daniel

I have previously posted about Magic: The Gathering Here and Here.

To summarize, I wanted to get back in, like any addict, but had to get rid of my Yu-Gi-Oh! card collection before I could. A local game shop was pricing them out and told me they would call me when they'd gone through and estimated how much they'd give me for them.

That was this past Saturday.

The long and the short of it was that I got a $250 store credit for them and turned around and immediately blew it on MTG cards. I bought a box of booster packs, a deck builder kit, some loose booster packs and 2 things called Fat Packs [which I had no idea exactly what they were but they were different and interesting]. All in all I ended up with some where around 1000 cards. Much more manageable than 10,000!

So this week I have been very slowly opening the various items, sorting them by color [MTG is based on the 5 colors of Black, Blue, Green, Red and White and then colorless Artifacts] and alphabetizing them and storing them in my binders. Another thing I have started is a spreadsheet, marking what I own, how many, from which set, if it is in a deck or binder, how much it is worth, etc. Laying the groundwork for if I want to sell these cards in the future.

So that has been going on. Couple that with my 2 1/2 years here at Booklikes where, for the most part, I have been active every day, whether posting, liking, commenting, and more recently, doing Librarian edits and working on the database. The upshot is that I am finding that my hobby of reading is turning into something a bit more than a hobby. It is becoming a chore.

To counter that, I have decided to give time to my new hobby of card collecting/playing. I don't want to burn out when it comes to reading. So I am deliberately slowing my reading down. I am not stopping, but if you visit my Home Page not only will you see a pretty picture in the background, but over on the right you'll see the books I am Currently Reading. I want to finish those books up before I get back to reading full throttle again. I will be finishing up The Executioner series by Don Pendleton as well, since they are small books and I can read one of those in a Saturday afternoon.

So my activity will be a bit different here than it has previously. Not so many reviews, not quite so active [don't take it personally if I don't "like" your review] and probably not so many overall posts. But I will not be dead or leaving :-)

I am trusting that with a good break things will go back to the way they were previously. However, that is not set in stone. Maybe I need to change how I read and review? That is what I am going to be finding out in the next couple of weeks.  Thank you for your time and attention. Now back to your regularly scheduled programs.

I believe I qualify for the Geeky Dork twofer :-)

Miesiąc temu chwaliłem księgarnię woblink.com za uruchomienie (jako druga po ebookpoint.pl) usługi wysyłki książek na czytniki PocketBook. Kolejna miła informacja dla użytkowników PocketBooków przychodzi z księgarni Publio. W informacji udzielonej na początku roku autorowi bloga bezdruku.pl, Paulina Wasilewicz z Centrum Wsparcia Użytkownika napisała, że wysyłka powinna się pojawić w księgarni „jeszcze w tym kwartale”. I z niewielkim poślizgiem, ale i bez wielkich fanfar, usługa właśnie ruszyła z końcem kwietnia.

W Publio przy książkach na półce pojawiła się opcja "Wyślij do PocketBooka" (źródło: publio.pl)

Takie rozwiązanie znacznie ułatwia zakupy i skraca drogę od księgarni do czytnika. Przetestowałem to przy okazji recenzowania czytnika PocketBook Basic Touch. Z funkcjonowania rozwiązania wdrożonego przez producenta czytników i (wtedy) zaproponowanej klientom przez czeskie księgarnie, byłem zadowolony. PocketBook uzyskał funkcjonalność, którą użytkownicy wcześniej chwalili sobie w czytnikach Kindle. Wraz z wdrożeniem w trzeciej polskiej księgarni, usługa nabiera większego znaczenia.

Mechanizm działania jest podobny do opisywanego już przeze mnie wysyłania w księgarniach czeskich, czy polskich. Wszystkie podmioty korzystają przecież z jednej usługi - Send-to-Pocketbook. Tak więc ci, którzy wcześniej korzystali z tej funkcji, wystarczy, że wpiszą adres czytnika w ustawieniach konta w księgarni publio.pl. Można to zrobić po zalogowaniu wchodząc w „Mój profil/Pobieranie” i przechodząc do sekcji „Konfiguracja wysyłki na Pocketbooka”.

