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Read Pubmed on your iPod
Voilà ! Pubmed on your iPod
Get your journal article abstracts downloaded to your iPod for your commute to work.
Introduction
Never able to keep up with the literature? Think it’d be nice to have the latest abstracts from Pubmed in your area available wherever you are? (maybe you should get out more?). In this article I’ll show you how to download you favourite Pubmed searches to your iPod and update them with a single click- every morning you can glance at the new abstracts in your field on the shinkansen to work- ain’t technology grand!
Set up you RSS feed from NCBI
RSS feeds are easy to set up for NCBI searches (here is a step-by-step walk though provided by NCBI- you can save RSS feeds for all your favourite searches- including gene and protein searches (though it’d be a bit hard core to be glancing at newly updated protein sequences on the train to work).
Step 1: Run a Pubmed search as usual
Step 1.
http://hrmpf.com/wordpress/72/apple-applies-for-patents-for-touchpad-technology/
Step 2: Select RSS Feed from the send to menu
Step 2.
Step 3: Select how many articles to display and click on Create Feed and then copy the address from the browser’s addressbar
Step 3.
Download Software and transfer RSS feed to your iPod
OS X
iFeedPod is simple and does exactly what is needed- installation is a doddle: Simply download and copy to your Applications folder (consider donating if you like the program).
Pod2Go is a more full featured option with RSS syncing (though i prefer iPodFeed which adds the article title as the note title), weather, horoscopes, backups and more for $12).
Windows
PodPlus is not free but has lots of features in addition to downloading RSS feeds. Yamipod is free but I haven’t tested it. Let me know if you find a could free RSS to iPod transfer utility for windows
All these programs are easy to use- below shows iFeedPod screenshots but the process is similar in all the programs (though other programs can automatically sync when your iPod is plugged in)
Step 4: Open iFeedPod and click on the + and then name the feed and paste the feed address from Step 3.
Step 4.
Plug in your iPod and make sure it is enabled in disk mode, open your RSS to iPod program and start the sync- it’ll download, format and sync your searches with your iPod.
There you have it- an easy way to carry the latest Pubmed searches with you everywhere. To access the articles, remove your iPod from your computer safely and click on Extras->Notes and your search abstracts should be there.
A series of articles about using an iPod for Molecular Biology and science is going to follow so stay tuned.
Nice