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Table of Contents:
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Welcome
Welcome to our first edition
of the AVCataloger Newsletter. We are excited to bring
you frequent news and information as well as tips on how to
get the most out of your AVCataloger product.
AVCataloger is a fascinating software application that we
thoroughly enjoyed creating and even more so, enjoy using.
Only when you begin to enter data and see what AVCataloger
can do will you realize the true power and flexibility of
this software package. Because we designed AVCataloger
to be simple for the most basic user, we also want to teach
our AVCataloger community of the true power that AVCataloger
is capable of. Throughout these newsletters, that is
our goal, taking an element in each writing and revealing
the true flexibility, power, capability, and joy of these
included features you may not be aware of. Invite your
friends to read along as well, signing up for our
AVCataloger newsletters is easy and strictly confidential.
Our mailing lists are not shared with anyone and are solely
for the use of us keep you, our number one asset, informed
on the product you either purchased or expressed interest
in. So let's get started!
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.: Three Main Internet
Resources Available
AVCataloger is extremely easy
to use, simply type, select, enter, and your data is saved.
However, there are easier methods of diving into this
software and getting your collections entered. From
this point, a baseline, you can go back and fine tune the
data, however you'll find that the data entry from our
Internet resource partners is so thorough in itself,
AVCataloger will not consume life in the process. Our
first goal is to allow you to get out and breath fresh air
and not be trapped, a prisoner of your computer. With
that, we make data entry easy, complete, reliable, and allow
our users to enjoy other aspects of life and of course have
the time to tell friends about this fun software application
named AVCataloger.
1)
Entering your Music Collection using Gracenote's CDDB Disc
Recognition Service:
It's a well known fact that
your computer is capable of identifying factory music CD
albums and displaying the name of the album, track details,
and so much more. This information comes from
services, one of the most popular is one titled "CDDB" by
Gracenote. AVCataloger has the CDDB service integrated
tightly in the software to make entering music CD's a snap!
To get to the Internet Data Resources, click the "Internet"
bar on the bottom left of the sidebar, normally sitting on
the left side of the screen. Click the CDDB button to
launch the CDDB area. If you have not subscribed to
the CDDB service, you must do so, it's free, it is just a
requirement to protect the CDDB service from denial of
service type attacks. Once you have registered,
AVCataloger is ready to get to work.
Open your CD drive and place
a factory CD album in the drive, you will see the "SCAN"
button on the CDDB toolbar appear ready and by clicking
this, it will read your music album and retrieve the data
from CDDB's extensive databases. In a matter of
seconds, you'll see the entire CD details entered in the
fields displayed and you can simply click the Save icon to
save the data to your Music area. If you would like to
modify the information, you can do so, in addition, you can
add custom details on the upper-right half of the data entry
area. This allows you to further add to the data being
captured such as date of your purchase, price, etc.
The mid-section of the CDDB data entry interface provides
indexing functionality to make searching, inventory, and
cataloging comply with your in house systems.
2)
Capturing Movie data with the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Similar to Gracenote, IMDb is
a service that provides extensive databases of Movie and
Television shows. Due to their open ended architecture
and the power built in to AVCataloger, we've implemented a
system to allow you to retrieve extensive information on a
movie you own or rent, easily providing a database of your
inventory as well, for business, insurance, or whatever the
requirements.
From the same Internet group
of items on the left side of the AVCataloger screen, click
the IMDb icon to launch the area to catalog Movies to your
Video area database. No subscription is required to
retrieve movie information, simply enter the title to search
and a list of movies will appear unless a direct match is
found. You can further narrow the search criteria by
setting a data in the From/To window which will aid in
locating the desired movie more effectively. Once the
information has been set in the Search Section, click the
Search button to perform the search. Don't forget, an
Internet connection is required to perform these retrievals.
Once AVCataloger has
submitted the data to IMDb, in seconds the data from your
search will appear. If an exact match cannot be found,
a list of titles will appear. Select the desired match
and click OK to finalize the data retrieval. Just like
with the CDDB area, the fields will be automatically filled
with the information from IMDb's database. The top
right "User-Defined Data" section is, as discussed above,
for you to add any additional custom information to be
saved. Information such as data acquired, price, any
custom fields, all of which can be tagged to your entry.