Podpowiedź, jak uruchomić wysyłkę z Publio (źródło: publio.pl)

Księgarnia zadbała o kilka słów zwięzłego wyjaśnienia. Oto, co napisano na stronie ustawień:

„Jak to działa

1. Na swoim czytniku PocketBook otwórz Menu i wejdź do "Ustawień" a następnie wybierz "Konto i synchronizacja".

2. Z listy dostępnych tam opcji wybierz "Send-to-PocketBook".

3. Zarejestruj się w usłudze, następnie otrzymasz maila z systemu PocketBooka, z linkiem do aktywacji usługi.

4. Po udanej aktywacji usługi uzyskasz adres Twojego czytnika w domenie @pbsync.com, który wpisz w polu "Twój adres email" w powyższym formularzu.

5. Pliki są wysyłane na czytnik z adresu pocketbook@publio.pl, przy pierwszej przesyłce pliku otrzymasz na własny adres mailowy wiadomość, w której należy dodać ten adres do listy zaufanych adresów.

6. Dodatkowo możesz wskazać czy i jakie formaty plików mają być automatycznie wysyłane na czytnik bezpośrednio po zakupie.”

To kolejny przyjazny gest w stronę użytkowników czytników innych niż Kindle, które to czytniki, jak wiemy, dominują na rynku. Kindleki, nawet najtańsze, to bardzo dobre urządzenia i cieszą się zasłużonym uznaniem użytkowników. Ale warto doceniać także klientów z mniej licznej grupy i za to kolejnej księgarni - Publio - należą się słowa pochwały.

It's good to redecorate your space around you from time to time. Following your requests and suggestions we've decided to retouch the reblog option to make it transparent and even more comfortable to use with a brand new comment section and reblog history spot. Have a look at the most recent changes and ... reblog :)

The new comment window makes it clear who is the author of the comment and from whom the text is reblogged. The new reblog format frizzes the original text and doesn't allow making any changes or edits to the original text.

The reblogged post can be published instantly and re-shared on your social media and other blogs (if synchronized). 

Your comment will be highlighted and placed above the reblogged text. The information from whom the text is reblogged in published just below, and it is linked to the blog where the post has been published previously. 

Regardless of the reblog sequence, whether you're reblogging the original post or a reblog of a reblogged post, each reader and blogger on BookLikes can check the reblog history by clicking show activity just below the post where the author of the original post and particular posts are included. 

Other important facts include changes on BookLikes book pages: the reblogged reviews will not be presented on the book pages in the community reviews section, consequently the rating from the reblogs won't be included to the overall book rating.

Important for customized blogs

New reblog look is visible for everyone on Dashboard, for you on your admin blog (click upper menu -> Blog), and on public pages which use BookLikes' blog themes. If you're using other themes from BookLikes Theme Store (free or paid) or if you customized  the HTML code of your BookLikes webpage, the retouched reblog look won't be visible on your public blog -- don't worry, though, the information about the reblog will be still visible on your blog but in old version. To update your HTML, please have a look at the documentation (Themes Docs in the footnote) and recent changes concerning templates (click).

We want BookLikes to be everywhere you are. This is why after introducing Blogger and Tumblr synchronizations, we now want to make life easier for WordPress.com users, too. Getting it done is a piece of cake, check the steps below. 

In a separate internet tabs log into your BookLikes and WordPress accounts.

Go to the Settings menu on your BookLikes account and switch to Blog tab. Scroll down to discover the WordPress box on your right, click connect and allow BookLikes to post on your blog.

Start using BookLikes as usual and once you finished your review, new quote or uploading a photo just go down to Send to box to your right. Choose where else you'd like your new post to go, green means active.

Voila!

On BookLikes

On Wordpress

Please, mind that a little time gap might occur between the posts appear on BL and WP. Our software engineers were sweating to get this synchronization done the best way possible, however both BookLikes and WordPress are using different blog themes, hence some of your post could look tiny different on each blog. 

Missed any of the previous BookLikes synchros? Not to worry, see this post to remind yourself how to get your BookLikes linked with Tumblr, Blogger, Goodreads, Kindle, Twitter and Facebook.

Holy Cow! We did it. No. You did it! Thank you so much for your support and your votes. 

BookLikes has been chosen as one of the 75 most promising European startups and will present its story on stage during The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam next week! Yippee! You can view the full list of 75 startups here. 

