Free and bargain romances in August 2013

[library addict]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

I've used the codes up to 7 days past the end of the contest so I'm thinking you should be good for up to the 3rd. On a totally rubbing-it-in note, I scored my first ever 75% coupon this morning - good times

Congrats!

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Blue2u

Ok, thanks, I kind of figured I'd be ok. And congrats on your 75%! Hope you have a good bundle in mind?! [knowing us, probably!? ]

Has anyone else bought any of the Nora Roberts old Harlequin book bundles from Intermix? I bought the MacGregors (as well as a number of others) bundles (with the last set of Kobo codes) and forgot how much I enjoyed those stories way back.

But it's *so* frustrating - Intermix didn't put the books in the right reading order in the bundles! *And* the table of contents doesn't seem to be hyperlinked. So you have to search around to find each of the individual books in the bundles.

I'm going to have to figure out how to use the ePub split plug-in in Calibre. I know it's anal retentive, but I can't stand to read series books out of order!

[library addict]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Has anyone else bought any of the Nora Roberts old Harlequin book bundles from Intermix? I bought the MacGregors (as well as a number of others) bundles (with the last set of Kobo codes) and forgot how much I enjoyed those stories way back.

But it's *so* frustrating - Intermix didn't put the books in the right reading order in the bundles! *And* the table of contents doesn't seem to be hyperlinked. So you have to search around to find each of the individual books in the bundles.

I'm going to have to figure out how to use the ePub split plug-in in Calibre. I know it's anal retentive, but I can't stand to read series books out of order!

I like to read the books in their published order. I have not purchased any of the Intermix bundles yet as I have one of more of the titles individually already (before the bundles were released/discountable).

I usually use explode epub and remove the parts of the book that don't apply and then rebuild and covert. Having learned to do so manually I find it easier than using the plugin. But I know a lot of people really like the plugin.

I ended up splitting nearly all of my anthologies (even The MacGregor Brides and The MacGregor Grooms) because I wanted to be able to give the individual novellas their own ratings. It's fairly easy to do so long as the original book has okay formatting. I had a few older anthologies where the text was basically one long file.

I also love, love, love the Edit ToC feature and use that a lot.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by Blue2u

Ok, thanks, I kind of figured I'd be ok. And congrats on your 75%! Hope you have a good bundle in mind?! [knowing us, probably!? ]

Thanks! I'm on a history kick these days so I bought this David McCullough set. It was $27.29 in the non-US store, and, with the coupon, came to only $6.82.

Originally Posted by library addict

Congrats!

Thanks! Now every contest I'll be like those Wheel of Fortune players, except I'll be screaming, "Big Codes!" instead of "Big Money!"

[library addict]

Originally Posted by Venus

Keep asking questions everywhere until your issue is solved. Ultimately, it helps us all.

I wanted to test things to make sure the issue was resolved and it seems to be <knock on wood>.

I had installed SpiderOak and it seemed to work smoothly.

Then I started getting an error in Calibre when I tried to add a book or edit metadata. Given the error message at first I thought it was an issue with the propsys driver. But that was fine. Then I thought it was a plugin, but disabling them didn't help. The system restore I did caused issues with my cloud syncing (a whole other issue) and reformatting did not solve the issue. because it wasn't a plugin or anything to do with Calibre actually.

It turns out something about the way SpiderOak is added to the content menu (right-click/windows explorer) interferes with the dialogue box in Calibre. Or something. I confess it was over my head and I still don't understand why it caused the issue. I never would have figured it out on my own.

Long story short, I uninstalled SpiderOak and Calibre is running fine again.

That said, I am not going to put a shortcut/auto-sync link back to my Calibre libraries. Even though that was not the issue, a sync program accessing the database at the same time as Calibre is a very bad thing! I was very lucky that didn't cause issues actually.

I am also going to go back to backing up my Calibre libraries and digital library folder (where I keep my originals) once a month on DVD-Rom. I will continue to make USB backups every time I add books (clean up the metadata etc) and continue to (now) manually maintain a file for backup/access from my phone in the cloud. But I realized when I thought my libraries had been corrupted that as easy as USB backups are to do, if I really had somehow corrupted something the nature of USB backups (overwriting older files with newer ones) would mean those particular backups could be corrupted as well. That happened with one of my files (not book releated) during my reformat actually. I have always maintained backups of my important files in multiple mediums (DVD/CD-Rom, USB, cloud, etc), but I have gotten a tad lazy relying on the cloud.

