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I like readerware which also has programs to handle cd's and dvd's ad if you ave the isbn to download most of the information from te net.

http://www.readerware.com/ witch is Available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Android. Not free, but I like it.

I have an older version that allows me to export to a old palm so I can take a copy with me when I go book shopping.

support for Windows, Linux, Mac, Palm, has versions for books, CDs, DVDs......
http://www.readerware.com/

1. you need software to catalog your books
2. you need to physically organize your books
3. you need to access your catalog in a variety of ways
4. you need a set of procedures to get all this working together

• boxes
• named shelves
• numbered bookcases/shelves

I use readerware - http://www.readerware.com/ - for my thousands of books - I used a bar code scanner to scan them in. Readerware lets you put in the location of the books - to make the process easier I scanned a bookcase at a time, setting an easy-to-remember name for each bookcase as the default location for that set of books. The process took a few hours, but I've never had to waste time searching for a book since then.

Try Readerware. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Palm. There is also a server version. It can also be used to organize CDs and DVDs as well. It has barcode reader support including the Cue Cat. It interfaces with Amazon.com, etc. to pull artwork and info. We've been running it for a while with a Mac as a server, along with PC and Palm clients. The interface is definitely not as nice as Delicious Library or IntelliScanner, but Delicious is Mac only, and IntelliScanner uses their own barcode reader. IntelliScanner can also keep track of your wine collection, track groceries, etc., but is very expensive.

My wife is a private music teacher and she uses the built-in lending system to track which students borrowed what classical CDs, music books, etc.

http://www.readerware.com/
http://www.intelliscanner.com/

I have a large book collection, and purchased a program (which I love) called ReaderWare. It will let you just imput a bunch of ISBN and LOC numbers and then will go out and get the details of each title for you from on-line booksellers like B&N, and Amazon.

It also has lots of standard canned fields that sound like you and your wife could use (Location being one of them).

So given how many books you have, find a cheap bar-code reader (old CueCats work fine with it) and spend a nice quiet weekend cataloging all your books automagically...

Readerware has everything you need - http://www.readerware.com/.

Scan the barcode of a book or enter the ISBN, it does the rest. If you scan by location, it can record that information too as you go. Runs on Linux, Mac even Windows.

It uses an open source database, http://hsqldb.org/. Don't think it works with MySQL, but you can export the data from Readerware.

Does cost something, but I found it worth it, just to ease the import

Especially useful for books w/ the bar codes, I can zap em and then just verify results, much easier

I store em by shelf, then indicate which shelf they are on within the readerware software.

In help, indicates that DB is usable without the software, but I find the software works well for me (1200 book so far, got another couple shelfs to go though)

http://www.readerware.com/

After months of me planning on building a home application that would include a desktop, web, and PalmOS component and never doing so, my wife and I finally gave in and purchased a license for Readerware. It's written in Java, so it's cross-platform. I tried the server component but I wasn't too impressed by it, since it required X to run (and I prefer not to run X on my server). It can connect to many, many different bibliographic databases (including Amazon's), and can search all those databases for books based on ISBN numbers. It can also accept input from a barcode reader, though I haven't tried that.

I second the Readerware suggestion.

It works for books, CDs, DVDs, pretty much anything you would want to catalogue that they sell at B&N or Amazon. It downloads information from those sites for your catalogue database, even images of the book covers. Readerware is shareware, but it runs on Linux, MacOS, Windows, and even Palm and iPod! Since you already have a bar-code scanner, you can download the software and try it, if you like it pay for a code, if not, you can uninstall and all it cost you is time.

I didn't have a barcode scanner, but Readerware happily gave me a free one with my codes for Readerware, ReaderwareAW and ReaderwareVW, the whole thing cost less than $100. There is even a client/server multi-user edition that costs a little more with either a 5 user license or an unlimited license. it saved me a ton of typing for bibliographies in papers, and I could easily export it to a format that made it simple to import into Endnote for citation

I use Readerware.

Spent a couple of evenings scanning in my books, it then went and got all the details from Amazon etc and I ended up with a nice database of all the books.

It was a bit slack on some of the old and obscure stuff - but if it's in an online bookstore, it will usually pick it up.

I haven't tried it for CDs or DVDs - I use DVD Profiler for that.

HTH

T

I have been using a CueCat with Readerware for years to catalog my stuff. http://www.readerware.com/

It is a good cheap barcode reader.

Can anybody give a brief compare and contrast between Delicious Library and Readerware? They sound very similar, perhaps DL is pretty much the same with a much better UI?

Or Readerware, http://www.readerware.com/. Been around for years. Works with Books, Music, DVD. Runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Palm. Even works with my old Cuecat:-)

They were trying to do target advertising where you could scan a paper catalog and they would take you to a propreitery website with the information.

This meant that you had to do it from home, and you knew _their_ prices for the catalogs.

The whole Digital Convergence thing at its heart was a neat idea. Frankly barcodes have been part of our lives for decades. It was only common sense to actually make software that would take advantage of it.

As far as doing it from home, I'm sure someone wrote a driver for the palm, but I doubt DC thought above and beyond laptops as far as a portable solution. At the time wireless internet was pretty rare.

(they also had something where you could connect to the TV, if am not mistaken)

AudioCues. Sometimes you got a mono rca to 1/8th inch headphone jack from the places that offered USB cuecats. Radioshack sold them. Again this was a pretty neat idea being able to have embedded urls on audio broadcasts. This was the one technology DC had a patent on IIRC, the one technology that no one seemed to be all that interested in. But it required that the end user not only have a free rca audio out from the TV, but their PC close enough to the pc to make a cable even desirable. And people didn't want to fuck with moving their crap around.

