Sometimes a really interesting piece of software slips through the cracks here at Download Squad head office, and we miss covering it when it was first released. Sometimes when that happens, it's worth going back and pointing out what we missed. Though it was released back in February, we have somehow up until now neglected to mention the experimental New York Times Article Skimmer, and for that we feel shame.

Silliness aside, the Article Skimmer is an alternative way to experience the New York Times' content online, and in my opinion it is a better analog for reading a physical newspaper than most news websites are offering. Since you can't reasonably display the same amount of information on a web page as you can on a physical page of newsprint, the only way to make scanning for stories more efficient is to optimize the display for that purpose, and that's exactly what the Article Skimmer does.

The interface gives you a simple five-by-four grid that fills the page showing headlines and very short summaries for the top stories in the section that you select. Thumbnail images accompany many stories, and if there are more stories than fit on the page, you can quickly flip forward and back between pages. There are also keyboard shortcuts like the obvious arrow keys that will navigate you up and down through the different sections of the paper, and a couple of less obvious shortcut keys. Holding down the 's' key (for section) will show numbers beside each section -- type the number of the section you'd like to view, and press Enter all while still holding the 's' key to jump straight to that section. Hold the 'a' key (for article) and use the arrow keys to navigate the highlight to the article you'd like to view, then press Enter while still holding 'a'. As always, you'll need a free account with the New York Times to view most of the articles.

The announcement for the Article Skimmer notes that it doesn't yet have an official name, but that its purpose was to try to replicate the feeling of spreading out the Sunday times on a table while maybe eating brunch and skimming through the stories. I think this might be the closest we'll get to the tangible feeling of having a huge amount of articles right at our fingertips only a few inches away from each other.

This morning, Adobe announced the release of two major pieces of software as open source- the OSMF (Open Source Media Framework) and TLF (Text Layout Framework) - under the Mozilla Public License.

TLF is the new text-rendering engine in Air 1.5, where it handles things like the typographical wizardry in TimesReader 2.0. A major goal with TLF was to provide web application developers a set of features more like those provided by desktop publishing suites.

Other sites utilizing TLF include Adobe's own Acrobat.com Presentations and Makebook, a slick web service which allows independent authors to self-publish. It's also powering the Boston Globe's GlobeReader, which is currently available for preview.

Adobe and Akamai have also teamed up to continue work on the Open Video Player initiative, which is aimed at providing a consistent platform for delivering Flash multimedia content. As they put forth on the project web site, "Open Source Media Framework enables developers to easily assemble pluggable components to create high-quality, full-featured playback experiences."

Adobe believes the frameworks will provide reduced development time, allowing traditional media outlets (like the Times and Globe) to focus on monetization - a problem few have yet to solve.

Venerable New York Times technology columnist David Pogue recently posted a list of his productivity tips and tricks that allow him to be uber productive. The list is good in that he tries to generalize and talk about ways of doing things instead of specific software or hardware. For example, Pogue talks about using macro utilities instead of specifically naming utilities like Quicksilver for the Mac or Launchy for Windows.

While some of his tools seem somewhat outdated, it's not a surprise given the time investment he has in them. And really, although we all to a greater or lesser extent have a case of "shiny object syndrome" and need to try the latest and greatest of everything, the truth is that if a tool is working, the most productive thing to do is to just leave it alone.

Of particular note (at least for me) is Pogue's first tip that he uses text expansion software. It's not so much that he uses it, but how he uses it that intrigues me; Pogue has expansion words configured for even the smallest word. For example, to type the word "the" he needs only type the letter "t". That's some serious configuration, but I can definitely see how it could be very useful once in the mindset of always using abbreviations.

What do you think of Pogue's tips, and what is your best productivity tip?

TimesReader is a desktop application for reading the New York Times without a web browser. While this may not sound like a service you need, since you can read most Times articles online, the latest version of TimesReader provides a pretty compelling interface for reading the paper. TimesReader 2.0 also happens to be built on Adobe AIR, which mean that unlike earlier versions of the program, it runs well on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.

When you first load TimesReader, you'll see a list of articles from the front page of that day's paper. You can click any article to read the full text and see any pictures. You can also change the date to see any issues from the last week, enter a query in the search box, or flip to a different section of the paper using the sidebar navigation. You can even do the crossword puzzle for each day.

Once you're reading an article you can either go back by hitting the navigation buttons on the top or left of the screen, or you can hit a button to spread out the "pages" of the day's newspaper as if you were flipping through them on your table, helping to re-create the experience of reading the print edition.