So many, many thanks to Blossom for her help. And though backups weren't my issue, please everyone make sure you backup your Calibre library(ies) and the preferences/configuration folder on a regular basis. And in more that one format so that if one backup fails you have others. It's too easy with computers to get complacement, and even when you do make multiple backups things can still go wrong, but that way you at least have options.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by library addict

I ended up splitting nearly all of my anthologies (even The MacGregor Brides and The MacGregor Grooms) because I wanted to be able to give the individual novellas their own ratings. It's fairly easy to do so long as the original book has okay formatting. I had a few older anthologies where the text was basically one long file.

I also love, love, love the Edit ToC feature and use that a lot.

I actually don't use a ToC much, in a typical novel. But in these bundles, it would have been helpful for it to work.

Regarding the MacGregor bundles? I'm not sure how they actually created them. Each "book" in the bundle has its own cover. In addition, I'm noticing that the font size from one book to the next can differ. The last one I read was very small, and then I turned the page to the next book and it's almost too big. So odd. I definitely will want to split them...I was just impatient to re-read, so I loaded it without tweaking first.

[gabby98]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

..... I know it's anal retentive, but I can't stand to read series books out of order!

I totally agree! But I think I may be worse than you...once I start a series I tend to want you read them all the way through before moving on to something else. Is REALLY REALLY hard for me to start something else if I haven't finished the series.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by library addict

And though backups weren't my issue, please everyone make sure you backup your Calibre library(ies) and the preferences/configuration folder on a regular basis. And in more that one format so that if one backup fails you have others. It's too easy with computers to get complacement, and even when you do make multiple backups things can still go wrong, but that way you at least have options.

I have an external drive connected to my computer, and Windows runs a full back-up of EVERYTHING every 24 hours. I learned the hard way...

Glad you were able to solve solve the problem! Not everyone is as lucky.

[melmac]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I'm going to have to figure out how to use the ePub split plug-in in Calibre. I know it's anal retentive, but I can't stand to read series books out of order!

I spilt all my bundles now ever since installing ePub split it's my second most favourite plugin after playing with it for just a little while I worked out how it works it's pretty simple but very effective. The romance genre seems to have far more bundles than my other favourite genre and many of them are bundles of books that are not related by series or author etc so the anal side of me insists on splitting them out

[laurla]

Originally Posted by gabby98

I totally agree! But I think I may be worse than you...once I start a series I tend to want you read them all the way through before moving on to something else. Is REALLY REALLY hard for me to start something else if I haven't finished the series.

This is me too...even if i find that i'm not overly loving the series, i can't seem to put it away until i suffer all the way through it... crazy, i know...

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Has anyone else bought any of the Nora Roberts old Harlequin book bundles from Intermix? I bought the MacGregors (as well as a number of others) bundles (with the last set of Kobo codes) and forgot how much I enjoyed those stories way back.

But it's *so* frustrating - Intermix didn't put the books in the right reading order in the bundles! *And* the table of contents doesn't seem to be hyperlinked. So you have to search around to find each of the individual books in the bundles.

I'm going to have to figure out how to use the ePub split plug-in in Calibre. I know it's anal retentive, but I can't stand to read series books out of order!

If you use the ePub Split (which I love because it's so easy to use) Don't edit them in Sigil first or it will confuse the plugin and it wont properly split.

I can't read a series out of order either and usually the one I want to read is like book 4 so I never get to read it because book one I don't like or can't get into or I lose interest by book two.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by library addict

I wanted to test things to make sure the issue was resolved and it seems to be <knock on wood>.

I had installed SpiderOak and it seemed to work smoothly.

Then I started getting an error in Calibre when I tried to add a book or edit metadata. Given the error message at first I thought it was an issue with the propsys driver. But that was fine. Then I thought it was a plugin, but disabling them didn't help. The system restore I did caused issues with my cloud syncing (a whole other issue) and reformatting did not solve the issue. because it wasn't a plugin or anything to do with Calibre actually.

It turns out something about the way SpiderOak is added to the content menu (right-click/windows explorer) interferes with the dialogue box in Calibre. Or something. I confess it was over my head and I still don't understand why it caused the issue. I never would have figured it out on my own.

