Adrian Simionov

Not everyone is as lucky to live in Singapore and have access to such an amazing OverDrive collection as National Library Board but this does not mean that us living around Melbourne are that unlucky either.

Or, as of March 2022, be a Kiwi and have access to The Largest Collection of over 220K ebook titles. Well done City of Aukland, you are very close to the Singapore library. If I am not mistaken, based on my statistics, I am pretty sure now Aukland Overdrive Library is one of the largest in the world.

Melbourne is lucky enough that libraries budget is managed at the city council level giving each group of libraries the opportunity to choose the option they want for the eBooks collection they offer. A significant number of library groups went with OverDrive and being a resident of Victoria does give you the opportunity to sign up with all of these libraries if you wish to.

Below you can find a curated list of libraries with which if you sign up, you get access to their OverDrive collection. Again, every city council will have a different budget and therefore the collection they have will be different, but some of these libraries have a significantly large collection.

Best e-reader I could find which supports OverDrive integration is Kobo from Rakuten (although I currently own a Kindle Oasis). I would also recommend using a Chrome/Firefox extension called Available Reads which integrates well with GoodReads and will search preconfigured OverDrive libraries for e-books availability.

As of March 2022:

1. Eastern Regional Libraries - 62.800+ - erl.overdrive.com

2. Boroondara Library Service - 34.200+ titles - boroondara.overdrive.com

3. Greater Dandenong - 32.100+ titles - greaterdandenong.overdrive.com

4. Whitehorse Manningham Libraries - 24.500+ titles - wml.overdrive.com

5. Yarra Plenty Regional Library - 24.200+ titles - yprl.overdrive.com

6. Moonee Valley Libraries - 20.800+ titles - mooneevalley.overdrive.com

7. Brimbank Libraries - 9.000+ titles - brimbanklibraries.overdrive.com

8. Moreland City Libraries - 7.000+ titles - virtualmoreland.overdrive.com

9. Port Phillip - 6.800+ titles - portphillip.overdrive.com

10. Maribyrnong Library Service - 6.000+ titles - maribyrnong.overdrive.com

11. Bayside - 3.900+ titles - baysidelibrary.overdrive.com

If you do know any other OverDrive libraries in the area, please let me know in the comments below.

Transfer.sh is a very popular service used for uploading files with a short life. It is used mostly in automation pipelines, as it allows uploading via curl. You can find the script on GitHub if you ever decide to host one instance yourself.

Most important features supported by this amazing instance I find being:

• Upload using curl

$ curl --upload-file <FILE> http(s)://<DOMAIN>

• Inline dowload, please pay attention to the inline keyword used when constructing the link. Usually used for PDF/TXT files.

http(s)://<DOMAIN>/inline/<HASH>/<FILE>

• Direct download link, via the get keyword when constructing the download link

http(s)://<DOMAIN>/get/<HASH>/<FILE>

• Setting the maximum number of downloads, after which the file and link will be discarded is achieved by setting the following HTTP header:

$ curl -H "Max-Downloads: 1"

• Setting the maximum number of days, after which the file and link will be discarded is achieved in a similar fashion, with a different HTTP header:

$ curl -H "Max-Days: 5"

Below you can find a list with alternative websites which have been set-up using the same GitHub script provided earlier:

Location: Netherlands files.kliksafe.nl

Location: United Kingdom wget.co.il

Location: United States of America get.ludomatic.fr

Location: United States of America this-is-my.life

Location: United States of America transfersh.com

Location: Vietnam f.zamba.vn

Below you can find 35 behavioural questions I collated to help me during my search for a new job. If you will be prepared to answer each and one of them, most probably slight variations of the questions will not create you a problem.

1. Tell me about a time you were not able to meet a time commitment. What prevented you from meeting it? What was the outcome and what did you learn from it?

2. Describe a long-term project that you managed. How did you keep everyone moving along in a timely manner?

3. Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were not able to meet or achieve it.

4. Tell me about a time you had to quickly adjust your work priorities to meet changing demands.

5. Give me an example when you had to push back to HQ or challenged a decision.

6. Tell me about the toughest decision you’ve had to make in the past six months.

7. Tell me about a decision that you regret.

8. What did you do when you needed to motivate a group of individuals.

9. Tell me about a time you stepped up into a leadership role.

10. Do you collaborate well?

11. Describe a situation when you negotiated with others in your organisation to reach an agreement.

12. We’ve all had to work with people that don’t like us. How well do you manage difficult colleagues and customers?

13. We all make mistakes we wish we could take back. Tell me about a time you wish you’d handled a situation differently with a colleague.

14. Tell me about the last time you had to apologise to someone.

15. Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict while working on a team. How did you handle that?

16. Tell me about a time when you received negative feedback from your manager. How did you respond?

17. Tell me about a time when you missed an obvious solution to a problem.

18. Tell me about a time when you faced a problem that had multiple possible solutions.

19. Tell me about a time when you came up with a new approach to a problem.

20. Describe a time when you anticipated potential problems and developed preventive measures.

21. Describe a situation in which you found a creative way to overcome an obstacle.

22. Have you ever leveraged data to develop a strategy? Describe the context in which it happened.

23. Tell me about a time when you were 75% through a project, and you had to pivot strategy.

24. Tell me about a time when you had to choose between technologies for a project.

25. Tell me about a time you had to deal with ambiguity.

26. What’s the most innovative new idea that you have implemented?

27. Describe a time when you sacrificed short term goals for long term success.

28. Provide an example of when you personally demonstrated ownership.

29. What’s your greatest strength?

30. What’s your biggest weakness?

31. We all deal with difficult customers from time to time. Tell me about a challenging client-facing situation and how you handled it.

32. Is the customer important to you? Why? How do you show customer obsession?

33. Tell me about a time you recovered from a difficult situation.

34. Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned from it.

35. Why us?

I wish you good luck with your job hunting.