SharedBook: On Demand

Can You Guess What This Is?

Congratulations to Daddy Papersurfer for correctly guessing last week's photo - a lightbulb - in the Can You Guess What It Is? contest with Fuelmyblog! The contest continues with a twist - this week's photo was provided by Daddy Papersurfer.

If you think you know what the picture is, submit your guess via a fuel to our blog here. The winner will be selected from a live draw on Sunday. Stay tuned for details ...

And the winner is ...

Congratulations to Voodoo Maher, the winner of last week's Fuelmyblog contest! Jim guessed the picture correctly, which was a string of garlic, and was selected as the winner from last night's live draw.

Sylvie posted this week's photo here. The winner will receive their choice of a Blog2Print book or another SharedBook title of their choice.

If you think you know the answer, all you have to do is leave your guess in a fuel to us here. Good luck! This week's winner will be selected in another live draw on Sunday.

Print Your Blog in a Book!

Week four of Can You Guess What It Is? with Fuelmyblog continues. Sylvie posted another photo today.

If you think you know what it is, you can guess via a fuel to us here. The winner will be announced during a live draw (from all of those with the correct guesses) at 3:30 p.m. EST on Sunday. Good luck!

Each week's winner can choose from a Blog2Print book or another SharedBook product.

Fuelmyblog Contest Continues

We have another winner! Congratulations to mommy bytes, the winner of the third week's live draw in the Can You Guess What It Is? contest with Fuelmyblog. Angela guessed last week's photo correctly as a corkscrew or wine bottle opener.

The next photo has already been posted on Fuelmyblog's site here. What do you think it is? You'll have all week to submit your guesses. You can do so by leaving a Fuel for us here and putting your guess in the comments. Good luck!

The winner each week receives their choice of a Blog2Print book or another SharedBook product.

Blog2Print Update

If you've tried to check out Blog2Print this week, you may have received a server message. We've been performing some upgrades to the widget and they're complete now. Thank you to everyone for their patience!

Stay tuned to Fuelmyblog for an update on this week's contest. And have a great weekend. This is what it looks like around here (courtesy of Jane Kratochvil, the AP and CNN.com):

Week Three: Can You Guess What This Is?

Week Three of Can You Guess What It Is? with Fuelmyblog is underway with a few changes. The photos will be posted on Mondays moving forward and the live draw conducted Sundays at 3:30 p.m. EST.

This week's photo appears below and here (along with some additional details). When you think you know the answer, you can post your guess through a fuel to us (SharedBook), writing your answer in the "leave a message" option.

Stay tuned ... Sylvie has promised a slightly less blurred image midweek as well.

Can You Guess What It Is? Starts Today with Fuelmyblog

We are excited to kick-off Can You Guess What It Is? with Fuelmyblog today. The weekly competition is sponsored by Blog2Print, our blog printing widget that is compatible with Google's Blogger platform.

Each week a close up photograph will be posted on Fuelmyblog's blog and here -- it may or may not be the whole object. Take a look below and when you are ready to guess what it is, you can leave your guess via a "fuel" for Blog2Print.

Those that submit correct guesses will go into a live draw. The winner will be entitled to their choice of a Blog2Print book or another SharedBook product.

Please feel free to ask questions about the picture in the comments here, or via fuelmyblog, but remember to submit your guesses via the "fuel" feature.

Hints may be revealed during the day on either this blog or fuelmyblog's blog. You can see a demo of how to leave a guess here.

The deadline for all guesses is 9 a.m. GMT tomorrow (Friday). The people with the correct guesses will go into a "Live" draw at around 9 p.m. GMT - Fuelmyblog will announce the correct answer along with the link to the Live show tomorrow.

Here's the first picture. Can you guess what it is? The first clue was: "It is kept inside our house and many others." We would like to add, that it can also be much more fun than it looks!

FINAL CLUE: "It needs a console." You can submit your guesses via a "fuel" here.

UPDATE: 3:20 p.m. EST -- we've received some great responses, but haven't seen any correct guesses yet! This is the new clue: "You can play with it." If you've already guessed and used up your votes, go ahead and e-mail your guesses here. You can also ask questions in the comments here or via Fuelmyblog if you like.

