Popling lets you "learn without studying" (or annoy yourself)
Distractions... can't live with them, can't live without them. At least that's how it goes for me. Popling tries to take that tendency and make it into something productive. It's a flash-card type application (stand-alone or Firefox add-on), which pops up every few minutes while you're busy doing something else and queries you on one of a set of questions included in your "Popling." A Popling is like a stack of cards on a specific topic. The site itself does not seem to feature that many Poplings, but you can make your own. I'm not sure how active the site is, actually. The first couple of times that I clicked the Learn link, it gave me a weird error message. The site also has a bit of a run-down feel to it -- like it's not carefully maintained. However, I don't know of any other flash-card applications that interrupt you dynamically like that (unless someone posts something better in the comments), so I certainly intend to try it out myself. Note that I don't mean a dedicated application which works with "study sessions" (there are plenty of those around), but rather,something that actually integrates with my normal work and just pops a message up every now and then. What are the other contenders in this field?












Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsDougalMar 23rd 2010 7:56PM
What about:
Anki : http://ichi2.net/anki/#windows
or
mnemosyne : http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/
Both cross platform and both active.
Erez ZukermanMar 23rd 2010 8:18PM
I remember Anki works with "sessions", without interrupting you in the middle of other stuff. I'll look into the other one - thanks!
rob rhyneMar 24th 2010 12:21AM
Thanks for reviewing Popling. The site is being maintained, although as a side project, so please forgive any untidiness. If you could describe the errors you saw in an email, I'll track them down.
--rob
Name:Mar 24th 2010 11:42AM
headmagnet should buy this.
Andres BorbonApr 8th 2010 11:59PM
Too bad that Popling only allows to have 1 stack of cards for free. If you want more, the prize is 20 USD. And the catalog is poor, very poor.
tvstubbsJun 8th 2010 11:41AM
how do I uninstall popling?
tvstubbsJun 8th 2010 11:43AM
How do I uninstall popling? I don't want definitions popping up every time I point my cursor at a word.