WIFI is far more likely to make this dream of "do you want to know more press here" a reality.

Either way, their model failed because they were giving away a piece of hardware away for free.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that. I feel they bit off more then they could chew. Their business plan was to basically get millions of people using this thing in under a year without establishing a nitch base. If I were to get average people to use the product, I'd start with CD and book collectors. Hell readerware is still around; a company I believe was formed around making an application out of the free barcode reader. If DC failed anywhere it's because they had no application that people were interested in. Sure they can scan in a Campbels can of soup, and their software would take you to their webstite, but not do anything useful beyond keeping track of who likes Campbel's soup. The few people who were interested in the CueCat had no interest in Digital Convergence.

They work great with readerware book cataloging software, which can be found here. Great software if you have a lot of books and want to keep track of them.

Hey, remember these ?

It's kind of interesting that Amazon is among the companies that are opposing this bill. How many programs currently take data from their database and funnel it for alternate uses (i.e. Readerware)?

check out readerware. it does all of this for you: you scan in your cd's, books, or dvd's, and it goes to amazon, tower, etc. to pull up the relevant info and populate your database for you. it can decode and use cuecats, as well. i wouldn't have been able to catalogue my 1500+ cd's without it!

See this (no affiliation - just a satisfied customer) for an example.

Without a doubt, ReaderWare , a book, DVD & CD cataloging suite that has absolutely saved my life as I have all too many of all three and until I go ReaderWare and a :Cue:Cat I was helpless in trying to get them in order, keep track of who borrowed what, etc.

It was a little slow on my B&W G3, but it flies on my new DP G4.

Ted

When you read a lot, it's sometimes useful to use a program like ReaderWare to catalog your books. It even understands that spiffy CueCat you snagged and use as a nightlight.

I use mine constantly to catalog new DVDS (With DVD Profiler... just scan, and it downloads info and cover images from online... took about 15min to catalog about 140 DVDs) and books (With ReaderWare, which uses the ISBN number on the book to pull info from various online retailers.)

One of the most idiotic items ever? Only if you were trying to sell something with it. ;^)

a desktop version of his list software

his web site makes mention of readerware and that the guy wants $50 for it. that sounds a bit steap. I was thinking this could be the killer app for the cat. If you could scan the bar code on that empty box of Weaties (tm) just before you throw it into the trash, then take you pilot with you to the grocery store and be reminded to pick up a box of Weaties (tm), that would be pretty damn nifty.

if would have to be more accurate than a standard cue cat though I would think.

Or you can go to http://www.readerware.com/ for a book database if you don't want to write any code yourself.

3rd-party Cuecat drivers for Linux pose no serious threat to DC's business model. Even if every Linux desktop user got a Cuecat, it wouldn be a drop in the bucket compared to their Windows audience.

No, the problem is what happens when alternative drivers show up in the Windows shareware and commercial worlds. Already, the $40 shareware package Readerware has added CueCat support. If DC loses this battle, as they should if anyone hopes to continue using a screwdriver or a butter knife to open paint cans, everybody will support it. Real Jukebox and Windows Media Player will allow you to catalog CDs without inserting them into a drive. Grocery shopping sites will let you scan items you want to reorder. Companies in the e-coupon business will latch onto it, all bypassing Digital Convergence.

If DC didn't want this to happen, they should have either made a smart scanner with public-key encryption built in, or they should have required a signed contract from consumers prior to giving it to them. Both of which, of course, are expensive and ruin their business model just as surely as these drivers that took someone a half hour to write in a clean-room manner.

http://www.barpoint.com/ offers a wireless laser-equipped barcode scanner, with a docking cradle, and software that gets you coupons and produces shopping lists. $29 deposit, plus $25/year. They were smarter than CueCat, in that they made it clear that they own the device, but also made it cheap and useful.

Of course, you can always use your cuecat to get a $25 discount on a 'real' barcode scanner...

Interestingly, http://www.readerware.com/ has added support for the CueCat to their software, and it does not report back to Digital Hemorrhoid. Normally, the CueCat device sends a request with your serial number and activation code embedded. THe CueCat output looks like this:

.C3nZC3nZC3nYDhv7D3DWCxnX.fHmc.C3rXD3T1C3nXD3nW.

It's an ALT-F10, your serial number, the bar code type, and the bar code data, spearated by periods and lamely base64+XOR67 'encrypted'. The CueCat software turns that into a request that looks like this:

http ://a.dcnv.com/CRQ/1..ACTIVATIONCODE.X.SERIALNUMBER .FhMC.c3Rxd3t1c3Nxd3Nw.0

YOu can actually replace your activation code with anything. My software replaces it with "ACTIVATIONCODE". It briefly replaced it with "MOTHERFUCKER" but I switched it back. The X seems to usually show up as "04" but doesn't have to be, and seems to be irrelevant in any case. And the Serial number can also be replaced.

Their game is to track all products and magazines, books, etc. scanned by their users in order to target marketing. YOu have to answer a long list of nosy questions when you install the windows software, unless you don't run the "autorun" program, and just run "setup" instead.

This probably explains why they're pissed about Free software existing. Mine, for instance, strips out the activation code unless you actually want to send it in. This anonymizes your scans.

Of course, I can't distribute my software because of some questionable legal shennanigans. I wonder if ReaderWare got a nasty letter... oh wait, they're a company that can probably afford lawyers, unlike me.

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