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Inventory Management

ATSystems

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2018
Messages
77
Location
Sydney, Australia
Howdy guys and girls,

I have slowly been harvesting up hardware, cards, cases, all sorts of guff over the past 5 or so years. As I posted in the introductory thread, trying to remember what I actually had, I basically cast my eye around the garage and posted whatever fell under my gaze, forgetting some early 90's laptops, Amstrad kit, Spectrum and other gear which are quietly contemplating their collective existence in various boxes scattered around my domain. Thinking it over, apart from the stuff I most often play with, I have literally no idea what I actually have. If someone asked "hey, have you got a double height 360K floppy drive floating around spare?", I would have no idea.

Got me thinking, how does VCF catalogue and track their gear? I guess I could just unbox everything and throw it into a spreadsheet..

20181218_184612.jpg

..but that's going to be easier typed than done, and I want to be sure I have a good method before I temporarily unleash a silicone tsunami upon my lounge room (that's only about 50% of it as well -_-).

Suggestions? Ideas? How do you do it?
 
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Got me thinking, how does VCF catalogue and track their gear? I guess I could just unbox everything and throw it into a spreadsheet..

Suggestions? Ideas? How do you do it?
Yes, a computer is definitely the answer.

Even a simple text file list or lists will suffice.

Anything you're comfortable using will work.
 
I never mastered spreadsheets. I've been using Notepad and AZZ Cardfile which is a PIM that is a replacement for MS Cardfile to keep my lists.
 
I've used Airtable for my stuff. It's an online database creator that links with my Google Drive. Pretty easy to build out the DB you need, with the info you want to add to each item and you can then include pictures and even share the DB for others to view. Works very well.
 
"This website was generated by the iPhone application MyStuff2". I have to say, that's a pretty neat solution for just walking around, taking pictures, giving some small labels, and generating a website of the results. Some more research shows this is a category of "home inventory" apps.

I haven't gotten around to my hardware, but I've categorized my software collection simply using a google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g59V1q6_trI6y8Kn-dLROq7FKZKBU7YVvaHQX_wHfIo/edit?usp=sharing
 
That's really quite impressive!

How many lifetimes did it take you to put it all together? :)

It evens out with the number of lifetimes I save not running around looking for things I know I had "somewhere".

Seriously, it doesn't take that much time to snap a photo of the item and scan the barcode. I usually batch update the text info later on when on a commuter train (some people watch stupid youtube videos - I update stupid inventories of old crap)
 
Many years ago (in the 90's iirc) I built a database for this task in Microsoft Access. It worked, but I stopped using it because invariably I'd find myself wanting to access the database from a system that did not happen to have Access installed.

Doing it today I would just use a spreadsheet. The data handling features in a spreadsheet (filtering and sorting mostly) are good enough for this to be workable. I recommend keeping systems and components on separate tabs.
 
It evens out with the number of lifetimes I save not running around looking for things I know I had "somewhere".
You got that right. :)

Seriously, it doesn't take that much time to snap a photo of the item and scan the barcode. I usually batch update the text info later on when on a commuter train (some people watch stupid youtube videos - I update stupid inventories of old crap)
To bad it's iPhone only -- all my devices are Android or I'd give it a try.
 
"This website was generated by the iPhone application MyStuff2". I have to say, that's a pretty neat solution for just walking around, taking pictures, giving some small labels, and generating a website of the results. Some more research shows this is a category of "home inventory" apps.

Yes. Initially I thought about doing something on my own. But lets face it, there is 24 hours a day that are full with other things to do. Learning how write apps, creating databases or whatever and then maintain it. Don't think it will happen.

So this was the best I could find when I looked a couple of years back. I then used a postscript barcode generator (https://github.com/bwipp/postscriptbarcode/wiki) together with some om my own hack to output the labels on a sheet with 64 adhesive labels. Print twenty of those sheets and you have plenty. Then just attach them to the items.
 
I've got mine all in an app on my phone called Memento Database, has a great range of options, fields, sorting and links with Google Drive.

Been using the free version just fine and have it filled with items along with pictures for them, all categorized and displayed in their distinct categories with various fields like serial numbers, bar codes. I even have a seperate tab in the item view for computer hardware info. Even customized my database to only display that tab if the item category is 'computer' not for something else, like 'manual.' :D

So while it organizes items as a database, it also displays them in an easy to read and organized look, which is the main draw for me.
 
I've got mine all in an app on my phone called Memento Database, has a great range of options, fields, sorting and links with Google Drive.

Been using the free version just fine and have it filled with items along with pictures for them, all categorized and displayed in their distinct categories with various fields like serial numbers, bar codes. I even have a seperate tab in the item view for computer hardware info. Even customized my database to only display that tab if the item category is 'computer' not for something else, like 'manual.' :D

So while it organizes items as a database, it also displays them in an easy to read and organized look, which is the main draw for me.
Gave it a try and it looks good.

I have one question. Are you able to save a local copy to your computer? I'm running it from the computer OK but it's still using the cloud database and I'd like to be able to run it entirely locally (on the computer) without having to run it from the cloud database.
 
Not really familiar with the desktop version, but I tried it real quick to check and it doesn't look like it, plus annoyingly CSV export is only with the pro version, unlike the mobile app. :|
 
Ya', I looked everywhere and it doesn't.

I wanted to be able to run it locally because I installed it on my 11" tablet. Turns out it takes 1 MB pics on that tablet and that means you can only get ~ 50 pics with that 50 MB limit for cloud use. So I put it on a 7" tablet which takes roughly 500 KB pics with the program so I'll get ~ 100 pics with the smaller tablet. That might suffice. Or maybe it depends on which camera program is being used to take the pics that determines the pic size? I really don't use the tablets' cameras that much so I'm not too familiar with their individual operational characteristics. If I select a different camera program to use for taking these pics will I get different pic sizes with each one?

What camera program do you use and what size pics do you get?
 
OK, I figured it out.

The program uses the settings of whatever camera program you choose to let it use for each pic. So you can basically take whatever size pic you like by changing the camera program's pic size setting.
 
Database - MS Access or OpenOfffice. Easy enough to use and plenty of YouTube videos showing how to set them up and insert images or attachments.

These won't be discontinued in a year or 2 like a lot of cellphone apps.
 
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