Hello,

Besides the use of Catraxx, CatVids and SoftCat+ I'm looking for a good and efficient disk-catalog tool.

I want to catalog al kinds of DVD/CD's which are not always in the 3 CAT programs area (pictures, documents, etc)

I tested different ones:
- Advanced File Organiser: Doesn't seem to (http://www.softprime.com/)
But seems to be EOL (no development going on anymore).
- Advanced Disk Catalog: I used this one for years, but only can catalog full drives, not dirs (http://elcomsoft.com/). Seems also EOL
- Cathy: Freeware and fast, but limited
- WinCatalog (http://www.wincatalog.com/)

Since we're all cataloggers here, and only want to use the best software to do it I'm wondering if and which programs you use for catalogging disks (DVD/CD/Harddrives/etc).

www.whereisit-soft.com

i use that to catalog my backup.

byez

Fbs

Thanx for the feedback, I've tested this and it look promising and has a lot more features dan Adv Disk Catalog, Adv File Organiser. Especially with the plugin/api options available.

Any good suggestion for a home-inventory catalog (just until Fnprg creates one )?

I use Visual CD for my HD/CD/DVD computer drives.
Its at: http://boozet.xepher.net/viscd/

Really comes in handy when you want to locate some stuff...
The one drawback that I did not figure out is how to combine all volumes into one catalog. It appears to create separate cats for each volume (Cd/HD etc)
On the plusside, it also catalogues the contents of ZIP/RAR and CAB files.

And at least it is possible to search them all at once (or subsets)

But there hasn't been an update since Jan 2005 ... so...

Oh.. did I mention it is freeware?

I second WhereIsIt - I've used it since early version 2 and it's very flexible and customizable!

Well, obviously I don't look at the general discussion forum topic often enough , but I stumbled on this today and thought I'd offer this up.

Back in the day, CAT forum regular and friend to all Mario del Buono (where are you, Mario?!? We miss you, and hope you're well!) created a home inventory db template based on BookCAT. He just renamed fields, created a couple of views, etc to get something that worked for him - and he kindly shared it with all who were interested.

Although I haven't taken the time to use and populate it, I do still have the template if you're interested in giving it a look. But even without that as a guide, the real message here is that thanks to the extreme flexibility and customization available in Fredrik's products, anyone should be able to easily take whatever CAT app they own and work in regularly, create a new db, and customize it to their needs and preferences by renaming fields, cleaning up the interface by hiding unneeded fields and tabs, etc. You could create anything from a simple, single tab, basic info inventory to a comprehensive, detailed record of all your valued possessions. And most importantly, it would have exactly and only what you want and need in a home inventory db. Give it a shot, and let us know what you come up with!

Cheers,
Bob

Bob,

I remembered Mario's post and searched the forums for it today, but didn't find it there. If you still have the template, could you please send it to me (email to: knappeh@sbcglobal.net)? Thanks.

Ed

Bob & Ed,
Mario's post was probably well before my time in the BookCAT arena. I've been interested in a good home inventory database program myself for some time now. In the summer of 2007 I dropped a bunch of related requests here

http://www.fnprg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=7990&p=37619&hilit=home+inventory#p37619

I've been struggling with the MS Access 2007 home inventory template and I'm in the same mess I was in with my old MS Access book database before BookCAT came along. I'm convinced a customized template in BookCAT is the way to go but I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out the best way to map inventory fields into existing book fields. For example, say I use the Book table to store information about a product I own (TV, car, tools, clothing, anything). Where would I put manufacturer info? Is the best place for that in Publisher fields, or Author fields? Or if I some BookCAT fields aren't really necessary in a home inventory database, which ones do I omit?

This would be easy if there were commercial home inventory programs of the same caliber as BookCAT. So far I haven't found anything that comes even close. Some of them have hard-wired GUIs that are so dumbed-down with goofy looking icons and tooltips that they make me want to projectile vomit all over everything in range. Others have very efficient and functional interfaces but don't do much of anything useful. And of course the databases are in proprietary, mystery-meat formats.

