searching within file-sharing sites

I’m a certified bookworm — I read anything and everything I can lay my hands on. When the Internet came into vogue, I plunged head on to reading ebooks and other stuff in PDF form. PDF, of course, is the popular file type from Adobe. My only problem in sourcing PDF ebooks was that it was so hard to search for it in the Internet -- specifically in RapidShare, 4shared.com and other file-hosting / file-sharing sites.

This is how these type of sites work: you want to share a file but it’s too big to send over email so you upload it to them. If it’s successful, you will be given a unique download URL, and when you share this URL to users, they’ll be able to download your file. No user is allowed to search the server for content; all files have to be downloaded by clicking the unique URL. This is where search engines specific for file-sharing sites come in — it allows users to search for files within RapidShare or 4shared.com! No more waiting for somebody to send you a URL, just do a File Search within the specialized search engine and boom! You can now download the uploaded file. Easy huh??

Now I can only hope there will be a specialized search engine where all the files they index are in PDF format. Books, textbooks, documents, manuals, guides, I want it all! ;-) It would also help if this search engine will regularly update the PDF database so I can have more and more PDF ebooks to download -- and read! ♥ ♥ ♥

- DISCLOSURE POLICY -

DRAGONLANCE books for sale!

Books are listed in chronological order (according to story timeline). Contact me at 09177041028 or just leave a message here ^_^ I'm also open to trade, Labsie and I are avid Dragonlance collectors!

preludes vol 6: tanis the shadow years (no front cover) - P10 

meetings sextet: 

* vol 2: wanderlust (tas, flint, tanis) - P130 

* vol 5: steel & stone (tanis, kitiara) - P130 

war of the twins (1986 first printing artwork) - P120 

the second generation (children of the heroes of the lance) - P150 

dragons of summer flame (chaos war, 600+ pages long) - P180 

dragons of a new age trilogy (dragons ruled krynn when the gods left): 

* vol 1: dawning of a new age (small tear at upper right cover) - P100 

* vol 3: eve of the maelstrom - P120 

bertrem's guide to the war of souls vol 2 (short stories) - P130 

defenders of magic trilogy vol 1 - night of the eye (with plastic cover) - P120 

heroes vol 3: weasel's luck (torn covers) - P10 

Other CHEAP books for sale here: 

http://www.davaosale.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=129166 

http://www.davaosale.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=129155 

http://www.davaosale.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=129159 

http://shop.ebay.ph/merchant/cutieissa24 

http://shop.ebay.ph/merchant/miss.jinx81

Booking Through Thursday: GRAPHIC!

You can join in the fun HERE! "Last Saturday (May 2nd) is Free Comic Book Day! In celebration of comics and graphic novels, some suggestions:"

1) Do you read graphic novels/comics? Why do/don’t you enjoy them?

- Yes, I read comics.. long before they were known as graphic novels! LOL! I enjoy them because of the illustrations and fast-paced story lines =)

2) How would you describe the difference between “graphic novel” and “comic”? Is there a difference at all?

- No difference at all. "Graphic novel" is just a term coined by the Hollywood people to glorify comics -_-

3) Say you have a friend who’s never encountered graphic novels. Recommend some titles you consider landmark/”canonical”.

- I'd recommend "The Dark Night Returns" and "Watchmen" for starters. Hope that will get him hooked so I can recommend "heavier" titles ;-)

me and jinx are selling pre-loved books! ^_^

And it’s all very affordable! Promise! =) Some books are in mint condition (bought from the US by Jinx) while most are in good condition. I also have books without front covers if you’re into book mutilation, hehe! So why are we selling our beloved books? We are certified bookworms so it really hurts to sell some of our prized possessions. Anyway, it’s all for a good cause guys.. Umm, but it’s not for some charity ok?? Hehe! Here’s the rather longish background --

Late in the year 2007, Jinky (that’s her below) shared her dream to our high school barkada of nine – she wanted our kada to TRAVEL ASIA (backpacker style) while we’re all still single! =) Many of the kada were like, “I don’t have any savings, much less have money for travel..” or “Where are we going that we can afford?” Of the nine of us, only me and Jinky were really into it. Fortunately, the others warmed up to the idea as months went by. Warmed but not yet won over, huhum! =p