If a box shot exists (picture of box cover), it will also be
displayed and saved with the entry.
3)
Cataloging Books with Amazon.com's Data Services
Amazon.com is simply a
fascinating service and we have taken full advantage of what
it provides AVCataloger for our users. Everyone has
books and hardly any of us have them cataloged. How
many times have you loaned a friend a book and forgot to ask
for it back? Yes, it happens to all of us.
Another great example for use is simply "shopping for
books." How many times have you thought of a book you
wanted, then when you went shopping for books you forgot
what you wanted? AVCataloger has a great system in
place for all the above. So let's discuss what
AVCataloger can do for you in the book department.
Searching Amazon.com's
databases can be accomplished by clicking the "Online Book
Query" button in the same place the CDDB, and IMDb areas
were accessed. Books can be searched on three areas:
ISBN, Author, and by Title. Once the information has
been entered in the search box at the top, click the Search
button and AVCataloger will contact Amazon.com and retrieve
a list of results according to your search criteria.
Also note that Amazon.com can be contacted in different
locales such as US/Japan, UK, and Germany databases.
After a search has retrieved
results from Amazon.com, a dialog will appear with book
titles and cover images to allow you to pick the desired
book match. Click the book and then click OK to
capture the data associated. The fields will be
entered just as above. The book cover will also be
saved, if one exists from your search criteria. Click
Save to capture this data to the book area.
We'll discuss in a future
newsletter how to take this book data and save it in a "wish
list" group to distinguish books you own from books you want
to buy, and also make buying them at a later date a snap as
they are already cataloged in your database.
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Advertising, How can we do better?
Advertising software
catalogers is always a tough topic. Sure, we advertise
heavily with search engines, however, we want to further get
the word out to our prospective customers. Our
question to you is, where can we advertise most effectively
beyond search engines to spread the word about AVCataloger.
We know we have a great program, our customers constantly
rave, and we want to get the word out as much as possible.
Send us your
feedback
and give us your suggestions on where advertisements should
be placed to get maximum exposure for our product.
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.:
Earn $10 for each and every referral
We love hearing from our
customers and we also know they are our biggest asset.
We put our customers #1 and we also want to thank each and
every one of you for helping spread the word about
AVCataloger. Did you know though that we will pay you
for each and every referral? That's right, earn $10
for each referral and it's simple. At the top right of
the AVCataloger menu bar is a button titled "Refer-a-Friend
(Earn $$$)". Click this button and sign up to receive
your custom promotion code which your referrals enter at the
time of purchase. For each and every customer that
uses your promotional code, YOU will get a $10 check.
Don't miss out, a great way to make a few extra dollars on
the side and even more so, with just six friends referred,
your AVCataloger purchase has just been paid for.
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.: Slow Downloads? Get
our Software CD for $9.95
Broadband is picking up
however, we know there are still quite a few out there using
the dialup connections to the Internet. We know an
AVCataloger download of ~15 MB can be a bit time consuming
and in some cases, a seemingly impossible feat.
Order our Software CD and get
the identical software that is downloaded on CD-ROM
including many other free utilities. When you purchase
AVCataloger online, you are purchasing the key code. A
Software CD-ROM does not come with your purchase unless it
is added to your order. So if you are evaluating
AVCataloger and you are having difficulties downloading,
take advantage of our Software CD to get the software
painlessly. No further software is required once
licensed, simply enter your license code and continue using
the software and data you were evaluating with. You
can purchase the Software CD by
clicking here.
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.: Your Feedback is Crucial
We love hearing from our
customers, and prospective customers. AVCataloger is
built off of our customer feedback and we are constantly
improving the current software and drawing plans for our
next release. We would love to know what you want in
the future AVCataloger and how we can make this a better
product for you, and the rest of the AVCataloger community.
To send us your feedback,
please use either of the following options. Either
submit your
feedback
directly to us, or use the AVCataloger
Wish List
forums to document your suggestions/requests for the
next release. This is a great way for us to database
the requirements as well and the use of this forum is
strongly encouraged.
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.: Share your Testimonials with
the Rest of Us
We love hearing from our
excited customers and even more so, learning how you have
put AVCataloger to the test. Share your success story
for others to read by submitting your
Testimonial today.
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