Anyone have more rational thoughts than mine (i.e. any at all) on this topic?

Take care,

Hi Al.....for home inventory...

I have been using MY Stuff for home inventory (excluding books, software, music and dvds of course) for the last few years. It is not as flexible as the CAT software but it was closest I could find. It can hold a lot of data such as receipts, owners manuals, maintenance and repair records. Also I can get data out (unlike some) should I want to load into CAT software (CATInv maybe!!) .

Vendor is Contact Plus Software. http://www.contactplus.com/products/fre ... ystuff.htm

My Stuff Deluxe features include:

Import inventory items from DBF, CSV or Excel formats
Support for multiple databases - information for different households easy to track
Add an unlimited amount of items (up to 128 GB file sizes)
Categorize items for quick lookups (i.e. electronics vs. collectibles)
Add unlimited number of pictures from your digital camera or scanner for each item
Keep detailed notes about each item
Mark items for quick printing
Create filters for grouping of like items (i.e. everything under $ 300, etc.)
Print flexible and customizable reports
Export data to comma delimited format for use in other applications i.e Microsoft Excel
Use quick-pick fields for fast data entry
Calculate depreciation using three different methods
Specify appraisal information for collectibles
Password-protection for sensitive data
Ability to quickly back up your data for important safekeeping
Track repairs and maintenance for each item.
Track your receipts and documents associated with each item.
Spell checking available
Now includes an optional REPORT DESIGNER system


david...........

Hi David,

Thanks for the link to MyStuff. For some reason, this is one program I haven't seen appearing in any of the internet searches I've been doing.

I've been trying it out. It does have some nice features in terms of cataloging inventory items, but I'm a little uneasy about some things:

The installer doesn't allow changing the destination folder for the installation. This is a minor complaint to many people I'm sure, but to those of us who manage our own program folders, this sort of thing is an inconvenience. In fact it's very rare for a Windows-based installer to exclude this option. It makes me wonder what sort of file-management libraries are being used. If they're not common to Windows SDE environments, Microsoft or not (e.g. Delphi), problems are likely to occur any time APIs in the OS are changed. Unfortunately this happens a lot with MS, so sticking with support libraries in high-end SDE's like Visual Studio and Delphi is the best way to keep pace with constantly changing APIs.

On that note, I'm a little uneasy about the way MyStuff stores values for drop-down lists, combo boxes, etc. They're stored in ASCII text files as opposed to the database itself. Not only is this another indication that the SDE is something that's not Windows-native; such folders of external text files are harder to control than tables and other objects in a monolithic database, Text file versions can easily get out of sync with the database, for one thing. That could make for a real mess if list and combo box elements get lost or added between data entry sessions. In addition, external text files are vulnerable to changes occurring outside the database application. For example, a user might be tempted to edit the contents of a list box without bothering to launch the database application. Or, if seemingly unsolvable problems occur with the content of the files, a user might try to fix the errors by editing the files (this one would be me). Finally, the large number of IO operations inherent in the use of external text files for data storage of any kind can greatly impact the performance of the database application, especially for large databases. There's no easy way to index and/or key the data in a bunch of different text files in order to speed up access. Besides, text files aren't usually random access; they're sequential access. This means that whatever subroutines are doing the IO have to keep track of record pointers and start from the beginning of a file and sequence through the right number of records each time a read or write operation is performed. Yeesh.

Lastly, in addition to not supporting alternate installation folders, the program does not seem to allow specification of the location of a user's database files. I could be wrong on this point' but if there is a way to specify database locations other than in the program folder, I haven't been able to find it. It's not a very good idea to have data and programs residing in the same folder. The reasons for this are legion so I won't go into them here. Suffice it to say that I was disappointed in this deficiency.

Anyway, that's my take so far. I haven't ruled out using MyStuff. The more I look at it, though, the more I become convinced that the better, safer way to go is to use BookCAT and use the customizing capabilities to tailor it to handling inventory.

I'm open to suggestion and correction, as always. Let me know if I've botched any interpretations of what MyStuff can and can't do...

Have a good one,