So why did Jinky wanted this? From what I understand, she wanted our Pisay barkada to be complete in a gathering (there’s always 2 or 3 missing when we meet up) and that we *finally* travel together. We’ve known each other for around 15 years but the nine of us never really travelled for fun together. Now is our chance – and since we all have strong personalities in the kada (save for 1 or 2, hehe), this dream trip would surely be a blast! I’m 100% sure our time together will make good reality TV, hahaha! ;-)

Anyhoo, Jinky wanted to travel by summer of 2009. By January 2008, I broke the news I’m going to be married by October that year. I will still go on with our trip though – but I won’t be single anymore. Hehe! Then late 2008, Jinky announced her own engagement! LOL! Now it’s looking more and more like a trip for married-girls-who-didn’t-travel-with-friends-when-they-were-single =p So again, the question, why are we selling our books? One sentence: TO RAISE MONEY FOR OUR TRIP! Hehe!

As I’ve said, there are nine of us in the barkada (HOVER over our pics above & see our names) but not all of us are blessed with a high-paying job like Jinky (hehe!!) or earning Singaporean dollars (Charo) and NZ dollars (Sophia). Three of us are in call centers (Mhe, Ceej, Pidja), one is in the beauty retail business (Penavi), one is a teacher (Chin; and we all know how small a teacher’s pay is) and I’m currently a stay-at-home wife earning online. Two thirds of us don’t really have a budget for travel – and this is where the money for our booksale will go to – so that we’ll all be together in the dream trip! ^_^

Jinky’s eBay store (books, beauty products) <-- click the links guys!

My eBay store (books, cds, dvds)

Cheap bestseller books (P80 and below)

Cheap romance books (P25-45)

Cheap non-romance and nonfiction books

my DavaoSale Items (summary)

Labsie's 2009 wishlist

Since I put up my wishlist more than a week ago, the husband thought I should put up his wishlist too. LOL! And so here it is! I hope I got it all Labsie — I cut the uber-expensive stuff though. Sorry, hehe! Oh yeah, he says there should be a different list for our JOINT BOOK wishlist so stay tuned for that =)

1. a telescope!!

2. 16gb USB drive

3. a good ole leather belt

4. sneakers or skater shoes

5. 500gb external hard drive (just like my wish! His and Hers, hehe)

6. steel eyeglassses frame or a year’s supply of contact lenses (grade: 100)

7. Dragonlance books — we already have 90 books in our collection and we’re missing a few in our must-have sets. Check out our book wishlist next time! =)

honeymoon chronicles: makati / laguna

WARNING: VERY LONG, RAMBLING POST AHEAD! ^_^

Our wedding was last October 8 and our first night as husband and wife was spent in the HUGE bridal suite of Grand Regal Hotel. The next day, we were off to Manila -- Day 1 of our honeymoon! ^_^ It was our first plane ride together, our first time to Manila together, our first time to be out of Mindanao.. Despite being steady for nearly 9 years (we were exactly 8 years, 11 months and 3 weeks on our wedding day), Labsie and I never really traveled out of Davao or had fun trips like most couples these days do. Mostly it was due to work (I had 24 hours duty until a year ago), lack of money (we were earnestly saving for our wedding!), and the fact that our parents won't allow us to travel (yet) -- yup, despite us being mid-20 somethings already. HAY BUHAY! Anyhoo, we were superrr excited with our honeymoon trip and so, even though we were still in Davao Airport and the plane, we were taking pictures left and right. LOL! We had dinner at a Suka't Sili branch inside the boarding area and spent our pre-boarding time surfing the internet for FREE!

Labsie started his vacation leave October 6 (2 days before our wedding) and came back to work October 20. We had about 11 days of honeymoon and we divided it to Makati / Greater Manila Area sightseeing and to Northern Palawan dream vacation. For trips this long, it is expected that you'll spend much. But, since we had a condo in Makati's Central Business District, we saved a lot on accommodation and transportation (everything was reachable by foot or cheap PUJ rides). However, from NAIA 2, we immediately 'threw away' P440 for a fixed rate airport taxi (the safest, my parents say) to take us to Makati. Usually, the airport to Makati CBD taxi fare is just below P200 but we wanted to be *really* safe and thus parted grudgingly with the P440 *sniff* By 9pm, we arrived at the condo and rested immediately -- we were still tired from the wedding bruhaha and we had a big day the next day. Day 1, hence, ended unceremoniously. Hehe!

