Due popular demand....

This is how I do it. Example is the NYTimes site which requires an access password. Screenshots are attached.

1) Download Mozilla Phoenix (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/phoenix-release-notes.html). I use it instead of Internet Explorer because Mozilla displays the cookies in the same format like iSiloX.

2) Install Phoenix and start it. In it, open the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com) site. There, click on the LogIn (http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://) link. Enter your login information and make sure that " Remember my Member ID and password on this computer" is checked (otherwise no cookie information is saved). Log in.

3) Now go to Menu:Tools:Preferences and from there go to the Privacy tab. Open the cookie manager. See all the cookies whose "site" is "nytimes.com":
nytimes.com spopunder
nytimes.com tpopunder
nytimes.com RMID
nytimes.com NYT_GR
nytimes.com NYT-S
nytimes.com RDB
nytimes.com nvt-d


Keep the cookie manager open for a while. We will need it later in step 4.

Not all of these cookies are used to store your password. Some are used for tracking and advertisement purposes - we don't want these. How do I know which cookies are needed? What I usually do is to add *all* cookies of a particular site to iSiloX, and then delete one after the other, each time doing a new hotsync to see that the required cookies are still there. If the hotsync fails (prompt for login screen is displayed again), I know that I deleted one of the required cookies - so I put it back to iSiloX. I end up with only two nytimes.com cookies that are required for the password authentication:

nytimes.com NYT-S
nytimes.com RMID

Well, you might ask how to add cookies in general to iSiloX. Read on.

4. So you want to add the two cookies to iSiloX. Open iSiloX, create a new channel and go to the cookies tab. Make sure you check both permissions, send cookie and receive cookie. Then click on "Add Cookie..." With the Phoenix Cookie Manager still open, go to the first required cookie, nytimes.com NYT-S. Copy the information there to your iSiloX Cookie entries (field "information" in Phoenix corresponds to field "value" in iSiloX). Do the same thing for the second require cookie, nytimes.com RMID. See attached screendumps for examples.

Thats it. Do it a few times and it will go all automatically.

Screendump 1:

Screendump 2:

Screendump 3:

Screendump 4:

Awesome.


I've been meaning to get Mozilla anyway, so this was great incentive.



You rule.


:)

:D Dude, u Rock! Fascinating.

For those who dont want to d/l mozilla (in this instance) since you know which cookies you need, go to your cookies directory in documents & settings find the NYTimes cookie file (mine's called microsoft user@nytimes[2].txt) and open it in notepad. The values are seperated by a black squares. The fiirst value after the cookie name is the value you need. Remainder of instructions above.

Thanks for this info!

For those on a Mac, you can use Camino. With a text editor, open the cookies.txt doc (in the username/Library/Application Support/Chimera folder). The cookie name is 2nd from the end and the value name is the last item.

It's easier to find the cookie name using Safari (in Security Preferences). If it's a long value, you can copy and paste it into iSiloX from Camino's text file.

Originally posted by wade
:go to your cookies directory in documents & settings find the NYTimes cookie file (mine's called microsoft user@nytimes[2].txt) and open it in notepad. The values are seperated by a black squares. The fiirst value after the cookie name is the value you need. Remainder of instructions above.

Fine, I've done that, but I'm mystified by what to put after the "/" in the "Path" box. All the cookies that I've looked at have one of the field separator boxes that wade refers to.

Also, how do I find the expiry date and time, if there is one (without using Mozilla)?

Usually expiration you can leave on "never" - and Path leave on "/" (without the quotes). Basically,

Name
Value
Expires (on never)
Path ("/")
Domain

are of importance.

And don't forget later to check the Send and Receive cookie entries.

Thanks, Alexander. I've been trying to download individual debates on a website called www.opendemocracy.net, but when I use iSilo I'm not registered as being logged in and the hyperlinks don't work. I tried following your instructions for adding cookies. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked, but rather surprisingly it works fine with HandStory, even though there is no way of controlling cookies with HS.

Uhmm can you give an exact example (url) of what you want to download from this page?

For instance, if I want to follow the series of articles on the war against terrorism/Iraq by Paul Rogers, I use the following url: http://www.opendemocracy.net/columns/view-2.jsp

I'm a registered user of the site, and have two cookies from it.