You are incredible! All we can do now is a HAPPY DANCE and saying loud and warm THANK YOU :-)

This week brings changes to notification system. Now you can choose whether to receive notifications or not. And we know you've been waiting for this change :-)

With each comment box, you’ll see options to choose:

If you publish a post or add comment you notifications are switched on. You can turn them off any time by entering comment box under the post and selecting 'no' option. New comment option refers to notification bubble on the top only. If you wish to change your email notifications, please go to Settings/General and Save after making changes.

Updates and tips

- Now adding book and writing a post about a book from Book Page is easier and faster, just create a post or add book to your bookshelf directly on the page.  

- You can easily search your Shelf with book Title, Authors, ISBN or Kindle ASIN. Just select magnifying glass icon in the search box on the top and type the phrase. If the book is on your Shelf it will pop up. 

- If you would like to create a Profile page or About me, you can use Add Page option which allows you to create additional pages and add it to your webpage. To add new page go to Settings/Pages fill up the page title, your text, images and Save. The new webpage will be added to your menu and will be visible under Blog, Shelf and Timeline in public view. You can edit, add new and remove additional pages any time in Settings/Page. 

We all know that book lovers love discussing books and sharing their reading experiences. We're opening discussion rooms on BookLikes where you can create reading groups, book clubs and set up discussions about books you enjoyed. 

This is the first version of groups, we'll be constantly improving and releasing new additional features so stay tuned :)

Discussion rooms are added on the top of the page next to Explore, Giveaways, Daily Deals, Goodies and Friends.

Creating group is easy, just fill up the form with name, image, description, rules and tags and hit Create at the bottom of the page.

You are the administrator of the group and it is you who is responsible for keeping your discussion rooms clean, safe and sound. 

As an administrator you can:

- set up and remove discussions and particular posts;

- block and unblock members from entering the discussion room;

- remove members from your group.

Please take a look at several rules mentioned on the "Create group" page. 

Each BookLikes member can join a given group, set up a discussion or enter existing discussions and add his/her posts.

As a creator of a discussion you can:

- add books to discussion topic; books will be visible in group overview and once you enter a given discussion;

- add your posts.

All information about a given group, its rules, tags and administrator are visible on Group info page.

You cannot add discussion topics or posts if you have not joined the group. But you can read the thread. 

We've also prepared several options for discussion notifications.

An administrator of the group has the following options: All (mail and notifications), notifications only or none for new members and new discussions. Options for administrator are available on Group info page.

An administrator and each member of a group can set up new posts notifications on particular discussion page. The notification option are visible just under the discussion topic on Discussion Page. 

So now get ready for discussion and book talks :-)

Discussion rooms presented today are in their first version and we'll be developing, improving and adding new features to them so stay tuned and let us know what you think :-)

 Here are several things that we will be working on in discussion rooms:

- private groups,

- discussion members' profiles and stats,

- adding books and links to posts in particular discussion,

- adding group moderators by administrator.

Update: 

Now you can find books without covers on your Shelf and easily add missing book covers to make your shelf look better organized. Select sort by cover in table view of your Shelf and you'll see books with green covers - click on the cover and upload cover image.

How's your BookLikes experience so far? We hope you're enjoying your time here. We're doing our best to create perfect space for readers and authors with your help, of course. Here are several information that we felt you would like to know :)

BookLikes lets you create your own personal webpage ready to customize and fill with your reviews and books. You can also use your own domain with absolutely no fees, to make it happen go to Settings.

We would also like to inform all BookLikes member who already use their domains that we've changed our DNS, please update them to new ones: 137.135.170.115 to make your site work properly.

Recently we've also received many messages, tweets and comments with your suggestions and requests considering further development. Thank you all! We release one new feature every Thursday and they are mainly based on requests made by our community so if you have more, bring them on :-)

The following list presents several your ideas that we'll definitely put online and start working on right now :-)

Exclusive Shelf - then you'll be able to shelve books on a thematic shelf without necessity of selecting reading status (read, planning to read, currently reading), e.g. Books I haven't finished.

Discussion rooms - they will let you create groups and book clubs to discuss your  reads.

Export to csv - we want you to feel safe and sound on BookLikes and it refers to your content as well. 

PM - you will be able to communicate directly thanks to private messages.

Apps - the fist one is set free and ready to be uploaded (BookLikes Scanner) and more are in progress, including Android and Widows 8.

Synchronization - you'll be able to sync your other platforms with your BookLikes profile.

There's a lot of going on right now but we promise to import all your books, shelves and reviews and to answer all your messages :-)

Soon BookLikes will be offline for maintenance. Don't worry, it won't last long, up to 30 minutes.

