Collectorz.com Newsletter March 2008
Dear collector,
In this newsletter:
- News: New Collectorz.com website
- News: Comic Collector and ComicList.com
- News: Hello and Goodbye to colleagues
- The Big Question: How can I change field values for multiple items in one go?
- Meet The Collector: Tom Coate and his huge collections
News: New Collectorz.com website
Our website has a new look! And about time too, we really had to dig deep into our news archives to find the release date of the "old" look: October 2001.In this redesign, we aimed for a clean look and a clear navigation structure. The new site is easier on the eye and focuses more on what's important: telling you everything there is to know about our software.
To achieve this, we removed the quite colorful menu on the left, replacing it with a simple horizontal menu at the top. This created more room for feature descriptions and lots of large screenshots.
We are very happy with the new design and hope you like it too. Visit our website.
News: Comic Collector and ComicList.com
Comic Collector has a great new addition: new comic book releases are directly available in our comic database with the help of ComicList.com. Charles LePage of ComicList.com is a long time Comic Collector user; his website brings weekly comic release lists. Charles has created a special version of the new releases list and this list gets imported into our online comic database on a weekly basis.The biggest plus for you is that you can now always add the newest releases through the Add Automatically screen, no need to use Add Manually anymore. The new issue will be in our database even if we have not received any submissions for them yet and sometimes even before the comic book is available in the shop. Note that the downloaded issue will of course only have "skeleton data", basically this consists of Series name, Publisher, Issue Number/Extension and Publication Date, plus our ComicID. The new releases are also published on Comic Collector Connect.
This is the first step to a new feature for Comic Collector 4.1. In version 4.1 we will add a "New Releases" tab page in the Add Automatically screen. This new tab page will make it even easier to find and add the new comic releases to your database.
News: Hello and Goodbye to colleagues
We’ve hired two new colleagues. At the same time we had to say goodbye to our movie database admin Vincent Tempelaar.Vinnie only worked part time at our office next to his study at the Aviation Academy. March 1st was his first day at his course at Air Traffic Control in Brussels, Belgium. Obviously, this can’t be combined with his work at our office so our ways parted.
To replace Vinnie, we’ve hired Alain Vleesch du Bois. Alain is a 3rd year student at the School of Economics Amsterdam. He is knee-deep into movies, which is a big plus if you’re processing them all day.
Patrick Machielse is our second new colleague, although he is no stranger. He has been working freelance at our office since August 2007, developing and maintaining our Mac editions. We’re delighted that we could persuade Patrick to come and join our programming team!
The Big Question: How can I change field values for multiple items in one go?
You may encounter situations where you need to modify multiple entries in your database, e.g. set the Collection Status to "For Sale" or set the Purchase Store fields to "Amazon.com". This can be accomplished quickly and easily using the Edit Multiple feature.Here's how to use it:
- First, select the items you want to modify in the list panel. You can select multiple items by holding down the Ctrl or Shift key while you click. Tip: use Ctrl-A to select all items in the list.
- Now, choose Edit Multiple from the Edit menu. An empty Edit screen will appear.
- The values that you enter in this screen will be applied to all selected items, overwriting possible existing values. Tip: Use F8 to indicate that you want to clear existing values in a field.
- Finally, click OK to apply the changes.
Meet The Collector: Tom Coate and his huge collections
In his own words: “I own Music Collector, Book Collector, and Movie Collector. Will probably get Game Collector when the next version is released.Approximate Number of items in collections:
Books = 4,500
CDs = 900
LPs = 1000
DVD Movies/TV series = 200
VHS tapes = 200
Baseball (and other) Cards = 120,000
Computer/Video games = 600
I currently live in Noblesville Indiana, and have been a collector of things since I was a wee little lad. I started collecting bugs and snakes - to my mother's chagrin. I then moved to rocks and leaves when I was a bit older. The great thing about collecting these things is that they are very inexpensive. When I was six, I watched the Baltimore Orioles demolish the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1966 World Series, and my love of baseball was born. I started collecting baseball cards shortly thereafter – though they did cost money, so I did not get very many. I collected many different things through my days of schooling - stamps, coins, girl friends, broken hearts, magnets, bumper stickers, road maps, LPs, 8-track tapes, and 45s, and bad grades.
After graduating High School in 1978, I went into the military, and most of my collections were given away, or tossed, or forgotten. I did not have much time in the military, nor the space to collect things. But in 1983, I was stationed in Northern Greece, in a small town, and there was not much to do. So putting my schooling to great use, I bought one of the first BETA video record players at a bargain price of $1000 (used). After spending my money so wisely I did not have dough left for movies, so I bought the movie 'Grease', and watched it one time nearly every day for a year! After being shipped back home to the U.S.A., and leaving the military service in 1984, my collecting started again in earnest.
I started with more music LPs, as I did listen to music while in the military, but did not have much room to store LPs. My parents had discarded all my baseball cards, and most of my other collections, but they did retain a few of my LPs. So I also began collecting baseball cards again, even though the price for them had escalated, but not like what we were going to see shortly. In 1988 I bought my first PC, and bought the game 'Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places)', and my love of PC gaming was born. I have kept every game that I ever bought for the computer, except many that were on 5 1/4 inch floppy disks - much to my chagrin! I have many games that do not work on Microsoft Vista, but how could I ever get rid of them?
I've always been an avid reader, and have been 'collecting' books for quite a while. I only collect them to read, and reread, not for investment. I read all genres, with my favorite authors including Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony, Janet Evanovich, Nora Roberts, Lawrence Block, Alan Dean Foster, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, R.L. Stine, and Simon Haynes. I read about two books a week, and always have a book with me.
I changed from collecting LPs to CDs when CDs first hit the market. I buy all my CDs, and listen to about 10 to 15 CDs each week. I have quite a taste in music, in that I like almost all kinds of music. On a recent trip to the store to buy CDs, the cashier asked if all the CDs were for me, and I said "Yes, they are", and she replied something like, "Wow, what a mixture of music". In my selection that day, I had CDs from the following artists - Conway Twitty, Nine Inch Nails, Neil Diamond, Bob Seger, and Anita Ward. My favorite artists include John Cougar Mellancamp, Olivia Newton-John, Bob Seger, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Chesney, Loretta Lynn, Abba, Pink Floyd, Beatles, Rolling Stones, and ZZ Top.
The year 1994 changed my collecting habits quite a bit. That year the World Series was cancelled, and though I was getting tired of baseball, due to many things, that was the final straw. I have not watched a baseball game since then, and have bought very few baseball cards. I did continue to buy Cal Ripken, Jr. cards and other Orioles of the past (Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, Boog Powell, Dave McNally, etc.), but now buy lots more football cards than anything. My son 'collects' Pokemon and Magic the Gathering cards more than sports cards.
I don't buy as many DVD movies as I would like, because I just don't watch that much TV. I've been converting my VHS tapes to DVD purchases though. My favorite movies include Grease, Terminator 2, Indiana Jones movies, James Bond movies, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Blade Runner, and many older movies of Charlie Chaplin, Abbott and Costello, and Vincent Price. I do collect TV series on DVD also and my collection includes Seinfeld, M*A*S*H, Soap, Six Feet Under, The Simpsons, Cheers, and many other sit-coms, including the oldies but goodies - The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith, etc.”
Feature in the Meet The Collector topic like Tom and receive a limited edition Collectorz.com messenger bag! Click here for details.
- Happy Collecting -
The Collectorz.com team,
Alwin, Ronald, Sven, Henk-Jan, Patrick, AJ, Mark, Alain & Syts
www.collectorz.com
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