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It’s no secret that the newest crop of mobile devices like the Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad and iPhone 4, Nook, etc. make for great eBook readers. What the makers of these devices don’t tell you is that they can make insanely great newsstands, magazine stands, and blog eBook readers as well. Let’s look at how to power up your reading list with this free software.

1. Download and install Calibre. Go through the very brief setup process to identify which device you have. Plug your mobile device in and let it be recognized. For iPads, you’ll also need the free Stanza application from the iTunes store. Kindles, Sony Readers, and Nooks should be recognized automatically.

2. Fire up Calibre, and find the Fetch News panel.

calibre

3. Find all the publications you want to take with you, say, before a flight. Click Download now to add them to your queue.

calibre

That might be enough to get you started, but if you want to REALLY amp things up, click on the little arrow next to Fetch News, and choose Create Custom News Source.

4. Select Add/Update recipe, start a new recipe, give it a title, and start adding the blogs that you love most to the recipe. Now you’re making your own power newspaper of your favorite blog authors.

Calibre

5. Once the new recipe is done, go back to the Fetch News tab and find your recipe under the Custom entry. Select Download now and you’ve got those blogs ready to go.

Bonus: Calibre auto-syncs with your devices, so it uploads all your newspapers and blogs via USB automatically.

6. Fire up your device and voila! Instant, free news and blogs to go.

Slackershot Kindle

Caveats: Calibre ONLY works via USB. No wireless here. For iPads, you’ll need to use iTunes to sync it up.


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