We'll start works at 10:00 CET (in about half an hour) for half an hour. 

While waiting grab a book :-) See you soon. Thank you.

Kolega z bloga Notatnik Kulturalny ogłosił świetny konkurs, jak pewnie widzieliście. To ja w takim razie podzielę się dwoma ciekawymi konkursami, w których można wygrać książki i nie tylko :)

KONKURS DLA BLOGERÓW WYDAWNICTWA REPLIKA

Szczegóły na grafice poniżej.

****

KONKURS LUBIMYE-CZYTAC.PL

Do wygrania czytnik ebooków (!) oraz ebooki ufundowane przez serwis ebooki.allegro.pl. A wystarczy tylko napisać blurb, czyli opis znajdujący się na czwartej stronie okładki.

Konkurs dostępny pod linkiem: http://lubimye-czytac.pl/konkurs.php.

BookLikes story by John Pavley, CTO @ The Huffington Post

We’re bringing new Goodies! Reading in progress widget lets you show off book you’re recently reading. And new Friends main page shows you possibilities of looking through your followers/following and inviting other book lovers to join BookLikes Community. And we have some hint of future release.

New widget with book you’re currently reading and progress is available on Goodies/Widgets page. Just pick book you're reading right now and size of cover. You can implement widget on your other webpages or add to your blog page on BookLikes by getting the code and pasting it into Widget area in Customization tab (currently reading box is auto-presented but you can switch it off and replace it with widget in Customization tab).

To make the widget work fully, remember to add number of read pages in book pop up. Then widget will reveal your place in a book and how long you have to go on to finish it.

We’ve also updated the look of Friends tab by giving it main page where you see your recent followers and blogs you follow as well as different possibilities of inviting other avid readers to follow your BookLikes Blog.

You can use social media (Facebook, Twitter) and mail invites to ask your bookish friends to join BookLikes Community.

Future hint:

Following your requests we’re preparing new feature for those who read in paper, e and audio format. Soon you’ll be able to pick pages (for paper books), % (for e-books) and minutes (for audio books) in book pop up. This will be also visible on Currently reading widget and your public blog page.

Make your BookLikes webpage look as you wish. If you feel comfy with HTML coding, you can create custom look of your blog and other sub-sites of your website right away. Now you can edit your design theme with HTML.

For the time being we present you three main default BookLikes themes, they do vary in respect to design and layout but they use number of common elements of same sub-sites of: blog, shelf, timeline, followers and following.

How to edit your webpage in HTLM on BookLikes?

Follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings/Blog and click “Customize”. Then choose design which you would like to edit, click green tick and then “Edit HTML” button.

2. Choose sub-site of your BookLikes webpage you’d like to edit: blog, shelf, timeline, followers, following. You can edit one page at a time. You can apply changes to one site or all of them.

3. Insert your custom HTML code. You can include, exclude, change as many elements as you want. You can also add any style to any HTML element by using ‘style’ tag and CSS.

4. Click Preview to make your modification visible. If you’re happy with the outcome, click Save. If you would like to change something more, do so and then Save. If you don’t like the outcome and would like to come back to default design, click Reset template.

For example, if you would like to change background of your blog for some image and  make post title bigger and underlined, this part of your custom code would look like that: 

You can apply changes to only one sub-site or to all of them - it depends on your, your invention and HTML knowledge. Take a look at BookLikes documentation - it may come in handy while editing your blog theme: http://booklikes.com/template/docs (see Templates in footnote).

Please remember:

Changes affect only your personal webpage in public view (yourusername.booklike.com) and your sub-sites (if you applied changes to them). Your modification won’t be visible on Dashboard.

You need to feel comfy with HTLM and Twig to make custom blog theme. Be very careful while editing. Avoid typos and syntax mistakes, language and punctuation errors, inaccurate or incomplete HTML as this all will affect your custom design. To go back to default design, please click Reset template - your custom HTML will be removed from the code. 

If you don’t feel comfy with HTML coding, just wait a moment and soon we’ll give you handy and easy customization tools where you’ll be able to edit your webpage look without touching HTML code.

We're also planning to introduce new design themes for your BookLikes webpages. If you would like to contribute, create completely new themes, show off your design work and make it available for BookLikes Community, please let us know at contact@booklikes.com.