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Can e-readers help independent writers and publishers? Amazon thinks so. The e-commerce giant announced today that not only did it top 100,000 titles in its Kindle Lending Library but also that more Amazon customers are reading independently published books.

"After a year of marketing 'Whispers from the Ashes' in book clubs, genealogical magazines, and local newspapers with steady, but slow results, I joined the KDP Select program," author Patricia Hester said in a statement. "The results have been absolutely amazing - I have now accomplished every author's dreams: worldwide interest, fan enthusiasm, and wonderful sales.&… Read more

A short while ago I discussed some tips for handling text in OS X, which included the use of the Option and Command keys for selecting various portions of text in a document.

In response to this article, a couple of MacFixIt readers wrote in with extra tips and suggestions, some of which may be useful for people who regularly compose text. Keep in mind that not all text editors are built to handle these options, but those that use Apple's Core Text libraries should be able to use at least some of them.

Cursor movement

When typing up documents or entering data into forms or other text fields on your Mac, being able to navigate through the entered text can be exceptionally useful.

You might need to copy a section of text, delete it, rearrange words, or enter a new idea within a paragraph. While you can use basic arrow keys or the mouse to target your desired text, some options exist in OS X to make this easier.

By default, a basic text object is a single character in the horizontal direction, and a single line in the vertical direction. When you invoke an … Read more

Millions of textbooks, library books, and documents are covered with yellow, pink, and blue streaks, the legacy of highlighter pens and their enthusiasts. Text highlighting is a proven memory aid, and multiple highlighter colors can help you organize the information you want to retain. Simon Shareef's TextMarker is a free Firefox add-on that enables text highlighting via the keyboard or context menu. You can customize the colors, and copy and save highlighted text.

We ran the download and restarted Firefox to activate the add-on, opened the add-ons manager, and clicked TextMarker's options button. The default color for all … Read more

Despite having laptops, tablets, and smartphones, sometimes you want or need a hard copy of something from the Web.

Unfortunately, most Web sites are packed with miscellaneous junk that you don't need on your printed pages. That's why there's a Chrome extension that lets you pick which parts of aWeb page you want to print--saving ink, paper, and--most importantly--money.

Head over to the Chrome Web Store and install Print Plus.

Step 1: After the install finishes, open a Web site that you'd like print information from.

Step 2: Click the icon for Print Plus near the … Read more

If you are active on both Twitter and Facebook then you probably already know how much work it can be to keep both feeds updated. Some people prefer to keep their Facebook private, while Twitter lends itself to more impersonal interaction and updates. Although there are services that send every tweet to Facebook, that isn't always the ideal solution for users.

Selective Twitter allows you to pick which tweets will be posted on your Facebook account. In this simple guide we will show you how to set up the service, and how to use it. … Read more

Foxit PDF Reader, the program that many consider to be a faster, lighter, more able Windows alternative to Adobe Reader, has recently jumped to version 5.0. This newest release comes with many of the same solid features, a few new ones, and an upgraded interface.

As with the previous version, the setup process is a bit cumbersome. First, watch out for the two check boxes that make Ask your browser default search provider and Ask.com your home page. Opt out as necessary. Then, toward the end of the installation process, be sure to read carefully and opt out … Read more

Font Finder is a free extension for Firefox that extracts and displays CSS text information from Web pages. It's a valuable tool for Web designers and developers who need to determine or test CSS data for single elements up to paragraph size. It analyzes data and saves it to the clipboard. It can disable font families for entire pages to test degradation for cross-platform support. It also enables in-line adjustment of any font option in an active element.

Font Finder installs just like any Firefox extension. We opened the Firefox add-on manager, but Font Finder has only two options: … Read more

Selecting text, particularly entire paragraphs in Notes and other text-heavy apps can be tricky, if not somewhat difficult.

If you need to select an entire paragraph, the first intuition most iPhone and iPad users have is to double-tap a word and drag the text selection handles to cover the entire paragraph.

Though this is an effective method of getting all your text selected, there's an easier way.

Next time you have to select a paragraph to copy and paste somewhere else, try using two fingers and swiping across the paragraph you wish to copy. The text will be selected … Read more