DealBITS Drawing: Win a Copy of DiscLabel 6.3
DealBITS is back! You may not have noticed its absence, but we did, since I had built DealBITS in Web Crossing, running on our now-defunct PowerPC G4-based Xserve. As such, moving DealBITS to our current virtual server required completely rewriting the code that manages drawings, accepts entries, and chooses winners. That’s now done, and we’re pleased to welcome our friends at Smile for the maiden voyage of the new DealBITS system. Of course, we’re hoping everything works smoothly, but please bear with us if there are quirks or previously undiscovered rough edges.
For this week’s DealBITS drawing, then, we’re giving away three copies of Smile’s DiscLabel 6.3, which makes creating labels for CDs and DVDs easy, thanks to a streamlined interface for creating new designs and an inspector that simplifies editing object, image, and text properties. You can import iTunes track information into your label design, add imported images to all label and packaging design elements simultaneously, and create montages from multiple photos. Most important, DiscLabel can print to almost all label and paper types, and even supports direct-on-disc printers and LightScribe.
So if you want to win one of three copies of DiscLabel 6.3, worth $35.95, enter at the DealBITS page. All information gathered is covered by our comprehensive privacy policy.
Finally, I want to call out some minor changes in the way we’re running DealBITS now.
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If you have a TidBITS account — which you do if you receive TidBITS via email or have ever bought a Take Control book from us — and are logged in (click My Account in the left nav bar of the TidBITS site), you can now enter DealBITS drawings without entering your name and email address. If you’re not logged in, you’ll have to enter that information, and if you don’t have an account at all, you can make one simultaneously with your entry.
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Our new system no longer tracks referrals, so while we’re happy if you tell a friend about this DealBITS drawing, you won’t win a copy as well if your friend is chosen as a winner. The referrals were too small of a percentage of the overall entries to make it worth coding them into the new system.
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You will no longer receive email confirmation of your entry. It seemed like an unnecessary addition to the world’s email stream.
Now that the e-mail confirmation has been done away with, is there another means of notification that one has successfully entered the drawing? For example, a popup or some such on the DealBITS page itself?
Maybe I just missed it, but searching around (including in my account) has turned up nothing.
We updated the page's JavaScript, and I see that if you visited the site recently, you might have a cached copy. I'll fix that in the future if we have a significant update.
You should see a "Thanks for entering!" bit of text appear that replaces the enter button. If you're logged in and you reload the page, you see a note that says you've already entered.
We didn't consider sending email to confirm your entry, but that might be something we do if people find it useful. (We could add a checkbox, even: send me email confirmation.)
Hi Glenn,
I reloaded the page a couple of times, but didn't see the "You've already entered" message. That was with Safari.
I switched to Firefox, then visited the page and... lo, and behold!... the message appeared. So, it appears that I did have a cached copy (in Safari, at least).
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
Strange. Someone else has noted a Safari problem. I'll check what's up with that, as we tested in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.
Couldn't log/sign in just now. I've been getting your emails/TidBIT/e-books for several years, even make a few comments. Don't remember ever having trouble before. Maybe Lion doesn't like "bits!" Would appreciate some help in getting to my account via the email below.
Thanks!
Have you tried to reset your password? We migrated to a new system months ago, and passwords didn't make the transition. We reset them to random long ones, and you can reset it at will to get a new one sent to you. If not, please do contact us directly.
Hi - if you can't log in, please get in touch directly and let me know your login userid (and ideally what error message you are getting) so I can help you out. You can send me a message directly using the fill-in contact form at http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/faq#contact
-Tonya
I wasn't able to enter the drawing with Safari. New password, so that isn't it. Works fine with Firefox.
Had you visited the page recently? We think it's a caching problem related to the update in the JavaScript file for the site.