Sitting at Starbucks – I’m so glad it’s over

Life

This week has been one of the most hectic of my life! I’ve had to:

  • Prepare for a final exam
  • Work on my panel for BookExpo America
  • Finish my wedding invitations
  • Create a wedding RSVP website

Then there were a few things I wanted to do, like work on my “auto post WordPress book review to Goodreads” plugin… more on that later… and plan for BEA, write blog posts, read, etc.

All on top of my normal duties, which include:

  • Working with clients
  • Responding to emails
  • Responding to support tickets

It was hectic! And really overwhelming at times. I’m just so glad this week is over! I was able to scratch off a few of those big things like the final exam (which I’ll be sitting at when this post goes up), the wedding invites/website (most of the website..), and the BEA panel (at least the prep part).

New Books

I got two AWESOME package from Disney! This was a huge surprise because I honestly don’t think I’ve ever given them my shipping address… except perhaps at BEA 2013 (on a business card), or they can see it on NetGalley. But I’ve never ever actually requested a physical ARC from them (I don’t think?), so getting two cool packages was a pleasant surprise!

Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly Package from Disney

Summer Chills package from Disney

These got delivered to my parents’ house in California so I haven’t properly seen them yet, but my mom did a little unveiling for me over webcam and then sent me these photos! She’ll be bringing them to me when we meet in New York for BEA, then I’ll take them back to England.

I also got this pretty from NetGalley:

Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
Goodreads

Blog Designs

Pretty Reader (pre-made)

Pretty Reader WordPress Theme

This is my latest unique pre-made theme! It seems I use a ton of green in my unique pre-mades. Has anyone else noticed that? It becomes pretty obvious when you see the thumbnails on my Unique WordPress Themes page.

Anyway, I’m super happy with this theme! I’d almost like to keep it for myself, haha.

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Spineless Obsessions (client work)

Spineless Obsessions Blog Design

I loved working with Jennifer to create a design for her new blog. It satisfied my desire to do something dark and sexy. I love it!

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Coding Woes

When I finish a book, I immediately type up the review on WordPress. Then when it’s done and scheduled, I copy the review, tweak it a little, and post it on Goodreads. A few weeks ago I had an awesome thought: what if I could automatically post my review to Goodreads from WordPress? Last weekend, Coding God and I got started on this project.

It’s a tricky plugin to make because it requires that you login to Goodreads through WordPress (basically authorize your blog to use your Goodreads credentials). This requires something called OAuth. Neither Coding God or I were super familiar with OAuth though. It can be a bit tricky and confusing to work with because there’s not a lot of documentation on how to actually use it. But we got started and finally had something that worked…. for a while. Some of you may have seen me posting “reviews” for Death Sworn all last weekend with text like, “This review came from WordPress.”

… But then it stopped working.

Well, Goodreads has HORRIBLE documentation for their API and we finally realized that we were using an OAuth version 1.0a library, which Goodreads doesn’t support (naturally, because they don’t give a shit about their API). They ONLY support version 1.0. Presumably, that’s why it was finicky and decided to stop working. So now Coding God and I have to basically start over from scratch and find a library that’s specifically for version 1.0 (which is actually kind of hard because that version is out of date).

So far working on this has been kind of a nightmare. I can’t even count the amount of times I ran to the bed on Sunday and buried myself in the pillows to seek “comfort” when things weren’t going well.

Other Coding News

In other news, I’ve decided to possibly sell some of my old Nose Graze themes as pre-mades. When I was using some of my old themes tons of people would ask where they could get them (clearly not realizing I made them myself :P). So I might put them up for sale.

I started re-coding my previous Nose Graze theme already. It has an unnecessarily large settings panel that might even rival Tweak Me. I’m starting to question my sanity!

Nose Graze theme settings panel

What’s going on with you this week?

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I'm a 30-something California girl living in England (I fell in love with a Brit!). My three great passions are: books, coding, and fitness. more »

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30 comments

  1. Awww, pretty reader is so cute!

    Yeah, I do not envy your busy week. But you are awesome so I know you could handle it. Me, I would be sitting in the corner, crying. I got Trial by Fire too. Funny, because when I saw it I thought, ‘This is a book Ash would grab.’

    That blog to goodreads plugin would be AWESOME. I hope you find a way to make it work.

