#1: Jan Wolter (jan) on Mar 23, 2006

This is a thread to discuss the "Books" link on this site. Is it helpful? Is it disturbing to see this site stoop to crass commercialism? Have you solved the puzzles in any of the books and do you have comments on them? Are there other books that should be added?

I'm happy to see the books page. You deserve some income from this fabulous site and it makes it easy for someone to find books if they want them.

It was finishing the Games Paint by Number book that led me to look for online puzzles which led me to this site. It's a pretty good book. I skipped the first section because the puzzles were too small and easy, but finished most of the rest. I got stuck on the last puzzle in the book, which was kind of frustrating.

Talk about frustrating! I got the Perplexing Pixel Puzzles book several years ago, got stuck on every puzzle I tried and soon threw away the book.

I also agree with your comment about Sudoku. I was doing them for a while, but decided what's the point? All you end up with is a grid of number. Paint by number is so much better.

My partner has the same two books, and I think about the same reaction. The Games Magazine book is a good introduction, starting with some easy puzzles and getting just moderately hard. The Perplexing Pixel Puzzles book is much harder. I don't know if she got stuck on them, but she hasn't completed many of them.

Honestly, the amount of income I stand to earn with the Amazon links is insignificant compared to the work involved in building this site. Amazon pays maybe 4% of the purchase price (it varies up and down depending on various factors). I could hope to earn at most a couple dollars a years, especially given that many of the users of this site are not in the US and are not going to want to order from US Amazon.

I think the whole amazon 'link' is a cool idea. To be honest I don't know why you didn't do something like it sooner.

The link is'nt annoying or 'in your face' like most sites where you get random pop-ups every 2 seconds. Then when you click the 'x' button it makes about 10 more pop up!!

I think that you should have some adverts on the front page, maybe for bookstores. You deserve a decent income for all the hard work and time you've put into this site! As long as you don't have the poping up ones, this will still be my favourite website :D
X

I might do ads on the site at some point, but I don't really think they would be very remunerative either. The number of people using this site isn't really that large. There's no chance of ever seeing pop-unders or winking-blicking Flash ads. I hate that kind of thing too thoroughly.

Which doesn't necessarily mean that this site couldn't earn me substantial income. I make my living building websites on a freelance basis. Most of the sites I build are intranets, accessable only to very small numbers of people, so I can't easily point potential clients at examples of my past work. This is one site that clients can see, so, in theory, it might help me win some contracts.

Of course, many clients won't really be as impressed by this site as they probably should be. Many people will see just a silly game site, and automatically fail to take it seriously. Others will evaluate it mostly on the basis of the graphic design, which isn't great. (When working on professional sites, I usually team up with a professional graphical designer.) The number of clients actually savy enough to appreciate the clever aspects of the programming on this site isn't that big.

But in another sense, this site already has paid off to some degree. To keep on the leading edge of my profession, I need to keep on top of new programming techniques and technologies. I can't always explore new techniques fully in the course of my contract work. When I'm being paid by the hour, I need to get the job done quickly and efficiently, not spend time fooling around with new approaches. A site like this is a playground where I can try out new things, develop new skills. And that's really necessary to keeping up with web technology.

I updated the "Books" page, adding a number of newly released books.

So far, the income from this page hasn't amounted to much (a bit more than two dollars). But I think it's a useful page, so I'll keep maintaining it.

I think its a good page nice to know of the different books out there. I can only reconize a coupple on the list. On of the ones called Hanjie (preatty bard book, pictures dont look god). The only one I can finde in my hometown is one called Japansk billedkryds (japaness picture crossbook) its okay. Only black and white no colors with is what I like the best when I do them in hand (not on computer i mean)

I'm with you Rea..I like to do the black & white on paper :)

thats not actually what I meant. I like doing any puzzle best on the computer but I dont like doing colored in hand at all. so if i have to do any in hand it would have to be a black and white

Hey Rea :)

Are you from Denmark?? I am.

I have Japansk Billedkryds too.. but some of them have coloured puzzles too. I sit here with the juni/juli 07 and it says: Nu med opgaver i farver. :(

And by the way... I hate that they write what it is you are going to do.

F.eks: I sneen ( in the snow) It´s a man on ski..
And :fuglehus... It´s a fuglehus!!

No surprices there.... only some of them have a funny name where you don´t have a clue what it is.

im guessing you mean juni/juli 08? i haven't got that one and dont think im going to buy it.

All there pictures of people look the same som how, they are just doing different stuf.

I like the puzzles in there much better

I've done an update to the books page, improving the formatting a bit and adding a number of new books.

wow..that's pretty cool..thank you very much :)

I'm not likely to use the books - will probably only do this online. On the other hand I like that you take the time to make it available.

Goto next topic

You must register and log in to be able to participate in this discussion.