A few housekeeping announcements:
- Access to the “Slate Archives” (formerly known as “The Compost”) is now free to both subscribers and nonsubscribers. Find past Slate articles by using the “Search Slate Archives” function at the bottom of each page or by going to the Archives page (also accessible in the “Utilities” drop-down menu). The Archives page features, among other delights, a virtual reality function that allows you to imagine that it is any week since June 1996, re-create the Slate Table of Contents, and relive the excitement of that particular moment. Or, for those of you who didn’t read Slate for the 10 months or so we were charging for access to almost all content, this is a handy way to catch up.
- While we’re giving stuff away, we also have a new free e-mail service: daily delivery (five days a week) of Slate’s home page, featuring descriptions of and links to every Slate article that is new that day. If your e-mail program accepts mail sent in HTML, you’ll get the actual home page. If not, you can ask for an all-text version. Click here to sign up. (Other e-mail services, including daily “Today’s Papers” and weekly delivery of our all-text edition, Slate on Paper, are still services for subscribers only.)
- Check out our new “ Slate Store.” We don’t just sell Slate T-shirts and coffee mugs. In fact, we don’t sell that stuff at all (though we will within a few weeks). But if you want to pick up a last-minute Mercedes-Benz, this is the place to do it. Also books, chocolates, and other essentials of life.
- Slate is now available on PalmPilots and Windows CE devices, through the good offices of AvantGo.com. It’s a great way to keep up with the world and impress your friends with how busy you are. We offer a variety of Slate features, including Today’s Papers, for these hand-held gizmos. You need to register (it’s free), which you can do here and then subscribe to the Slate options you want (yes, yes, that’s free too), which you can do right here. Then you’ll no longer need to waste those valuable seconds spent waiting for the elevator.
- But it’s hard to read a hand-held computer while on the treadmill at the health club or while driving a car–or, for that matter, while at your grown-up computer. For that you need Slate by audio. A link on the Today’s Papers page (look near the top left of the page or click here for today’s audio edition) will bring you Scott Shuger’s daily national newspaper summary (read aloud by a voice far more mellifluous than Scott’s own). You’ll need Windows Media Player software (which you may already have if you’ve installed the latest version of Internet Explorer). If you don’t have it, there’s a link on the Today’s Papers page for that, too, or click here. Free, free, yes, of course, free.
- To hear Slate by audio on devices other than your computer, including Windows CE hand-held machines, you’ll need to visit Audible.com. This is a site that offers audio versions of a wide variety of printed material, including selections from Slate. They also offer their own listening gizmo, which you can leave on your dashboard and get downloaded audio over your car radio (or through headphones). The Slate selections include Today’s Papers, “Chatterbox,” and “Moneybox.” To get them through Audible.com, you must subscribe. And no, this one is not free. It’s $6.95 a month or $49.95 a year. But–subscribers to Slate itself can get an Audible subscription for free. A Slate subscription costs just $19.95 a year. Do the math. It doesn’t take a PalmPilot.