    Jennifer Bielman recently posted: Stacking The Shelves #78: ARC Crazy!
    1. Haha I hope Trial by Fire is awesome! I think it sounds very cool but I didn’t like the one Josephine Angelini book I’ve read… so that made me a bit nervous. Fingers crossed!

  2. what an awesome package for those books! wouldn’t it be awful if you absolutely hated those books after all the effort put in to packaging them?? *evil grin*

    The post to goodreads plugin sounds awesome – would definitely be interested in purchasing that if you get it worked out. Same with that pre-made theme from your old nosegraze theme.

    1. Ahh it would make me so sad if I didn’t like the books!

      Fingers crossed that I get that plugin worked out.. I really hope I do because I want it for myself hahaha.

  3. WOW!! Looks like your week was a super hectic one xD But hey! At least it was productive, right? 😀 I love the new themes! And all the best for the coding work! 🙂 Haha, and it’s super awesome that you’re working on a super huge coding project for Nose Graze! I personally don’t know how you do it!! >< I'm trying to work on the new blog design I have in mind, and the code is driving me nuts!! The CSS is pretty tough to get write, but dood. THE PHP! Really it just boggles my mind 😛
    Have a great week ahead, Ashley! 🙂

    1. PHP just takes practice! I know it’s scary at first! It used to look like gibberish to me. Btw I got your email and I’ll hopefully reply tonight. 🙂

  4. You got me interested in your WordPress-to-GoodReads tool.
    Did you check the (official) GoodReads widgets for WP? It’s completely the inverse of what you want to do, but you might be able to find what they use to connect to GoodReads with this Widget, and some good examples on how to use their API.
    By the way, I wish you very good luck for your last exam! You’re almost done! 😉

    Lily recently posted: How to keep your bookshelf lean
    1. That widget won’t help since it is the opposite. Like, for the one I want, it communicates from WordPress to Goodreads, so it doesn’t need WP credentials (since you’re already on WP), it needs GR credentials. But the Goodreads one is the opposite, so it doesn’t need Goodreads credentials (since you’re on Goodreads) and thus it doesn’t use their API. Instead it asks for WordPress credentials… if that makes sense!

      I’m hoping to have another hardcore coding session with Coding God tomorrow and maybe we’ll finally sort it out! WE SHALL CONQUER THIS!

      1. Ohhhh yes, indeed X_x I forgot that reviews are accessible publicly. Sorry :/

        Well, good luck then! Keep us informed, it’s a cool project!

  5. A lot of news! First off, your haul this week looks awesome! I’m going t BEA for the third time this year, but I have never been to the Blogger Convention portion. Is it good?

    At least some of your stresses are over and you get to have fun in NYC next week. I hope that you can figure out how the WP>>Godreads plug-in because it sound really good (a big time saver!)

    Liza @ Reading with ABC recently posted: We’ve Been Tagged! The Book Blogger Test
    1. I really hope I see you there! 🙂

      I enjoy the blogger convention. I’ve only been once so far (last year) but it was pretty good. The panels weren’t fabulous, but it was good enough that I was glad I went. I met a few bloggers and got a few awesome books that I was able to scratch off my “must get at BEA” list, so that’s nice. 😀

  6. Wow, I’ve only recently discovered your blog and I’m awed by the combination of bookish stuff and coding! I know bits and pieces about programming, but to see it used for such a cool purpose is very nice.

    Kaja recently posted: Castle Days
  7. I love the pre-made theme “Pretty Reader”. It’s gorgeous! Also the one you did for your client is very dark and sexy. I love it too! You do such amazing work.

    Whenever you get the bugs worked out of that wordpress to goodreads plugin thing… it sounds very interesting to me. I’d buy it for sure. It’s just an extra step to have to copy and paste your whole review over to gr. It’s an amazing idea.

    Man, you got a lot on your plate girl. Hopefully you’ll get some “me-time” soon.

    Carrie recently posted: New Book Purchases
  8. Have I ever told you that I am a big fan of your designs? haha, I’m taking Multimedia Arts and I’m planning to study web development. I know this isn’t a bookish comment. But I think you’re awesome for making these kind of plugins. It inspires me a lot 😀

    1. Thank you so much Jules! 😀 Best of luck with your studies! Being able to make your own plugins is SO satisfying. 🙂

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