The Genii Forum

Hi all!

I've been working on a database for books for some time now. Recently I managed to put the whole thing online and workable [more or less].
You can have a look here: http://archive.denisbehr.de/
[I am not sure about how long the link will be available at the moment.]

There are still enough bugs to keep me busy. If you happen to find mistakes in content or programming or have other suggestions feel free to drop an email. I do have some plans for other features already.
Exactly 100 [randomly chosen] books are filed at the moment.

It is still very much work in progress and the layout is quite basic, but I thought perhaps you are interested.

Ciao
Denis

Excellent database, Denis!

Very nice! I was just wishing for such a tool the other day as I was looking for a specific move.

Do you plan on including a cross-reference in the search for those sleights that are referred to in multiple or non-standard fashion? An example would be the K.M. Move, which I've seen written up at K-M Move, K.M. Move and Kardyro-Marlo Move.

Thanks for the great work!

Eric, do you mean this by cross referencing?
Collected K.M. Move references
You can get to those collected tables via the "Discovery Journey" or by doing a keyword search and checking out the fitting category-links in the right column.

Clap,Clap,Clap,Clap,Clap!!!!..........Mike

Wunderbar...!!!

Beautiful!

That's exactly what I meant! I'm impressed.

What are your long term plans for the database?

Originally posted by Eric Rose:
What are your long term plans for the database?

I don't really know... Currently I am writing a script which allows me to comfortably enter new books. The way I used to do it is no longer possible now since I changed the structure to make it run online.

I plan to add new books... Some people offered their help.

I used it quite a bit in those "I knew I read this somewhere....."-situations in the past.

Denis

Originally posted by Denis Behr:
...I plan to add new books... Some people offered there help...

Can we send you a formatted text file? lots of things to add on the coin stuff. From Roth's Chink-a-chink in volume 1 number 1 to Ramsay's Cylinder and Coins, to My coins across in Apocalypse vol 5 etc, etc, etc

Thanks for this offer. You can of course send anything along and I can see whether it is formated in a way I can upload it.
BUT: I hesitate to put anything in the database which it is a single entry from a book out of context. I already filed Apocalypse Vol.3&4 [Reprints]. Vol.1&2 are still a future project [those things are huuuuuge...]. So everything from there will be in the database as soon as those books are filed.

I think that the "one full book at a time" - idea is the best way to do a thing like that, if you see what I mean?!

Denis

First Class database. What program and operating system do you use, please?

My operating system is Windows XP.
I am not sure what you mean by program, but I used PHP, phpMyAdmin and MySQL to create the database and wrote all PHP - program scripts myself basically from scratch in the text editor. Does this answer your question?!

Ciao
Denis

Very nice Denis! Do you intend on including publication dates alongside the entries?

Euan

Denis, power to your project!

You wrote:

'There are still enough bugs to keep me busy. If you happen to find mistakes in content or programming or have other suggestions feel free to drop an email."

If you are looking for a computer program which helps you organize your library (or any other collection, really), you should obtain a program called BookCat. It is a really wonderful program that can be customized and is a fully searchable relational database based on MS Access, and it is an absolute bargain.

To get more information, go to http://www.fnprg.com/bookcat/

Originally posted by Euan:
Do you intend on including publication dates alongside the entries?

If you click on the book you get to all entries of this book. I just added some basic information about the book. So the publication date can be found there. [Actually the publication date of my edition. If I do not own the first edition, the date of the first edition is included in brackets.] Example
I don't know whether it is a good idea to include the year in all tables?! Technically no problem.

Magicam, thanks for mentioning this tool. The nice thing with a self-written program of course is that I can add features and structure the thing at will [or "ability" actually :-)].

Denis

You're welcome, Denis.

I mentioned BookCat not because I think you need to change, but only because my computer programming friends have told me how flexible the program is, allowing one to customize the database. If you know how to use Microsoft Access, you are well on your way as that is the platform used for BookCat.

