This week has been full with activities involving Linux, Linux and Linux. And the Dell server for BookJetty is finally up, loaded with LAMP (Linux, Apache, My SQL, and PHP), Tomcat and also the new vBulletin based BookJetty forum. Now it’s just pending the green light from the webhost, Qala.com, to move the server there.

Having lived and breathed Windows, switching to Linux was a bit daunting initially, but having played with it for a week, I started to fall in love; at least my typing speed has improved!!

Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is the obvious choice if you are a start up or you just want to save some money to buy iPod. Linux is free, it is licensed under GNU General Public License (GPL), but what the @#$%, why Dell is charging me a couple of hundred bucks for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Well, before answering that, the Linux here means the Linux kernel, the basic libraries that form an operating system. Since it is licensed under GPL, which in layman terms, it means you can use it, modify it, repackage it with other software, do whatever you want, but you have to give your version for free too. So pretty fair, isn’t it?

And the different repackaged versions of Linux kernel are commonly known as Linux distributions, the cool jargon is Linux Distro. So you may have heard of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora Core, SUSE Linux, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Knoppix, and others; those are the different distributions of Linux.

So each distribution is different, though all of them are using the Linux kernel for the core. As for the RHEL history, it is a bit tricky. It was started as Red Hat Linux (without the Enterprise word), but in late 2003, Red Hat Linux was merged with Fedora Linux (another distro), and born out of that is the commercial version (RHEL), and the free version is known as Fedora Core.

But wait, how could they charge the RHEL, isn’t it still under GPL license? Oh hell ya…it is, RHEL source codes are still free, you can still download it from Red Hat Inc. web site. What they are charging you is for the binaries they have compiled in a CD, for support, for software update subscription. Smart move! And it makes sense for the ENTERPRISE, there’s someone to call now if anything goes wrong.

If you are a start-up like me, that is what we call luxury, and that, is a deadly sin. But no worries, there are other free distributions available. Fedora Core is one of them, but it is not as stable as RHEL, as new libraries for RHEL are first relased in Fedora Core, which then moved to RHEL after they are more stable.

But again, worry not, thanks to another open source community, they downloaded RHEL source codes (well, they are free right?), and create a final distro which is very similar to RHEL, called CentOS (Community ENTerprise Operating System). Halleluja!!

Another disto will be SUSE Linux (I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to pronounce). It’s by Novell, similar with RHEL, it has commercial and free version available. Free version is also known as SUSE Linux OSS (what a name).

Now you know why Linux is still not gaining as much adoption as Windows, though it has been gaining a lot of mementum lately. Just to understand the distros can be stressful enough. But, don’t you feel a little smarter if you know other OS other than Windows?

And the recent popularity of Linux was partly contributed by the latest very -user-friendly distro known as Ubuntu (it means ‘humanity towards others’). It is a spin off from Debian Linux project, which simply a more user friendly version. Ubuntu as two editions, the desktop edition and server edition.

And I have to stop now, or you will never visit my blog again. At the end, I chose Ubuntu for my server. It just took me a couple clicks and minimum inputs to setup a basic running LAMP server. But of course there are other things to work on after that.

So Linux for you? And which distro? :)

Three and a half months after going live, BookJetty is finally going to have its own dedicated server. I have just made an order for Dell PowerEdge 850, Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor 3.0 Ghz with 4GB of DDR-2 667Mhz RAM, and will be co-locating the server in Singapore.

Let’s see how the new dual core processor performs, hopefully the response time will be better and the speed will be consistent throughout the day.

I have also completed the book forum, but I am not deploying it yet; since the new server is coming, I’ll be launching it together when migrating BookJetty to the new server.

I think a sevice website without a forum is just like a house without a host. So, it will be nice if BookJetty also has a forum, a place where we all can talk, review, and share anything about books.

I just completed the design of BookJetty Forum in Photoshop. And just some notes on the design: I love the floral pattern of Borneo art, so I’m still keeping it at the top. I introduced a sleek black bar for the menu to add some contrast to the light overall blue shade. The black bar is consistent with the black colour of BookJetty logo. A light gradient background for the forum category header, and it turns up pretty nice I think. :)

Now, it’s time to turn the graphics into vBulletin template, a very popular forum software (sadly, it’s not open-source, so I have to fork out some money for it). Anyway, hopefully the forum can be up by end of this week, as I have to split my time working on the other upcoming Jetty as well.

High volume book such as Tuesdays with Morrie (ISBN: 0385484518) has 532 copies in the library.

If you search NLB online catalogue, it groups in the result by library locations, and shows copies available and copies owned by the library instead of the typical catalogue listing. You will need an additional click on “Click here to see full holdings detail” link to view the normal list of catalogue information.

Previously Bookjetty was not able to retrieve such information, but now the bug has been fixed. It is a really good book, or else NLB would not bother to purchase 532 copies!!! There is also an upcoming discussion on this book organised by NLB.

You can now search Amazon UK listing in BookJetty. Check out my previous Bookjetty update on why Amazon UK listing can be helpful in Bookjetty.

