With instant messages and tweets, many of us don’t take much time to read each day. What we read is for entertainment in bits and pieces, or to understand a procedure at work or home. Students end up reading more for their classes (if cliff notes count). Few read for pleasure.

Even if you have a few minutes while waiting for a meeting, you probably don’t drag a book or newspaper along to read. More likely these days, you have an iPhone or smartphone in your pocket. But where do you get this digital content on the cheap?

There are free services such as bookaday that send a chapter a day from books of different genres. They take about five minutes to read. After you complete the daily read, you can discard it from your email inbox or save it for the next visit to the library. There is no additional weight to lug around.

Some services provide access to full books online. A laptop with a wifi connection and you have a book to read.  The Gutenberg project takes older books that have expired copyright and makes the full text available for download. You can save them in a number of formats including plain text and html webpage. Have you read 20,000 leagues under the sea lately?

Reading is important to keep up your knowledge. Although we hope we learn from the television shows that we watch, a book contains a wealth of knowledge. From academic topics to stories that contain language structures, a book is more than just a book.

If you enjoy a book so much, you can buy the digitial version or the paper copy for the book collection.

Turn off that cellphone and television and read a little. Unless you are reading a book on your cellphone or television. In that case, keep on reading.

Visiting a new website with very little knowledge of what it does happens frequently when you hear about new startups. Being able to recognize the goal and the purpose of each startup should be quick and immeadiate. If a visitor cannot understand the problem and solution, you need to change the message being sent to the visitor.

Another common question when using a new site is what is behind the registration wall. Having to provide personal information that could be used and handled by anyone (reading the privacy policy takes way too long) before you know what the website will do for you is unsettling. If the visitor cannot see that that website is built for the good, they will be discouraged from using the service.

A tour that provides a quick overview is one way to break the barrier. Seeing screenshots of how to create a trip and add photos or friends can provide just enough guidance to get the visitor thinking about how they can use the service to their benefit. Demonstrating a good idea makes it even more powerful in the mind.

There are numerous ways to create a tour. Two of them: video demonstration, and screenshots of major pages. A video can provide audio and connect personally. If the narrator speaks in first person terms, the user can become the person the narrator is demonstrating.  Screenshots make less of a connection because each one is only a snapshot. The user has to work a little harder to imagine what the benefit is, and how quickly the process of moving from one page to another really is.

It’s important in both formats to provide enough information but not drag the tour. It’s critical to show the best features of the site, the ones that will attract and keep users using the service. Omitting or speeding through parts of the process like filling out the form can make the illusion that things are quick and easy, with a big payoff at the end.

Many websites require them: username and password. The username is usually not an issue for me. They either require an email address or a username, often neither taken. When I return to login, I can tell which format they want (email address or just the username, thanks to the label on the textbox).

The password is what I get caught up on. Most people do too. The natural habit is to use the same one for each website you sign up with. If you pick a good one, in length and characteristics, you won’t have an issue with requirements like a number and a letter, eight characters in length.

Security experts advise us to use different passwords. If only they knew how difficult it was to remember which password went with which website. Let’s just say I don’t do well with the hidden matching game.

What’s worse is when you can’t remember the password and resort to using the password reminder. They ask security questions, yet another thing I frequently get wrong. What’s my favorite book? Wait, when did I sign up? Before or after that sci-fi book came out in 2005, 2007, or 2008?

Some suggest that you use false answers to those security questions to prevent people from guessing and resetting your password. Well, good for them if they can guess right and I can’t.

When I don’t get the primary password correct, I end up using brute force with all known passwords I have used. If I have under five different passwords, I can usually get in before getting locked out for repeated attempts.

So this is why people use one password. It is so much easier to login using a common pair then keep guessing which combination it is. When I can’t get the correct combo, I reset the password and hope it works next time. The only problem is when I can’t reset the password because I don’t remember the correct answer to the security question.

The system has accomplished a new goal: locking everyone including me out.

Google has an interesting way of testing their products. Google employees have been known to eat their own dog food. No, the chefs at Google didn’t change the menu. I mean it technically.

When developing a product, it is beneficial to use it yourself. If you don’t use it everyday, all the time, why would someone else that isn’t so invested in your product use it equally or more than you do? If you don’t believe in how it solves the problem it was created for, it’s unlikely others will.

Using your own product gives the best feedback of all. You become an expert in what works and doesn’t, immediately. What was thought to be a good idea at first becomes clear that change is needed. A product doesn’t get shipped to customers and then determined to be wrong.

For example, let’s say a new way a phone call is started was thought to be so ingenious and innovative but turned out to be a lot more taxing on the brain, costing more time and concentration for what turns out to be a little gain visually (it looks good, but fails functionally). It is relatively easy to change it after the development team “sees” the problem versus when it’s out in the wild and becomes more difficult to revert.

Eating your own dog food can be time consuming if you just can’t get it right. Instead of thinking about it negatively, realize what isn’t working and don’t repeat the same mistake. It’s just like being a kid. Learning that you don’t like brussel sprouts means you won’t try them a second time (unless your parents are cruel in force feeding you). Knowing what tastes good (works well) can save time and angst.

Disclaimer: I have never tried dog food nor do I advocate for anyone to actually try dog food either.

There’s an app on Facebook called the Honesty Box. It’s basically a drop box that anyone can write a short note to you anonymously. It seems like a great idea at first. Let the person know what you truly think of them, something that could embarrass you, them, or both of you.

I was reading the comments made about this app on Twitter, and things don’t turn out so well. Being able to comment anonymously, just like anywhere else on the web, seems to promote this sense of freedom write anything. This can sometimes include nasty comments, or even vulgar language and threats.

The app is a mixed bag. If you have caring friends, it’s a great method to find out something that is difficult to share. If you have enemies, watch out for the real truth. Fortunately, whatever is written in the comment box is only shown to the sender and receiver and anyone else the two of you share it with.

Technically, you shouldn’t be able to find out who submits the comments to your Honesty Box, but I have a feeling that this is possible without too much effort. The app states that the identity won’t be shown unless it violates the Terms of Service. Clues can be sprinkled in the message. Misspellings, wording choice, and topic can lead to your best friend. Are you a good detective? The motivation to figure it out can definitely drive this investigation.

Just like anything on the internet, be sure what you write in the anonymous Honesty Box is truly something you wouldn’t mind being linked to your name. If it isn’t, you might think twice. A friend who asks for your honest opinion, and which you share because of the hidden medium, could change that relationship. The truth is in the details.