Day 2: I woke up kinda early to cook breakfast (Vigan longganisa and white sardines omelette) and to watch CNN (Labsie hates news channels so I watch them when he's asleep or busy). We were to meet our suki eBay seller of Dragonlance books at 10am near Pacific Star Building to pickup our latest book purchase. Labsie and I are DL addicts and so far we have collected nearly 75 Dragonlance books =) It was raining that day so we were kinda stressed while waiting for the seller. After getting the book, we went to Glorietta for our shuttle service to Enchanted Kingdom. The last time I went there was around 10 years ago (!!!) with my family and for Labsie, it was his first time. Since it was raining, there were talks that EK might close (they do when there's 30 minutes of continuous heavy rain) while we were there. But heck, we wanted to take our chance! Our honeymoon was planned down to the last hour so we just can't cancel trips and come back when we'll have time (no time!!) o_O

Before leaving for Enchanted Kingdom (do buy their advance passes, we saved P400 for ride-all-you-can passes + two-way shuttle rides), we had lunch at North Park first. It was just beside the shuttle service so there's no fear we'll be left behind, hehe! We had Lechon Macau over Fried Rice (see photo below) and King Dao Spareribs. The Lechon Macau was so crispy and flavorful! Much like Lechon Kawali but with Chinese herbs and spices. The servings were HUGE and sooo yummy! And the price was reasonable too! =) And the best thing? North Park delivers in Metro Manila! NEAT huh?? Anyway, the EK shuttle left past 12nn (should be 1130am but we waited for other guests) and we were happy that we shared the ride with Davaoenos and hearing Bisaya banter all around ^_^ Since it was raining, we thought there'd be much less people in EK --> we'll have the rides to ourselves!! But, we were wrong.

Upon arriving, we were mashed by hordes of hormone-raging high school teens having their field trip! I counted at least 5 different high schools there! o_O And there were grade school kids too! We were the only 'adults' there and the kids were calling us Ate and Kuya, wahehe! It was really fun hearing school talks, riding the adrenaline-rush rides with pa-macho effect male teens (I was so damn scared of the Jungle LogJam and Anchor's Away [video at the end of the post] while Labsie trembled in riding the very high Wheel of Fate where you can see the entire EK grounds [see photo below].. And no, we didn't ride the Space Shuttle, we're cowards! Hehe!), eating nachos, Domino's Pizza (yummy!!) and other junkfood while walking around, playing the arcade games (we had 164 tickets!! which we exchanged for a pink cellphone holder and red steel keychain), watching special Rialto and 4D shows, buying Enchanted Kingdom souvenirs, etc, etc. And the best part, since it was raining, there was no hot afternoon sun and nobody minded our wet clothes from riding the LogJam and Rio Grande Rapids ^_^

By 630pm, we left Enchanted Kingdom and waited for the shuttle service. There was a bit of drama as the other guests arrived 1 hour late (again!) and the driver was very much angry with them. Thank God there wasn't much traffic going back to Makati (I guess the rush hour is over by 8pm) and we were able to meetup with Labsie's friends, Goju and Kuya Anton, wet clothes and all in Glorietta's McDonalds. Too bad I forgot to take pictures with them! Maybe next time.. =) After our dinner (we had hot choco [wet clothes + aircon shuttle and mall = hypothermia!] and forgettable fastfood), Goju and Kuya Anton taught us a new way to reach our condo by foot. We used Makati's very clean underpasses and walkways that impressed us very much -- there were no beggars, loiterers and trash! WOW!! Too bad we forgot to take pictures of it too -- we were very tired and still cold this time.. And here ends our Day 2. And I shall end this post now too coz it's too long already, hehe! Actually, this post is not really for blog readers, it's for reliving our memories later on.. But, thanks for stopping by anyway! ^_^

ANCHORS AWAY ride in Enchanted Kingdom

P.S. All the photos here are taken with my Sony Ericsson k800i phone =)

Legend of the Five Rings

Or more popularly known as L5R. I adore the Clan War series of this fantasy line and I'm so happy Labsie managed to find the first book in the series :-) The last time I read L5R was in college and I didn't know I missed Rokugan (and all its amazing characters) so much til I traveled its vast lands once again..Ü If you're selling (or willing to let me borrow) L5R books, pls contact me. I can't find one in Ebay!