MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - What are my options for reading daily newspapers on Iliad?

jackbrown · 05-11-2007, 01:25 PM

Good news on the newspaper front

I've come up with a solution that seems to work pretty well for more or less automatic updating of PDF newspapers on the Iliad. That's the biggest limitation so far: not a whole lot of my favorite papers produce a daily PDF edition.

Here's how I did it (this may be obvious for some people, but not for others):

I have a copy of Offline Explorer Enterprise,
and I downloaded a copy of the Iliad Companion Software ('ICS') from Irex.

First, I set up the ICS so that it automatically synchronizes with a folder on my desktop called Iliad. Inside that folder, it created a directory called:

\Iliad\My Iliad\Outbox\Internal\Newspapers

The Outbox is for anything you want to sync from computer->reader; Internal means the device's internal memory (you could have it sync to the CF card instead)

Next, I opened up Offline Explorer, which is a tool which lets you schedule automatic downloads of websites, or specific filetypes and filenames FROM a website.

Some PDF newspapers, like the Guardian, don't assign a new filename to each day's paper, but just keep the day's paper on a particular page, always with the same filename. That's a bit easier to handle. In that case, you do the following:
<File: New [Project]>
If there's a URL in the clipboard (you copied it from a webpage), that's automatically the URL and Project name for your autodownload. You Pick
<Level Limit-1> which means it doesn't follow all the URLs on a page past the first level.
Now, turn off all the <File Filters> except for <archives>, and in the <archives> submenu, uncheck everything but PDFs

Now, you go to the bottom, pick <scheduling>, and on the right, change <manually> to <daily, at a time shortly before you want to charge up your newspapers.

Close this dialog, and open <options> from the menu bar at the top. From <options> choose <advanced:File locations>
and browse to the same folder you picked in the ICS software:
\Iliad\My Iliad\Outbox\Internal\Newspapers\

-------

For newspapers which change the filename daily (ie each PDF filename includes the edition's date), it's a little more complicated.

Back in the original
Choose <URL Filters:Server>, and check Load files only within starting server,
Then in <filename> choose <Custom Filenames configuration>, <view included filenames> and in the Keyword box, type in as much of the filename as is consistent in every day's copy of the paper. For the Daily Telegraph, that's [telegraphpm_]

Now your computer should autodownload your papers to the ICS folder, and when you plug in the iliad, it autoupdates your papers.

I've got this working with the following papers:
Telegraph
Guardian
Toronto Star PM
El Universal (Mexico)
Al Khabar (Algeria)
Al Nahar in Lebanon
Al Quds in the UK

Unfortunately, most of the papers I like to read (NYT/Washpo/Independent/Masri Al Youm/Reforma) aren't available as PDFs, so I am still thinking about the Dapper/Web2Book solution for those....

05-11-2007, 01:25 PM	#11
jackbrown Enthusiast Posts: 36 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: San Francisco USA/North Africa	Newspapers Update Good news on the newspaper front I've come up with a solution that seems to work pretty well for more or less automatic updating of PDF newspapers on the Iliad. That's the biggest limitation so far: not a whole lot of my favorite papers produce a daily PDF edition. Here's how I did it (this may be obvious for some people, but not for others): I have a copy of Offline Explorer Enterprise, and I downloaded a copy of the Iliad Companion Software ('ICS') from Irex. First, I set up the ICS so that it automatically synchronizes with a folder on my desktop called Iliad. Inside that folder, it created a directory called: \Iliad\My Iliad\Outbox\Internal\Newspapers The Outbox is for anything you want to sync from computer->reader; Internal means the device's internal memory (you could have it sync to the CF card instead) Next, I opened up Offline Explorer, which is a tool which lets you schedule automatic downloads of websites, or specific filetypes and filenames FROM a website. Some PDF newspapers, like the Guardian, don't assign a new filename to each day's paper, but just keep the day's paper on a particular page, always with the same filename. That's a bit easier to handle. In that case, you do the following: <File: New [Project]> If there's a URL in the clipboard (you copied it from a webpage), that's automatically the URL and Project name for your autodownload. You Pick <Level Limit-1> which means it doesn't follow all the URLs on a page past the first level. Now, turn off all the <File Filters> except for <archives>, and in the <archives> submenu, uncheck everything but PDFs Now, you go to the bottom, pick <scheduling>, and on the right, change <manually> to <daily, at a time shortly before you want to charge up your newspapers. Close this dialog, and open <options> from the menu bar at the top. From <options> choose <advanced:File locations> and browse to the same folder you picked in the ICS software: \Iliad\My Iliad\Outbox\Internal\Newspapers\ ------- For newspapers which change the filename daily (ie each PDF filename includes the edition's date), it's a little more complicated. Back in the original Choose <URL Filters:Server>, and check Load files only within starting server, Then in <filename> choose <Custom Filenames configuration>, <view included filenames> and in the Keyword box, type in as much of the filename as is consistent in every day's copy of the paper. For the Daily Telegraph, that's [telegraphpm_] Now your computer should autodownload your papers to the ICS folder, and when you plug in the iliad, it autoupdates your papers. I've got this working with the following papers: Telegraph Guardian Toronto Star PM El Universal (Mexico) Al Khabar (Algeria) Al Nahar in Lebanon Al Quds in the UK Unfortunately, most of the papers I like to read (NYT/Washpo/Independent/Masri Al Youm/Reforma) aren't available as PDFs, so I am still thinking about the Dapper/Web2Book solution for those....