The Year of the Snake

Recently the TIOBE Programming Community index declared Python the programming language of 2007. The TIOBE site writes "There is no clear reason why Python made this huge jump in 2007..." Indeed at first this news looked surprising but after some thought it made sense. We in the Java community were hearing a lot about the growing popularity of dynamic programming languages. The most vocal were the Ruby-on-Rails followers that declared that Java is dead and the future is Ruby and RoR. Even Sun followed the hype and scurried to support Ruby on the Java Virtual Machine ignoring the Python implementation (i.e. Jython) which was already running for several years but stagnated until recently.

We began using Python for application development extensively about a year ago to develop cool applications such as Blog2Print that use our Open API. Dynamic programming languages are advocated as being very productive and indeed after a short while Python delivered on this promise.

Our experience showed us that unlike other dynamic languages such as Perl or Ruby, Python's clean and explicit syntax was easy to learn and even a newcomer to the language could quickly become productive. Bruce Eckel said in an interview that Python "has a very even learning curve. Maybe it's not even a curve, it's kind of a straight line." Python's ease of use doesn't come at the expense of power, as you continue to learn and use the language you discover more powerful ways and concepts that help you achieve your goals faster and in a more elegant way. Another reason to choose Python is its matureness and track record in production system. Python has been around for many years and it is used in a lot of high profile companies such as Google, YouTube and Industrial Light & Magic.

Python's popularity in the past year may have been influenced by the Ruby-on-Rails hype that caused developers to re-discover Python after finding out that Ruby and Ruby-on-Rails was not their cup of tea. Using Django gave them the flexibility they wanted (according to TIOBE Ruby's popularity went down this year).  Moreover, last year the development of the new and revolutionary Python 3000 has finally started.

So, don't wait - download Python today and enjoy being productive.

Off to a Great Start!

While several new product launches took the spotlight toward the end of 2007, we were pleased to watch interest in our Blog2Print blog printing widget continue to grow organically.

As we've mentioned before, what sets SharedBook apart is our focus on automating the book making process as much as possible. Blog2Print demonstrates how our Reverse Publishing Platform works. Users are given several options to choose from - in Blog2Print's case, the choice to select all posts or only those from a range of dates, the ability to upload a cover photo and the opportunity to select a standard dedication for the front of the book, or to write a custom dedication (both of which can also be edited later). Then, with the click of a single button, the content automatically flows from the chosen blog into an online book making template. Here, the book can be previewed and purchased immediately, or personalized further.

Just before Christmas, we were excited to learn that Cheryl Hagedorn of Blooking Central likes to use Blog2Print's automatic preview capability to see how much her blog would be valued in book format from time to time. And in more recent days, it was great to read the interesting insights, ideas for potential uses and suggestions for Blog2Print that were posted in response to Joe Wikert's post on Publishing 2020. Finally, we were thrilled to see Michael Josefowicz's take on Communication Ecology. Michael made a lot of statements worth noting from our perspective, but it's the following that is most in line with SharedBook's philosophy: "From the internet is emerging the greatest collection of content in human history. To go mainstream it has to be bundled. Once bundled much of that content wants to be output in book form for ease of reading, sharing, and organizational learning." We couldn't have said it better ourselves and it was especially nice to see from someone who came across the widget entirely on his own.

Just one note. Blog2Print is currently compatible with blogs on Google's Blogger platform. Base pricing begins at $19.95 in softcover and $24.95 in hardcover. This includes a 20-page bound book and free domestic shipping. Updates to the widget and compatibility with additional platforms are currently in development. Please continue to let us know what you'd like to see.

Thank you to everyone for your interest. 2008 is off to a great start!

Congratulations!

I think I mentioned that Thea and I attended the first BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. It was a great event for us -- we went out to raise awareness for our Blog2Print blog printing widget and as it turned out, we also launched Create-A-Cookbook with Allrecipes.com that week.

As a final recap, I am pleased to report that Mary Jo Manzanares won the iPhone we gave away at the show! In addition to being the Travel & Culture Channel Editor for b5media, Mary Jo also provides travel information, tips and destinations on her Flyaway Cafe blog and writes The Seattle Traveler, an insider's travel guide for the Greater Seattle Area.  Congratulations Mary Jo!