In summary, if you are looking for novels (fiction or non-fiction), the books listed in Amazon UK may have a better match with NLB, as many novels found in the library are UK publications, and yet Amazon US only lists the US/Canada publications, which have different ISBNs from the UK publications.

However, there is a gotcha with Amazon UK webservice, it does not return the editorial reviews properly, so many of the books will have no description.

Anyway, if you are a literature freak, hopefully you are going to love it. Try it out.

Bookjetty currently returns search result from Amazon US, which usually only lists the latest book edition published in the US or Canada.

Different book publications or different book editions have different identifier (ISBN). So a book listed maybe shown as not found, but other editions could be available in the library. Search other editions feature introduced earlier has helped to check if other book editions are available in the library.

BUT…(somehow there’s always a BUT), lately I found out that xISBN is not exhaustive enough, on some cases, it does not include books published in the UK. Yet some novels (fiction/non-fiction) found in the library are published in the UK. For example if you search “Five people you meet in heaven” or “Incredibly Close“, two great novels, Bookjetty returns not found, and xISBN returns no other editions found. It is correct that the US editions are not found in the library, but it does not solve the problem, the library has the UK editions.

Lucky us, Amazon also provides a webservice point to its UK store. Preliminary investigation using the two books above and Amazon UK search engine, showed affirmative results, they were matched against the ones found in the library. So stay tuned, Bookjetty and Amazon UK - Akan Datang (Coming Soon).

It will be interesting to know what are the top searches in Bookjetty. Over the weekend I hacked out the top searches feature for Bookjetty. And here is the snap shot of current top searches.

As more statistics are gathered, I’ll expand top searches to include top searches of the week and the month.

Today BookJetty is two-months old. So far it has clocked 7,134 unique visits, 46,507 page views and 302,188 hits. On average bookjetty has more or less 110 unique visits each day.

Since it’s an ausipicious day, I can’t help but to thank those who have sent in their feedback, be it a suggestion, a bug-report or some words of encouragement. I also want to thank my mother, my father… (hm… something is not right here). Anyway, those emails are the ones that keep my adrenalin stays up high. Thank you guys.

So what’s next for bookjetty? I’ll be working for a new feature to keep track of the search keywords, something like what Technorati site has. Top searches of the week, something like that. If you are like me, you must be “kaypoh” enough to know what is HOT right now, aren’t you?

But looking at the current size of the crowd (110 visits each day), the Top Searches list may not be an accurate reflection of Singapore’s most wanted books in the library. Let’s hope that the crowd will pick up, but I’ll need your help to spread this site to your friends. I believe they’ll find this site useful just like you and me. Don’t you? ;)

Phew…After a few days working on xISBN service to allow BookJetty to probe other book editions, this afternoon I’m glad that the feature is finally up. 

With xISBN service, BookJetty is now able to tell how many editions are available for each book. So if the latest addition is not found, you can now probe all the other editions too!!

I’ve also added del.icio.us and digg it shortcuts. If you like this site, add BookJetty as your bookmark in del.icio.us, and come on…., DIGG IT! DIGG IT! :)

I’ve also improved the NLB session pooling mechanism. Now, it checks the session validity before borrowing from the pool, if it’s no longer valid, it will create a new session. Let me know if you still encounter some issues with it.

Bookjetty.com is my first initiative to release an application for the public. I found myself doing repetitive tasks of finding good books in Amazon, and checking each book if they are available in Singapore National Library (NLB).

The chore was quite time consuming, so I decided to create a search engine that combines both results under one roof. The concept is not new, but lately famously known as Mashup, a website that combines the result from multiple sources seamlessly. A9.com search engine is an example of that, Bezurk.com, a travel search engine, is another example; and one of awes me is Trulia.com, it combines the search results from real estate sites and merged them into Google Map.

Stunning, isnt’ it? Thanks to the advancement in Javascript lately, the introduction of AJAX and browser suport for DOM document manipulations, all these Web 2.0 experience are made possible.

The site was designed from library user perspective. It aims to help user to find good books as fast as possible in the library.

• Popup is  used to avoid unnecessary clicking.
• Catalogue location is grouped for easy visibility.
• Sorted by “Not On Loan” groups on the top, as that group matters most.
• Book locations are grouped for easy readability.
• Total books, Total Available books, Total Not On Loan books in the listing, for a quick view of book availability.
• Short description for each book on mouse over for those who don’t have time to read too much.
• Print catalogue to bring it as a reference to the library.
• Sales ranking and customer average reviews for quick assesment of the book quality.

Bookjetty.com is still at its infancy, sometimes the listing by amazon only shows the latest edition of a book, and the latest edition may not be found in the library, but other editions may be available. This was due to the Amazon webservices Application Programming Interface (API) does not provide other editions information. But thanks to another online book service, called xISBN service, which provides other book editions list. The list will then be matched back to retrieve book information from Amazon and NLB.

I will be working on this feature this week. So stay tune. Thanks to those who have find this site useful and thanks to many who have sent in their feedback too. Please help to spread it to your friends, family or your kids too.

Note that currently the site is hosted on a shared server in the States, so the response maybe a bit slow at night.