I was enjoying a nice iced coffee at Starbucks this morning as I perused this morning’s Boston Globe when I noticed an advert for a new way to read the local broadsheet. They’ve now partnered with Adobe to create something called the Globe Reader, an electronic edition that gives you access to all of the coverage of the daily print edition that doesn’t require either an Amazon Kindle or a live ‘net connection to enjoy it.
While I had today’s Globe in my bag when I got to my comp I didn’t have the advert handy to get the URI to learn more about it but I figured that’s ok, I’ll just go to the Globe’s home page and use the handy link that must be there. Yeah, right. After about 20 minutes of searching through the site I finally clicked on a subscription link since you need to have a subscription to either the print version or to the new electronic edition to enjoy it, end the URI I remembered was wrong. It turns out I was close, because the URI in the advert was bostonglobe.com/GlobeReader. (I was trying to use something like boston.com/GlobeReader, which works but was gives you a 404 error.)
Once I finally got to the right URI and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it’s not strictly a Windows or MacOS product, they also have a version for Linux! It does require Adobe AIR, but the download link says that it works on Linux. If you click click on the FAQ’s link on the bottom of the Reader page you can find that the system requirements include Linux (Fedora 8, Ubuntu 7.10, or openSUSE 10.3), but if you wander into the system requirements on Electronix Edition FAQ’s via the Globe subscriber’s FAQ page it only shows Windows and the MacOS. I suspect the Reader is such a new offering that they haven’t gotten all of the info updated yet. It’s unfortunate, especially for a world class publication such as the Globe, but they have had a bit on their mind lately.
On the Reader home page you’ll find a nice little video showing what you can expect from the Globe Reader, and the vid itself looks pretty promising. Of course I’m not a home subscriber to the Globe (due more to my current economic state more than anything else, which is why I’m glad when I can find a copy of the Globe left behind at Starbucks like I did today) but I did click on the install link for the Reader. I’m not sure what I expected, partly because as usual I was in GNOME’s Epiphany browser rather than Firefox, plus I knew I’d have to install Adobe AIR and had no clue what hoops I would have to jump through to do that. But it was amazingly easy. I simply clicked on the install link, and I was asked for confirmation that I wanted to install both the Reader and Adobe AIR. I said yes, and once things were downloaded I was asked where to install the GlobeReader. Amazingly, I didn’t even have to close Epiphany and open it again to be able to start using AIR to install the GlobeReader, because it got installed so quickly and quietly I didn’t even realize I had installed AIR until it was actually working. I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing, since I would have preferred to have to specifically grant permission to install it, just from a security standpoint.
For the install of the GlobeReader I went with the offered location of /opt, knowing that I’d have to give my sudo password to install software there. Rather than getting a permission error I was asked for my password via the normal dialog. Once I provided it I simply waited a short time for the installation to finish before I was asked for my Boston Globe password. If you don’t have a free online account with the Globe’s website you’ll need to create one to use the Reader, but once I logged in I saw the reader, but with a reminder that I need to pay for it one way or another.
Before looking at payment options I went through all the navigation links on the left hand side of the Reader window and saw what looks to be all of the content of the print edition, without all of the ads, but unless I’m missing something it’s also without what I call the Educational Pages (the funnies). Once I was ready to look at the cost I clicked on the Subscribe Now link, where something pretty unexpected happened. Even though Epiphany was open, and has the title of Default Browser on my system, the GlobeReader opened the Reader’s home page in … Firefox. I have to wonder what would have happened if I had in fact completely blown the Fox from my system once I decided I was sick of it getting to be such bloatware with features once available as addons being moved into the base package. First, of course, you have to do a little more clicking before we can pull out our credit/debit card. First click on the Electronic Edition tab on the top of the subscription page, then click the Buy now button (which will want to open a new window for some odd reason) to get to the page where you can buy your electronic edition of the Globe. The cost is pretty reasonable for a paper that costs each edition $1 Monday-Friday and a whopping $3.50 for the Sunday edition, plus you can buy just the current copy. If you want a prior day’s edition you can buy that, too. There’s even a way to read an issue for free, but either way you go you will need to set up an account with the NewsStand site since it uses a completely different account from your online enjoyment of the Boston Globe. Yeah, they should really find a way to safely let you use a single login, or at least an OpenID to access content from the same provider. As always, make sure you read the Terms of Service before clicking the button to submit your info for a new account if you don’t have one. I didn’t see anything onerous in their ToS, but it’s a good idea to make sure you know a company’s terms before giving them your personal info, even if all you’re giving them is your name and email address. One word of warning: The NewsStand ToS comes up as a PDF file in a new window, and since the file is set to match the width of the window you’re going to want to either resize the window or maximize it so you can read it without giving yourself a headache. Luckily, I got the account creation page when I clicked the link to get a free issue and immediately after I submitted my account info I got a page with a receipt for a free issue. When I clicked the Continue button a new browser window opened with my free copy of today’s Boston Globe so I could read it.
I need to point out two things here. First, I got a PDF of today’s paper, but it wasn’t available in the Globe Reader, but I had the joy of being able to read today’s funnies in the free copy. Plus I was able to get a copy I could save on my hard drive, although I had to install iBrowse Offline, a Java app to be able to do it. Luckily iBrowse Offline’s installer let me choose where, if at all, to install a link for running it, as well as where to save my downloaded issues. The good news is that you can safely decline to have any links saved since the link I had saved looked pretty useless, but if you look in the folder where you had iBrowse Offline installed you’ll see a bash script that you can use to create a launcher. 
There’s an icon in the .jar file that you can use, but rather than have you find and extract the icon you can get it by saving the image to the left (I’m showing it at double the normal size so you can save it more easily).
The current issue is a mere $.50 so I decided to buy it to give the Reader a proper testing. Once I told newsstand.com about my plastic it said I needed to transfer some money to my e-wallet, and I had to transfer dollars, not half a dollar. I tried to put a dollar in my account, only to be told that the minimum amount is $5. Meh. That wasn’t quite possible at this point in the month, but I’ll give it a shot in a few days and post a follow up on the GlobeReader. At least they didn’t post a test transaction to my account, which is completely understandable (although not the constant repeat test transactions that Starbucks wants to do every time I reload my Starbucks card online for some really dumb reason).
Before I close this post I want to share a picture I made earlier this week. As you may have heard, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave North Korea a
verbal slapdown on Monday, comparing the country to unruly teenagers over their recent test launches of nuclear-capable missiles. According to the Reuters article,
“What we’ve seen is this constant demand for attention,” Clinton, who is in India, said in an interview that aired on Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“And maybe it’s the mother in me or the experience that I’ve had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention — don’t give it to them, they don’t deserve it, they are acting out,” she said.
Ouch. Nut that I am, as soon as I heard that I had an image in my head of Secretary Clinton sending North Korea to their room without supper. The next day I was able to find a picture on the Pundit Kitchen site to use to make this lol. (Click on it to see it at full size.)
Sure, I’m not the first one to make a lol out of that pic, in fact I’m not even the 10th (I’m not sure where I fall in the count, but there’s 23 lol made of that pic), but if you like it please click on the image and vote for it so it could find it’s way to the main Pundit Kitchen front page. I’d appreciate it. I do have some things I’m meaning to blog, including some info on a great portable media player, and hopefully I’ll get it posted before too much longer.
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