Tip: 6 Ways to Circumvent NYTimes' Paywall, For Now

The Hague, The Netherlands

Today is the last day of April, and if you're anything like me, you are saying "Thank Goodness!" because you hit your twenty article limit on nytimes.com on April 2nd and you are forced to adjust for the remaining 3.5 weeks. In the second full month of their new implementation, I have run out of article quota very quickly. While you try to sell me on why I should buy a subscription (or not read the NYTimes) instead of viewing their advertisements, I will tell you about all of the different ways you can still view the nytimes articles without having a subscription.

Their pay wall is predicated upon being able to store cookies in your browser and giving access to articles from search engines like Google. That means you can use the following techniques to still view articles:

• Go Incognito - Specifically for Google's Chrome browser, if you right click on the link for the article you would like to read, Click on the "Open link in incognito window" you will be able to read the full article.
• Use a RSS Feed Reader - Set up something like Google Reader and start adding NYTimes RSS feeds. For example, if you copy the "Bucks" blog URL and paste it in the appropriate place in your feed reader, you can launch the articles from there. In general, this is a good way to keep track of sections you like to follow regularly in the paper.
• Use Different Browsers - Firefox, Internet Explorer 9, Opera, Safari, etc. they are all good now. Since they all of have separate cookie jars, you can build up your quota on each one.
• Go to Articles via Search Engines - I use the NYTimes for a lot for high quality recipes. They are usually well tested and have good stories that accompany them. If I am looking for a kale recipe I type "site:nytimes.com kale" in the search box. This will search only nytimes.com for articles with "kale." Clicking on these links will allow you to view the article even if you have maxed out your limit. Google News will also provide links that will take you there.
• Go Mobile - This is similar to using different browsers but I find that I read a lot of articles my phone
• Disable Cookies - Most browsers have a setting where you can disable all cookies. You probably won't be able to login if you have registered with a site and this might interfere with other sites where you do want to store cookies so do this in one of your browsers and use it for browsing the news.

Even with these work-arounds, I find myself going to the Times less and less and other lamestream news sources more. Other news outlets are probably loving the Times' decision. I doubt that the Times is going to be able to stick with its current model. I don't like it but I think the WSJ model of selectively locking articles is much better. We'll see how it plays out.

Travel: Behind the Scenes with Rick Steves on Italian Dining

Italian Restaurant Food vs. American Restaurant Food

The Hague, The Netherlands




Those of you who have traveled with me know that I travel like a 57 year old woman: 3 star hotels, early dinners, and Rick Steves' travel books. Mix in our trip to Rome and I was very interested when I saw this recent article in the Seattle Times where RS talks about his experience with Italian restaurateurs and their take on American food.

Not surprisingly and somewhat deservedly, there is a lot of criticism of portion sizes and huge dollops of overly sweet bbq sauces and salad dressings. I find this criticism mostlly unfounded and I won't bother going into the undercooked pasta dinner we had in Italy at Rick's say-so (trust me, not al dente). Interestingly, he gives a glimpse of how he reviews restaurants. That is something I always wonder given travel writers must have short deadlines and limited time in each neighborhood or city.

Let me know your favorite travel guide writers/publishers or the best place to get travel tips.

Travel: Panorama Mesdag in The Hague, The Netherlands

The Hague, The Netherlands

The Panorama itself is tucked behind the Hilton Hotel in The Hague

There is a cool piece in the Wall Street Journal about the Panorama Mesdag in The Hague, The Netherlands. Maggie blogged about it back when we did our Amazing Museum race. It is well worth a stop. 

Admission was included with our Dutch Museumkaart and I think we even had one of the little promotional cards for a free coffee. Look for that at the VVV when you pick up your free Hague map and then head over to the panorama. It is in between the Centrum and the Peace Palace. 

If that is not enough. There are a number of other works by Hague School artists and a great set of post cards to collect in a tidy little gift shop. 

Yet another thing to do when you visit The Hague!

Tip: Using Regex to Find and Replace Two or More Spaces in Text

To find and, perhaps, replace text with two or more spaces use the following regex:

/s/s+

You could use this in Notepad++ or Excel along with just about any programming language.

Regex (Regular Expressions) are one of those techie things that are everywhere (e.g. Excel) but you never use unless you're are a serious nerd (and I mean serious). In order to remain cool, I have avoided their use. However, recently I have been scrubbing large text files and I decided it might be faster if I caved and used a regex.

Regex is a syntax or language for manipulating text or strings. For example, you might remember Microsoft DOS commands like "dir *.*" that would list all files with any filename or three letter extension. Regex is similar (not exactly the same) to shell commands like that.

In my quest to become a nerd, I found that the support documents are not for novices. Send me some comments if you know of some good sandboxes for building regex.