NYT Filter
October 11, 2009 12:43 PM   Subscribe

NYT filter. The NYT used to offer the option for registered users to save articles to a "locker" (I think that was the term). About 6 months or so ago I was looking for a recipe that I knew I'd saved. My "locker" was gone!

Apparently this feature was removed.

As I live in Bumf*ck, Idaho, it is 2 hours to find even a USA Today (no thanks).

Today I happened upon the "share" feature, which allows one to save an article's permalink to a blog, etc.

Anyone have a simple method of saving a NYT article in it's entirety (pictures, links, multimedia, etc)? Anyone know how to retrieve what was in my locker?

Times Reader isn't an option because of the expense. Not a choice, just reality. I'd "subscribe" to the Times for $35-$40/yr if it included options like this. More is not affordable.

Thank you
posted by private_idaho to Technology (12 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Saving an article isn't too tough. Both IE and Firefox have a "save page as" menu choice. In IE8 it's in the "page" pulldown menu and you can choose "Web Page, Complete" and end up with a nice directory structure where all the needed files are present.

Usually the trick when it comes to sites like NYT is getting the whole article into a single page in the first place. Usually the best way is to look for a choice on the page to dump it to a printer. But if you can't, then you have to do that browser save for every part of the article.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:00 PM on October 11, 2009


Using the bookmarks function of your browser should take of this for you.
posted by runningwithscissors at 1:00 PM on October 11, 2009


(From this point on, I mean. I sadly have no idea how to retrieve the links you've lost.)
posted by runningwithscissors at 1:01 PM on October 11, 2009


Unfortunately, the NYT nuked that feature a while back. At the time, they offered users a chance to port their links over to a site called Furl. However, the deadline to do so was apparently in January of this year. But the joke's on us. Furl doesn't even exist anymore.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 1:21 PM on October 11, 2009


You were using Times File, which gave people a chance to transfer their bookmarks to a service called Furl, but no longer offers that option (here's an article about the transition). Anyway, since then, Furl has been absorbed by a competitor, Diigo. So you probably can't get your bookmarks back.

Since the New York Times stopped charging for access to most articles within the past few years, I've found that articles are generally still there when I come back to them months later. I use Delicious to store my bookmarks online (but then again, I work for Delicious).
posted by dreamyshade at 1:29 PM on October 11, 2009


Actually, Diigo does let you import your Furl bookmarks - I just tried it. But again, unless you actively took steps to move your Times File to Furl last winter, then this is probably of little help to you.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 1:37 PM on October 11, 2009


Unfortunately, the NYT nuked that feature a while back. At the time, they offered users a chance to port their links over to a site called Furl... Furl doesn't even exist anymore.

Ha. This is clearly the day of "Harsh Lessons About Trusting the Cloud with Your Stuff."

Bookmarking the URLs won't help you, since NYT can't be counted upon to leave articles intact, unedited, and even at the same address or available at all in the future.

Your best bet is to print them to a PDF, which you can file and sort and keep and back up at your leisure. On a Mac, this is built into the OS. In Windows, there are many free Print-to-PDF options.
posted by rokusan at 2:27 PM on October 11, 2009


Print to PDF. I use DevonThink, though there are other free and pay PDF organizers.
posted by Brian Puccio at 3:10 PM on October 11, 2009


I use cutepdf. Works pretty good. Some other one might work better.
posted by sully75 at 3:39 PM on October 11, 2009


Bookmarking the URLs won't help you, since NYT can't be counted upon to leave articles intact, unedited, and even at the same address or available at all in the future.

I largely agree with this sentiment, but in recent years (ever since ditching the Times Select experiment), the Times has been pretty good about offering stables URLs to its content. I think they realize (unlike, say, the AP) that there's a lot of value in being readily and consistently Google-able. And unlike many, many other papers, there doesn't seem to be much linkrot on nytimes.com.

That said, the Times File/Furl thing was indeed an irritating lesson about the cloud.... Getting rid of Times File struck me as short-sighted. (P.S. Was there some other recent incident along these lines that you're alluding to?)
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 6:15 PM on October 11, 2009


I use Evernote for this purpose. It keeps a local copy plus an online backup that you can access anywhere. It's free and you can organize your stuff using tags, to search for (e.g.) just recipes later. I store all sorts of information on it - complete web pages, recipes, quotes, links. It is really useful.
posted by Susurration at 7:37 PM on October 11, 2009


Response by poster: Thank you all for your kind responses.

I wish a paperless solution, accessible from all computers, which contains live links, etc.

Something will surely work.

Thanks again!
posted by private_idaho at 8:23 AM on October 12, 2009


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