One is as follows:

SITESERVER
ID=1532487b92abed72be0d178d7a79fe8c
od2.co.uk/
1024
642859008
31887777
3841275488
29549022
*

the other:

SITESERVER
ID=a03f860c239d945c6dcf40153568dabb
od2.com/
1024
642859008
31887777
1503500080
29549020
*

I assume that SITESERVER is the name of the cookie, the sequences beginning with ID= are the values, od2.com and od2.co.uk are the domains. I'm attaching a screenshot.

I've tried four combinations: no cookies, either of these cookies on its own, or both together, but I always get the "Not Logged On message" in the iSilo file that results.

With HandStory it works fine.

I guess you would have to register with Open Democracy yourself before you could experiment.

Alex, further to my last, I think I attached a screenshot file, but nothing's showing up on the forum. Maybe I've done it incorrectly. Can you advise how to send an attachment?

Cheers,

Basil

click on "post reply". Then, under "Options" you have the "Attach file" row. There click "Search..." to browse to the file you want to upload on your harddrive. Make sure you use one of the supported file extensions (as shown there).

I am going to have a look at your site today.

Alex

That's exactly what I did yesterday. Anyway, I'll try again - there should be a jpeg file attached to this (but I can't see it in preview mode).

Can iSiloX handle Javascripts as well?

W

Thanks loads for this thread (and all the great info on this site). I was thrilled when I finally got the TV listings page I use downloaded. It was this discussion on setting up cookies that helped me get the configuration options set properly. Thanx again!

Originally posted by wins_chiu
Can iSiloX handle Javascripts as well?

W Doesn't appear so :(

Alex, I still haven't properly figured out how to use cookies in iSiloX. Some advice would be gratefully received.

For the UK public transport website Xephos I have a cookie named basil@en[1].txt. When I open it I see the following:

login
basil.clarke%40btinternet.com
www.internet.xephos.com/site/xephos/en/
1536
4055841408
29634627
3655740928
29592382
*

Which bits of this go into which fields in iSiloX?

login
basil.clarke%40btinternet.com
www.internet.xephos.com/site/xephos/en/
1536
4055841408
29634627
3655740928
29592382
*

Which bits of this go into which fields in iSiloX?Try this:
Enable 'Send cookies' and 'Receive cookies' in the Cookies Tab. Then Add a Cookie with

name: login
value: basil.clarke%40btinternet.com
expires: never
path: /site/xephos/en/
domain: www.internet.xephos.com

Greets!

Alex, Many thanks, it worked. I'll use it as a template when I need to enter other cookies.

1) Download Mozilla Phoenix (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/phoenix-release-notes.html). I use it instead of Internet Explorer because Mozilla displays the cookies in the same format like iSiloX.

It's also possible to read cookies using Opera. In this case you will find the cookies in File -> Preferences -> Privacy -> Manage cookies. In this list they are sorted on the domain which they originates from.

Opera maybe downloaded from www.opera.com, and is available for Windows and Linus and some other platforms...

Have they changed the log-in procedures/cookies for the NY Times?

I'm now having problems fetching the education section, the science, and the space/cosmos ones. I went back through the cookies/password procedures cited and it's still not working. (I do have cookies send/receive set.)

Maybe someone else can let me know if they can get them working--if so, then it's user error (mine!) and not the Times!

When I pasted my Source link into the web browser, it takes me to the password login page...with everything filled in (courtesy of the browser). If I then click for it to accept it, it takes me to the page I want...

For example, here's one page I end up at.

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Space.xml

Any ideas?

A follow up. I have the science and space/cosmos sections working now. I discovered that I had changed my password at the New York Times site itself, but hadn't updated the source link and the cookies in iSiloX!

But I still cannot get the education section working.

It's this page: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Education.xml

Another odd thing I noticed is that the cookie NYT-S showed a different value for the science and space/cosmos sections! And they're different from what shows in Firefox, too! I'm pretty sure I simply copy and pasted the cookie into both cookie fields for the two sections--but they changed!

-------

Well, solved that one, too! I copied and pasted from the science source into the education source and changed the final part of the url from "science" to "education"--that did it. There must have been a stray character or something in there (even though I compared them in a text editor and thought they were the same).

In any event, maybe my travails will help someone else (when all else fails, copy and paste the URL source link and change a few characters!)