Sunday, October 23, 2022

The Valley of Fear (Sherlock Holmes #7) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Valley of Fear
Series: Sherlock Holmes #7
Author: Arthur Doyle
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 200
Words: 58K

★★★✬☆

Saturday, October 22, 2022

Need More Space? Bookstooge Has You Covered Part II

Two years ago I wrote a post (Part I) detailing how to utilize Dropbox as a picture hosting site so you didn’t have to eat into your free space here at WordPress. I’ve been using it on any picture over 100KB and it seems to work well for me. But just because something is working well doesn’t mean I am content to sit on my lees and let WordPress continue to work against me behind my back. It would be just like them at some point to disallow outside hosted pictures on free sites, so I decided to investigate what I could do for picture compression. Just in case you can’t tell, I have an extremely adversarial relationship with WP.com.

What I found was the Caesium Image Compressor. Here is the website and the download for various OS’s is part way down the page: Caesium Website.

I have been very pleased so far. Once I installed it, it took a while of playing around to get all the various options set up how I wanted. What I didn’t realize, and was very pleasantly surprised with, is that Caesium can also resize your photos along with compressing them. This is wonderful for me as I use the high quality pictures from my Calibre Library for my book reviews. Instead of having to use a separate resizer tool and then Caesium to compress that, I can do it all in one step. I even have it save the picture where I want so everything is conveniently stored for upload.

I use it on the little pictures for the book reviews (which are 194px wide) and I regularly get 30-60% compression. Going from 30KB down to 18KB isn’t a world breaking but if I want to continue blogging for years and years, every little bit adds up. I also use Caesium on any files I upload to Dropbox as well. Saving space any way I can means I don’t have to worry about hitting that 3gb limit (or 1gb if you’re a poor new user to WordPress. You newbs really have my sympathies in that regards!) It is another step in the blogging process however. So you have to decide if that is worth it to you or not. For me, it totally is. It is free, it is small and once you set it up to your taste, it is almost just 3 clicks of the mouse and you’re done.

I hope this post has been helpful even if just to inform you of options that you have. Because knowing is half the battle!

GI Bookstooge is the REAL American Hero, but we all knew that anyway

The Domino Pattern (Quadrail #4) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Domino Pattern
Series: Quadrail #4
Authors: Timothy Zahn
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 268
Words: 103K

★★★☆☆

Friday, October 21, 2022

Mapp and Lucia (Mapp & Lucia #4) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Mapp and Lucia
Series: Mapp & Lucia #4
Authors: E.F. Benson
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humorous Fiction
Pages: 292
Words: 84K

★★★☆☆

Thursday, October 20, 2022

Asterix in Spain (Asterix #14) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Asterix in Spain
Series: Asterix #14
Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 53
Words: 3K

★★★☆☆

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Gangdom's Doom (The Shadow #5) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Gangdom’s Doom
Series: The Shadow #5
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 166
Words: 54K

★★★☆☆

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Death or Glory (WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #4) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Death or Glory
Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #4
Authors: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 289
Words: 96K

★★★✬☆

Monday, October 17, 2022

Danny, Champion of the World ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Danny, Champion of the World
Series: ———-
Authors: Roald Dahl
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Childrens Fiction
Pages: 137
Words: 40.5K

★★★✬☆

Ball Lightning - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, October 16, 2022

The Enemy (Victor the Assassin #2) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Enemy
Series: Victor the Assassin #2
Authors: Tom Wood
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 403
Words: 134K

★★★☆☆