about my very brief experience with Verizon's Smart Family Locator product. I have been using Verizon's Familybase product for many years now.  It's an add-on that you can buy from Verizon Wireless that I use for one thing only -- to limit the amount of cellular data each my kids can use.  Like many families, we have a block of data and everyone in my family shares it.  The problem is that I limit what my kids can do over wifi at home with a Koalasafe router.  So — in order to work around this -- my kids switch over to cellular.   They can blow through all of our monthly data in a couple of hours by watching Netflix or YouTube videos.  And since my husband needs cellular data for work travel, this can really start to add up. So, I set up data limits for my kids using what used to be known as Verizon Familybase.  They recently rebranded...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll share my experience upgrading to the KoalaSafe Dome. I’ve been using Koalasafe’s router-based Internet Control product to limit screentime for my kids for several years.  I’ve done a couple of videos on the upsides and the downsides of using KoalaSafe in my house with 2 teenagers. One of the major downsides is that the range and speed of the original KoalaSafe router was very limited. To recap, KoalaSafe attaches to your normal Internet WiFi router and creates a new WiFi network for your kids. The problem was that that network was slower and also smaller.  For example, my kids couldn’t really use the Internet in the basement or our sunroom — they were both too far away from the router. Our house got a bit of a reputation among their friends for having crappy Internet (and also crappy snacks, but that is another issue).  So, when KoalaSafe announced that they were lau...