Category: Tools

Moving from Literal (not Goodreads) to The Story Graph

At couple of years ago, when I was looking for a Goodreads alternative, one of my coworkers recommended Literal.club. However, I’ve found it a bit buggy (doesn’t always properly mark something read, search can’t find the exact book I’m looking for even though I know it exists in the system, that sort of thing). I was hoping it would improve, but sadly, I’m still struggling to use it. So I decided to move over to TheStoryGraph after reading about it in a CBC article.

One of the really nice things about TheStoryGraph is that you can import your book data from elsewhere. However, the importer is meant specifically for Goodreads. Of course, not everyone wanting to move over is on Goodreads right now (like myself). So here’s a short post about how to do it. Continue reading “Moving from Literal (not Goodreads) to The Story Graph”

Alternatives for Blogs on WordPress.com

A lot of alternatives recommendation articles are for moving websites to other Content Management Systems (CMS). A simple blog though does not need that. This article is for those people, like me, who just blog. Though, I do include some alternatives for WordPress if your goal is just to move off of WP.com.

I’ve been on WordPress.com (WP.com) for 15 years, most of which has been on some sort of paid plan (started in 2012 with “No Ads”). However, with the “WordPress drama” that’s been happening, I’ve been looking into alternatives. I thought about moving off when they kept raising the prices (I pay 2.5 times what I used to), but was too lazy. It’s still not an immediate concern for me, since of all the hosting services, I expect WP.com to be the last one to have any issues. Nevertheless, what’s out there for blogging has changed significantly, and I thought this might be useful for other people.

If I find anything else, I’ll update this post with notes on what I’ve added. Continue reading “Alternatives for Blogs on WordPress.com”

Reviewing and Improving Workflow and Productivity: Methods and Tools

Most of our libraries and organizations have been around for numerous years, sometimes hundreds. Often that means many processes are created, changed as needed, and left in place long past their due date. Unfortunately, that means we are frequently working inefficiently, following old processes or cobbled together workflows.

The first part of the presentation will suggest methods for understanding and reviewing workflow. In the second half, we will take a look at various simple and lightweight tools and ways to use them to make work more efficient, especially in processing text, files, and data in batches.

Originally titled Tools, Tips, and Tricks to Making Work More Efficient. This webinar was presented for Florida Library Webinars on March 8, 2017. https://floridalibrarywebinars.org/events/16003/ Continue reading “Reviewing and Improving Workflow and Productivity: Methods and Tools”

Tips and Error Fixing When Using the Save As DAISY Word Plugin

I’ve been using the Save As DAISY Word plugin a lot lately, and while the documentation is pretty good, there are some bugs and other things that pop up. Since the plugin is no longer under development, I thought I would document here some of the workarounds and ways to fix errors caused by existing bugs. Continue reading “Tips and Error Fixing When Using the Save As DAISY Word Plugin”

Tips on Recording Audiobooks with Audacity

While there is a ton of documentation out there for using Audacity, recently, I’ve been recording some audiobooks in Audacity and struggled sometimes to find how to do specific things that are less to do with mixing tracks and more to do with editing a single track. So, here are a few tips and list of helpful resources. Continue reading “Tips on Recording Audiobooks with Audacity”