Posts Tagged ‘New York times’

New York Times for Android

Monday, June 21st, 2010

The New York Times app for the Android phone is a great way to keep up on all the news that’s fit to print.  The interface is straightforward.  The app opens on the Latest News tab (or on the last article or section you’ve viewed), with other sections selectable by pulling down the menu “curtain” -  including a Latest Video section that makes great use of the Hero’s media capability.  And once you’re reading an article in a section, you can swipe left or right to move to the previous or next article in that section.

When you open a section, the app will update the latest articles and download them to your phone.  This is a great feature, since it means I can read articles even when I don’t have a data connection (for example, if I’m on BART or the Muni Metro).  One of my quibbles though is that there is no way to save an article to the phone for future reading – when articles are refreshed, you’ll lose any you haven’t read.  A “save” feature would be really useful, especially for some of the Times’ longer articles.

One of the best features for me is that the font size of the articles is adjustable – meaning I can read the news while on a crowded bus without having to dig out my reading glasses. You can also share articles a bunch of different ways – via email or SMS, on Twitter or Facebook.  All in all, a well-designed app that I use every day.

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All The News That’s Fit for Your CREDO BlackBerry Curve

Monday, August 10th, 2009

If you are like me and can’t survive without the New York Times but don’t want to lug around the print edition, check out the New York Times App from BlackBerry. You get all of paper’s content for free, but don’t need to worry about getting newsprint on your pants.

You can find the NY Times apps in BlackBerry AppWorld. Search on “ny times”. This will get you access to a bunch of cool starting points for the best newspaper in America:

1) “The New York Times Shortcut” – this places a shortcut to the front page in your app list. Once you get to the Times, scroll to the bottom of the screen for an index of all sections and blogs.

2) “The New York Times Politics News Notifier“. This link will take you right to the Politics page of the paper. You may not like the notifier feature – this pops up on your screen whenever new news arrives. A bit too much for me. You need to disable this feature through your Options menu, “NYT Politics Options”.

3) “New York Times Dealbook” – this is another notifier geared towards Masters of the Universe in need of their daily Andrew Ross Sorkin fix. It would be great if they had more direct shortcuts and notifiers for other subjects like this.

nyt-bb-shortcut

Of course, you can also bookmark specific NYT pages or blogs through your browser. Simply navigate to your favorite page (e.g., “Most E-Mailed”), click the BlackBerry button, and then select “Add Bookmark.” Then you can access the page in your bookmark list, accessible in the browser by clicking the BlackBerry button.

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Technology writer David Pogue on how to shorten mobile voicemail messages

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

If you, too, are a fan of New York Times Technology writer David Pogue, you may be familiar with his current campaign against the “inane, utterly pointless, time-wasting ‘how-to-leave-a-message’ instructions foisted upon us by Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile.”  Gizmodo, Engadget, Consumerist and others have agreed to help out.  I agree.  We would prefer that our customers and their friends spend their time calling their Senators and digesting NPR instead of listening to voicemail instructions.  Thus, here a few ways to give some precious seconds back to your callers and cut down on your minutes consumed:

1)  Get rid of the system instructions at the end of your message - Access your voicemail box. Press 3, for personal options.
 Press 2, for greetings.
 Press 1, to change your personal greeting.
 Press 3, to add or remove the caller instructions. Follow the prompts to turn instructions on or off.

2)  Let callers know how to leave a message ASAP - Early in your voicemail greeting, make sure to let callers know to “press 1 to leave a message”.  This will save them a few seconds of listening to you ramble on about not being there.

3)  Complain to your carrier - As Pogue’s readers have found out, the other carriers aren’t making it easy for you to shorten your voicemail message and save $.  Let them know how you feel about this:

- Verizon:  Post a complaint here:  http://bit.ly/FJncH.
- AT&T:  Send e-mail to:  customerissues@attnews.us.
- Sprint:  Post a complaint here:  http://bit.ly/9CmrZ
- T-Mobile:  Post a complaint here:  http://forums.t-mobile.com/tmbl/board/message?board.id=General&thread.id=2346.

Here are some of Pogue’s posts on the subject:

- How to Bypass Stupid Voicemail Instructions
- ‘Take Back the Beep’ Campaign
- Take Back the Beep, Part II

- 8/13/09 update from Pogue

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