Clay Shevlin

Thanks, Denis. I use a mac. Not sure of PHP. Suggestion of BookCat inapplicable, I have a DB in FilemakerPro. In my DOS days I used AlphaFour which was excellent, probably AlphaSeventeen now!

Anthony Brahams wrote "Suggestion of BookCat is inapplicable..."

Anthony, I have this program and since I have been tinkering with using it as my relational dateabase for my library and perhaps future web-publishing, I'd be grateful to hear you elaborate on this comment. Sounds like there is something I should know about this program.

Many thanks in advance.

Clay

Okay, a little off topic, but as a former Mac user (starting back in the Mac Plus days in the 1980's, when 1MB of RAM was considered ungodly huge :) ), I'm wondering if all the Windows/Mac OS conversion problems have been resolved such that a Mac user can now seamlessly open and use common PC files (such as those in Word, Access, InDesign, etc.). I reluctantly went to a PC (about ten years ago) because that was the system used at work and I got tired of the problems associated with opening PC files on my Mac.

Anybody with comments can send me an e-mail if they prefer, and again, thanks in advance.

Clay

Anthony Brahams wrote "Suggestion of BookCat is inapplicable..."

Clay,
I think Anthony meant that BookCat does not run on a Mac... This is true indeed, but the matter of fact is that an Access Db can be read by applications on a Mac (I'm not familiar with any, but a search on Google returned some entries).

If you simply need to access the data, BookCat can export the list of books in HTML format (or text, or other formats) and you can read the list from other environments (and put it on the web as well ;) ). Also, there is an add-on which allow to download your database (part of it...) to a PDA, so that you can avoid buying another copy of your books while away from your library/computer ;)

But, alas! it doesn't run on a Mac...

Ciao!

Sorry to go off-topic here...

Magicam,

I haven't had any problems with files. Especially on opening PC files on Mac, vice versa and there has been some small issues but I am sure they are due to my university's poor computers (i.e. they would have had the same problems no matter what format).

If you can try and get a test drive with the OS X, it is superb. My laptop only crashes when it runs out of battery. I will never switch back to PC's.

Sorry again folks.

Marco and Pekka: Thank you for indulging me with this information.

Marco: Some folks in The Magic Circle are thinking of putting TMC library catalogue online for members to consult. Do you think that BookCat then would be a good program to use for that considering its HTML export abilities?

Best wishes to you both, Clay

P.S. Marco: your copy of HGCR #1 went out today. I signed it for you -hope you don't mind.

Hi, Clay!
re. TMC, see my post on that list. BookCat could be ok, but it would still require some programming work to encapsulate the list in a professional website like TMC's. I exported my library in HTML format for a project with a web-site in Italy, but I had to write some extra pages. At the moment is not accessible unless you have a password, but I plan to make it available on my new site...

Re. HGCR: many thanks! I was starting to wonder how you were with the printing, as I did not hear much in a while. I'm really looking forward to it.

All the best, ciao!!!

I updated my Archive a bit, layout and (invisible) backend structure. You can check out the new version here: http://archive.denisbehr.de/

I'm sorry that some old links might not work anymore, even though some are redirected to the correct page.

Denis

Hey Denis: I don't see any of LORAYNE: THE CLASSIC COLLECTION volumes listed!

Why don't you submit them then?

Harry, all the original books are in the database, klick on your name here so see what's in the archive from you: http://archive.denisbehr.de/books.php?t ... r&letter=L

Magic Fred: Didn't know you had to submit them - that's why then.

Denis: That's what I did, but - please understand, I really am a lousy computer person - my dyslexia clicks in there - I did that and still don't see any of the Lorayne: The Classic Collection volumes, don't see Dingle's Deceptions or Mathematical Wizardry or Doug Edwards Packs A Wallop, etc. I know I'm probably doing something wrong.

Oh I may have spoken out of turn then, I assumed the site was based on submissions. Ignore me.

That's because those books you listed are not in this database and they won't be added in the near future.
This is not a site that lists all magic books written by a given person. For that, I suggest MagicPedia: http://geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Harry_Lorayne