The.Kindle has a feature where you can download content from certain newspapers and magazines to view offline. I'm hoping to be able to do something similar with the n800. So for example I could automatically download an entire issue of The Economist to read on the train, sort of a print podcast. Anyone setup something like this?

I think Feedbrowse can give you some similar functionality, through RSS feeds and the like - I don't know how well this works yet.

On a *slightly* related note, I also found Gutenbrowse today, for getting books from the Project Gutenberg library. Yet again, I haven't played with it yet.

The Economist is available in PDF format from their web site if you have a subscription, and copies usually show up in other places as well. You may need to use evince to view it instead of the built-in PDF reader if you get the official version, as the regular PDF viewer sometimes seems to have problems with the DRM. Landscape only, can't switch to portrait mode as you can with fbreader.

You can get some pdf books at www.wowio.com. The site is down for an upgrade right now but it has a fair collection of books for free.

Thanks all. I have a web subscription to the Economist, but didn't know that it was available via PDF. That's great. I wonder if I can get this to work via RSS and the Feedbrowse that codeMonkey mentioned. I'll start experimenting in a couple of days when my SDHC card finally arrives.

Also thanks for the links to the book sites. Reading books and PDFs with fbreader and evince is probably my favorite use for the n800 so far.

I used to use AvantGo with the Palm. You could put any website on it's list. I would love for a maemo port for that.

It is available through the Garnet VM... kinda. Garnet has it's own requirements, I think you need an existing PDA and sync software (no doubt there is a way around that). Then my palm's only version was palmos3(?), the latest garnet uses a more recent version. AvantGo isn't compatable with the new version... There is a new AvantGo for the more recent os, but I can't install it since it dosen't recognize the new os. I just got it to work (it would update using the wifi just fine), before I upgraded garnet.

This thread has some options, but looks like they require a bit more work than AvantGo did.

wowio is currently a USA-only site, as are almost all sites that sell ebooks with DRM.

I see that wowio is currently showing a page that says they are revamping their service to go global, so I guess we'll see what they have to offer. I don't have high hopes though, since they have no control over the arcane web of copyright restrictions placed on ebooks by the publishing cartels. Linux of any form is generally anathema to DRM publishers, so pdf is about the only DRM format supported on the N8x0 at the moment.

The free ebook situation is best for those who like fantasy and science fiction (lots of free offerings), and books old enough to have passed out of copyright in the USA (classics of literature and 19th century travelogues are common). But even Project Gutenburg cautions that some of their free works are potentially subject to copyright control in some countries, and users must verify their own compliance.

Here's one way that I read web content on my tablet, mostly news and blog posts these days. At the beginning of each day, I look through the daily papers on my laptop for articles I want to read. I open each article in a new firefox tab. Once I have all the articles lined up in tabs, I quickly go through them (using ctrl+tab) and click on the "Print" url. Then I go through them again, this time (1) hitting ctrl+A to select all, and (2) clicking the "clip" star in the Google Notebook Extension.


Once you've clipped each article individually--this gets quick after a couple of days' practice--you can go to the respective notebook at google.com/notebook. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a link to "export to HTML." Copy that link and put it in your tablet's bookmarks. Once you're signed in to your google account on your tablet, you'll be able to use that same bookmark to access whatever you go on to clip into that particular notebook using the Google Extension. If you're going to go offline, you can either leave that page open when you disconnect, or else save it to memory, to be opened later.

I know, sounds complicated. But once you get use to doing this, things are quick. I go through the NYT, WaPo, LAT, and WSJ in about five minutes opening articles I might want to read in tabs. Then clicking "Print" in each article and clipping each of them takes another five, I'd say. After that, I can open that bookmark anywhere and have my own custom newspaper with me to read.

They (the Economist) also publish a full .mp3 audio version of the magazine every week.