Long story short, I uninstalled SpiderOak and Calibre is running fine again.


So many, many thanks to Blossom for her help.

Yay It's fixed! I was hoping with your last PM it was.
We played sleuth for a few hours this morning. Sad to say I love that type of stuff it's like a jigsaw to me. Woman vs PC!!! I almost always win.

Basically SpiderOak uses it's own version of python so it was conflicting with Calibre's Open Dialogs. So when she would click something in Calibre that opens a window like Add book or Edit Metadata. SpiderOak would cause Calibre to throw up a error. We don't know why that is if it's because she uses Vista or just her system setup. Every PC is different so we may never know.

Using what Kovid posted about non Calibre code and after knowing how to create the error we were able to figure it was external source causing it. Once we rules out the plugins we had to find something else on the PC that uses Python. So LA had a light bulb moment and mentioned SpiderOak and I went and Googled and found they do use their own version of Python.
Mystery Solved! And we did this with no Sleep at like 4 in the morning!

I am just so happy it's fixed! Calibre not working is like the end of the world for me. I'm sure LA feels similar.

[Blossom]

Free @ Amazon



Sweet Water by Anna Jeffrey
West Texas Series, Book 1

Wronged by Sylvia McDaniel
(Book 1) (The Cuvier Widows)

I'll Take Forever by Barbara McMahon

Sorry this is late. I got to bed at 10AM, got woken at 11AM to get hubby off to school then crashed. Woke up 8:30pm scrambling to get caught up on everything.

[Venus]

Originally Posted by library addict

I wanted to test things to make sure the issue was resolved and it seems to be <knock on wood>.

I had installed SpiderOak and it seemed to work smoothly.

Then I started getting an error in Calibre when I tried to add a book or edit metadata. Given the error message at first I thought it was an issue with the propsys driver. But that was fine. Then I thought it was a plugin, but disabling them didn't help. The system restore I did caused issues with my cloud syncing (a whole other issue) and reformatting did not solve the issue. because it wasn't a plugin or anything to do with Calibre actually.

It turns out something about the way SpiderOak is added to the content menu (right-click/windows explorer) interferes with the dialogue box in Calibre. Or something. I confess it was over my head and I still don't understand why it caused the issue. I never would have figured it out on my own.

Long story short, I uninstalled SpiderOak and Calibre is running fine again.

That said, I am not going to put a shortcut/auto-sync link back to my Calibre libraries. Even though that was not the issue, a sync program accessing the database at the same time as Calibre is a very bad thing! I was very lucky that didn't cause issues actually.

I am also going to go back to backing up my Calibre libraries and digital library folder (where I keep my originals) once a month on DVD-Rom. I will continue to make USB backups every time I add books (clean up the metadata etc) and continue to (now) manually maintain a file for backup/access from my phone in the cloud. But I realized when I thought my libraries had been corrupted that as easy as USB backups are to do, if I really had somehow corrupted something the nature of USB backups (overwriting older files with newer ones) would mean those particular backups could be corrupted as well. That happened with one of my files (not book releated) during my reformat actually. I have always maintained backups of my important files in multiple mediums (DVD/CD-Rom, USB, cloud, etc), but I have gotten a tad lazy relying on the cloud.

So many, many thanks to Blossom for her help. And though backups weren't my issue, please everyone make sure you backup your Calibre library(ies) and the preferences/configuration folder on a regular basis. And in more that one format so that if one backup fails you have others. It's too easy with computers to get complacement, and even when you do make multiple backups things can still go wrong, but that way you at least have options.

I just got in and had to check if you saved your Calibre library. I thought I would be home 8 hours ago but that was before everything that could go wrong did. Anyway, this post cheered me up and I see Blossom helped save the day once again. Now that's what I call a HEA.

[library addict]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I am just so happy it's fixed! Calibre not working is like the end of the world for me. I'm sure LA feels similar.

Absolutely. I would be lost with Calibre. Thank you again

Originally Posted by Venus

I just got in and had to check if you saved your Calibre library. I thought I would be home 8 hours ago but that was before everything that could go wrong did. Anyway, this post cheered me up and I see Blossom helped save the day once again. Now that's what I call a HEA.

I can relate. Hope tomorrow is better for you.