Collectorz.com Newsletter September 2007
Dear collector,
In this newsletter:
- Collectorz.com Connect update
- The Big Question: What's the difference between the Wizard and the Advanced mode?
- Top Tip: Adding items by barcode or ISBN is so much quicker
- Meet The Collector: Klaus Elsbernd and his collections
- Your favorite CDs, DVDs, games and comics
Collectorz.com Connect update
The Connect pages are the new homes for our online product databases for DVDs, CDs, comics and games. We have lots of ideas for the Connect functionality and to speed up building them, we've hired a new web developer, Sven Spillekom. With him on board, we see a rapid progress of the Connect pages. Here's an update:
Movie Collector Connect: we've introduced a Search box. Just type the movie title you're looking for and hit Go. The Search results show a list of all matching movies in our database. The highlighted results link to the movie's details and include cover, cast & crew, plot description and available media editions.
Comic Collector Connect: new Search box added as well. Every comic series has its own details pages, for now only showing the covers of the most recent issues.
The Big Question: What's the difference between the Wizard and the Advanced mode?
The Add Automatically screen lets you add CDs, DVDs, books or games to your database by downloading all data and images from the internet. It comes in two flavors: a Wizard and an Advanced mode.The Wizard guides you to the process of adding one item in just a few steps, clear and easy.
In Advanced mode, these individual steps are combined in one screen. The extra "Search Queue" lets you prepare multiple searches in a queue, before searching and adding them all in one go. This can significantly speed up the process of adding new items to your database.
If you have been using the Wizard for a while and are comfortable with selecting results from the various info sources, then you may want to try the Advanced Mode. Just click the Advanced Mode button that is in the bottom left of the Wizard screen.
Don't like it? No problem, just click the Wizard Mode button to switch back.
Top Tip: Adding items by barcode or ISBN is so much quicker
Have you ever tried adding DVDs, CDs, books or games by barcode? The big advantage is that you get only one result: the exact edition that you own. You may want try a few, because a lot has changed since we introduced the barcode search feature in the Collectorz.com programs:- Our own online databases now provide excellent results for barcode searches. We now have over 100 thousand DVD barcodes, 20 thousand game barcodes and 45 thousand CD barcodes. Our coverage for US barcodes has always been great and now you will find most of your European releases by barcode too.
- Amazon UK finally allows barcode searches too, just like Amazon US, DE and FR. Great news for our UK users.
- Book Collector 5 now has ISBN-13 support, making sure your new books are found too.
Meet The Collector: Klaus Elsbernd and his collections
When we asked Klaus if he wanted to feature in this topic, he emailed us this:
"In the beginning there was nothing.
Then there were thousands of Science Fiction books.
Then there was music on hundreds of cassettes, followed by thousands of CDs.
Then there were comics, hundreds pour out of the flea market.
Then there were movies, thousands pour out of nothing.
Then there was silence in the chaos.
Orson Scott Card kept his mysteries, Van Veen didn't sing and James didn't save the world.
And then, there was Collectorz.com and the chaos started to be organized."
Klaus lives in Trippstadt, a small village near Kaiserslautern known to many as K-Town/Germany. He has huge collections of everything and owns licenses to all Collectorz.com products to manage them. He has been collecting for more than 30 years, sometimes more of these, sometimes more of those, now more of them all. He tried and failed to store his collections in the attic, so up to now they are all stored in boxes. He's still searching for a better solution.
Next to his full-time job he has helped us in translating all our programs to German.
Your favorite CDs, movies, games and comics
Music, Movie, Game and Comic Collector use our online databases to retrieve details and cover art. It's fun to see what the most popular titles are over the last four weeks.Your favorites:
Top 3 DVDs:
1. 300
2. Wild Hogs
3. Fracture
[ more ]
Top 3 games:
1. Bioshock [Xbox 360]
2. Bioshock [PC]
3. God of War [PS2]
[ more ]
Top 3 comic series:
1. The Uncanny X-Men [Marvel]
2. Countdown [DC]
3. X-Men [Marvel]
[ more ]
Top 3 CDs:
1. Queen - Greatest Hits
2. Eagles - Eagles
3. Pink Floyd - The Wall
[ more ]
- Happy Collecting -
The Collectorz.com team,
Alwin, Bernard, Ronald, Sven, Henk-Jan, AJ, Mark, Vinnie & Syts
www.collectorz.com
Any ideas for coming newsletters or do you want to suggest a topic? Contact us here, we love to hear your thoughts.