There is a bit of a catch though. While you can read all of the articles from selected sections of the paper for free, if you want unlimited access you'll need to pony up $3.45/week for a subscription. Or fire up a web browser and go read the same articles for free on the web.

[via GottaBeMobile]

At a time when a lot of newspapers are shutting down or finding themselves forced to come up with a smarter online strategy, the New York Times is evolving its web content with improvements like the Article Skimmer and an Article Search API. The API can be used to build interesting applications on top of the Times' huge database of articles and information. Taylor Barstow's NYT Explorer is one early example of an app built on Article Search.

When you search for a topic on NYT Explorer, it quickly delivers a list of the relevant articles, sorted by date. For example, a search for software turned up about 40,000 results. That's a lot of articles, but not to worry: NYT Explorer's sidebar has a bunch of quick ways to refine your results and get what you want. You can check a person, a specific column in the paper, a subject, or a location to narrow your results down. All of these categories are sorted by the number of times each item appears in your results. It's an efficient, unfussy way to browse through a mountain of news.

The New York Times company has launched a new application that makes it easy to save web links and notes and synchronize them between multiple devices. ShifD has several components.

There's a web page where you can add notes in three categories: Links, places, and notes. You can also add a "ShifD This" browser bookmarklet that lets you instantly save any web page you're visiting to the Links category.

You can also run ShifD as an application using the Desktop client built on Adobe AIR. And you can also access and update your ShifD information from a mobile phone. There's a mobile version of the web page optimized for the iPhone and other small screen devices. Or you can send notes to your ShifD account via text messages.

ShifD is currently in public beta. The SMS updating feature isn't available yet, but should be rolled out within the next few weeks.

[via Mobility Site]

The New York Times has launched a nifty browser for reading old newspapers. Like really old. The company has scanned copies of every issue from 1851 through the end of 1922 and put the results online as a series of PDF files. That means you can read stories about the Civil War, World War I, and the sinking of the titanic just as they originally appeared a hundred years ago. Except, you know, on a computer screen and not newsprint.

Boing Boing reports there's also a publicly available API, which means you can create your own browser or other application that will pull together old newspaper issues.

The New York Times has launched a redesigned technology news page. The old school paper has partnered with some new school content partners, adding stories from third party sources like IDG and PaidContent. But probably the most interesting feature is that little column we highlighted in red. It's called "Technology Headlines From Around the Web," and it's being labeled a Techmeme killer. (Remember when people used to talk about Technorati killers? Ahh, those were the days).

That new columns is powered by BlogRunner, a news aggregator that the Times snatched up last year. The service does a pretty decent job of figuring out what stories people are talking about, posting those headlines and a list of blogs and websites linking to those stories. The New York Times/BlogRunner are hardly the only game in town when it comes to news/blog aggregation.

But here's why the paper might have a leg up on Technorati, Techmeme, or any other site that starts with the word "tech." A huge number of people already read the New York Times every day. You can't really say the same about Techmeme. It's a great place to find interesting stories, but as far as we can tell, it's primary audience is bloggers looking for good story ideas.

On the other hand, if you take a look at the screenshot above, you'll see that there's at least one major difference between the stories you find using BlogRunner and Techmeme. BlogRunner includes news from a lot of professional news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Time Magazine. In fact, there seem to be more old media types getting links than new media websites and blogs.

[via TechCrunch]

The New York Times and other papers are facing a conundrum. On the one hand, people are canceling their paper subscriptions left and right. That's largely because they can get the news online for free. And when papers like the Times try to charge people for access to web content many readers just look elsewhere for their news.

Enter the brave new world of online advertising. Newspapers generally aren't making the kind of money from online ads as they did from print ads and subscriptions. But advertising revenue is going up. And if the Times can build the kind of brand loyalty online using Web 2.0 techniques as it did offline using Print 1.0, the company could be rolling in dough. Or at least it could stay afloat.

Earlier this year, the New York Times announced plans to open up its archives and make available articles that had previously only been available to paying customers. The company also embraced search engine optimization techniques, pushing its web traffic way up (even though the same move now means that Google will often return a 15 year old newspaper article as a top search result even when it's not the most relevant article by a long shot).

Now it looks like the paper is taking a major step to engage users by putting reader comments on the front page of the paper. Right under the photo of the day's top stories. Is this act alone going to save the newspaper industry? Probably not. But it shows that the mainstream media are learning a few tricks from blogs. It's only fair. Every now and again bloggers actually learn a thing or two from mainstream media, like how to cover the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a good news story.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]