Memory upgrade complete

Main GuruLib server now sports an impressive 512MB RAM

The upgrade went smoothly. I increased the linux swap space to 1024 MB and the key_buffer_size in mysql settings to 320 MB. The average memory that is used is by the server is around 386MB. I hope the disk thrashing that was happening regularly before the upgrade is a thing of the past.

Find Local public libraries

Lately, I have been using the GuruLib’s find local library a lot. Two books that are on my wish list which I really wanted are now listed in public libraries around Rolla. One at the Rolla public library and the other at Missouri State Library in Jefferson city.

  

I am not sure if anyone else is using this feature in GuruLib. If you would like to try it out, click on a book or movie listed in your GuruLib library. On the left hand side of the page that opens up, you will find a list of public libraries that carry that book or movie. This should help you read or watch a book or movie before deciding to buy it and store in your collection. If you decided to buy that book or movie, you can support GuruLib by buying that book or movie from the link that points to Amazon.com in the information page. We have a small piggy bank that gets filled with your contributions which goes to buying additional memory or hard disc.

More memory coming soon!!!

GuruLib runs on linux OS on a Pentium 1.0 GHz, 256 MB RAM Dell machine. Recently, due to an upsurge in the number of new users, GuruLib is running out of RAM and is constantly swaping pages between hard disk and RAM. We broke open our piggy bank and got enough to buy an additional 256 MB RAM from tiger direct. Hopefully with 512 MB RAM GuruLib will be faster.  

WYSIWYG editor for GuruLib

GuruLib uses open source FckEditor to provide “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editor. This helps creating HTML reviews and comments for titles easier.

Adding multiple items simultaneously from search

Based on a feature request from a GuruLib user Maël, GuruLib now has the ability to add multiple titles to your catalog simultaneously from your search result. To use this feature, login to your GuruLib account and then navigate to Add Item page and then search for a title. You wil now have a checkbox to the left of the cover image to select a title to add to your catalog. Once you have selected multiple titles then press the Add selected button.  The selected titles will then be added one after another.

Barcode feature working again and GuruLib going mobile

We finally fixed the bug in the barcode decoder engine. It is now working again.

GuruLib allows adding titles to their wish list using cellphone. This only works if you have one of those cellphones with built in camera and some sort of picture message sending plans. From our existing T-mobile plan we could send 3000 SMS messages in a month for just 5$.

The motivation for this new mobile functionality was to help add titles to the wish list quickly. Assume that you are enjoying a wonderful sunny day exploring an outdoor book expo and you happen to see a book, DVD or a CD that you absolutely want but would like to wait till the price is right. You could now flip open your cellphone, take a picture of the barcode from the cover and send that barcode picture as a picture message from your cellphone to barcode@gurulib.com. GuruLib will then decode the barcode from the image and then add that to your wish list. If you would like to check the status of the decoding process, you could login to your GuruLib account when you get an access to an internet enabled computer and then navigate to the Camera tab of your Add Items page.

Before you get all excited we would like to mention that this functionality is still under testing and we need your help in improving it. We would greatly appreciate if anyone could test this functionality and send us some feedbacks. One of our main problem has been with the barcode decoding engine. It is very picky about the quality of the picture. As always when you are taking the picture, make sure that the barcode lines are clearly visible and the lighting is not that bad.

In case if you would like to test the feature follow the sequence of steps mentioned below to associate your cellphone number with your GuruLib account. This is just a one time setting.

1. Login in to your GuruLib account
2. Navigate to My Settings page
3. Just below the zip code field on the settings page you will see a cellphone field. Click on the link which opens a small box with a 10 digit code.
4. From your cellphone create a picture message with the subject as the above 10 digit code. Please make sure that this picture message only has the subject no body or any picture attachment. Send the picture message to barcode@gurulib.com
5. Once GuruLib receives the above message it will change the message at the cellphone field to the associated cellphone number. Now you can start sending barcode images to barcode@gurulib.com from your cellphone
6. Titles added through the cellphone are added to your Wish List shelf

As mentioned earlier, the above steps only need to be done once. Once GuruLib knows the cellphone number that you will use to send barcode pictures, GuruLib can automatically add the titles to your wish list account. You could also modify or delete the cellphone assignment from the My Settings page.

 UPDATE: We have developed a real time webcam barcode reader using Flash. You can read about the blog and watch a demo Video here

GuruLib went down for 7 hours on 7-7-7

Mysteriously GuruLib server shutdown exactly when I was at Kansas City with my wife. We had to immediately drive back to Rolla (4 hour drive) and restart the server. GuruLib came back again around 4:00 PM (CST). Sorry for the inconvenience. We hope to identify the issue soon so this sort of shutdown won’t happen in the future.