Inventorying Miscellaneous Computer Junk?

drewhearle writes "I'm sure lots of Slashdot readers act as technical support to friends and family. I do a lot of this myself and have collected all sorts of miscellaneous computer hardware over the years, such as cases, power supplies, older memory, hard drives, cables and the like. If you're like me, you have to dig through everything and look in various closets, drawers and boxes whenever you need something. What do you use for keeping track of your inventory? Is there a full-featured open-source or freeware package out there that actually works?" Read more for what he's looking for -- sounds like a useful niche.

drewhearle continues "Ideally I'd like an open-source solution with the following features:

A web-browser-based system (or something else with LAN connectivity) that would allow me to access the inventory from multiple computers

Something to indicate where each part is, i.e. "under bed" or "behind bookshelf" :)

A way to attach one or more photos to each item

Category organization, like "hard drives," "memory," or "cables". Subcategories would be nice too.

A "notes" field for each item, to save misc. information

Search functionality, so I could search by category or text-search any field.

I'm probably asking too much, but if there isn't [widely available] software out there like this, maybe somebody has developed something similar for themselves and would be willing to share."

Comments

First Post

[AntiGenX]

I call what you're looking for a spreadsheet. A small database will work if you need more complexity.

Not to sound snide or anything... It's just, if you are a geek, then you should know how to work one of those thing-a-mabobs.

works for me..

[hookedup]

my wife.

explaining it like "a green thing, with metal on one end, and little things sticking out of the green part" would gets me close to a nic/video/sound card, i can do the rest myself :)

hardware solution

[yarbo]

I use filing cabinets. Each drawer has a label on the front (drives, cables, fans, etc...). Each item goes in the designated drawer when I receive it. Cases go somewhere else.

I have a simple solution.

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Throw it all out. You aren't going to use those 256MB hard drives, or the 1MB SIMMs, or that ISA SCSI card that only works with the HP SCSI scanner that only works with that card.

Now I have only to take my own advice. Anyone need a hundred ISA cards? v.32bis modems, AUI NICs, coax repeaters? How about power cords? I have about 50. Phone cords? 10 year old LaserJets with some toner? No?

Re:I have a simple solution.

[christopherfinke]

Anyone need a hundred ISA cards? v.32bis modems, AUI NICs, coax repeaters? How about power cords? I have about 50. Phone cords? 10 year old LaserJets with some toner? No?

Yes. Feel free to send it all to me:

920 Delaware St. #3003
Minneapolis, MN 55414

That goes for anyone else too. Also, this would solve the problem posed by the submitter. Where's your stuff? I have it!

Re:I have a simple solution.

[christopherfinke]

The question is will you pay for shipping?

But wouldn't the measly cost of shipping be worth it to know that you're getting rid of your junk, but that it will still be going to good use? And by good use, I mean towards the building of my robot. This is going to be the best prom ever...

I'm a karma whore!

[NanoGator]

Why must you use modern technology when you have the ancient pen and paper that obviously wasn't enough for a lot of people in the 20th century? Not only are they cheap, but they're y2k compliant and they even work when the power is out! You can't do sorting like you can with a spreadsheet, and formulas would have to be done by hand, but it's a tried and true technology!

*Here's hopin the mods have a sense of humor today.*

I have just what you need

[eggstasy]

I've recently come across a great piece of software that lets you organize your old junk.
TrashCan[tm], made by DumpsterCorp(r), enables you to quickly and easily file away each and every one of those things you think might have some use in the future, but never actually do. Retrieval, unfortunately, is a little bit difficult, but I hear they are working on that.
Marriage[tm], from your friendly neighborhood software house, "Wife, Inc.", also helps you sort your old stuff by using a rule-based decision support system with natural language support:
" IF (you havent needed it for the past 5-10 years)
AND (you dont want me to file for divorce)
THEN (you must get rid of your silly junk)
AND (make room for sissy, pastel-colored baby gear)"
I have found that after using these two great pieces of software to help organize my inventory, I have recovered such an amazing amount of space, it's as if I never had an inventory to begin with!

Why spreadsheets?

[Dibblah]

Why oh why is everyone's first reaction a spreadsheet?

Spreadsheets == handling of numbers
Databases == handling of data

Spreadsheets are not originally designed for searching or indexing. Spreadsheets have no good concept of interrelations.

Use the right tool for the job, for a change.

Re:Why spreadsheets?

[baywulf]

Here are some reasons people use a spreadsheet:

* There are no complex interrelations to the data. Not complex enough to normalize. Maybe just a bunch of key/attribute relationships.

* Many databases are client/server with a server always running in the background. Why run yet another service when you do something infrequently.

* The user interfaces to many databases are not user friendly. Spreadsheet allow for ease of entry without any coding. Many will auto-expand what you type with similar text above it. Many will provide pulldown menus to do basic queries.

Re:Why spreadsheets?

[adolf]

Databases are cool, but they're almost useless by themselves. Are we supposed to grok SQL statements every day just to locate a SCSI adapter?

What front-end software would you suggest be used for a home-oriented inventory control system?

Or is learning Perl, Tcl, PHP, HTML, and/or C, along with SQL and the different various features of available engines a prerequisite for organizing one's computer cruft? What a weighty project to undertake.

I maintain a good bit of inventory/stuff at home. Here's how I do it:

A cheap medium-size (~4 foot) rollaway toolbox. Individual components (resistors, caps, LEDs), in one drawer. Fasteners get their own drawer. Bundled cables in one. Small PC-card based items like RAM and CPUs get their own drawer. Add-on cards in another. Large items (fans, odd case hardware) get their own drawer. Power supplies and the like end up in the cabinet in the bottom of the box.

When I run out of space in one of these compartments, I start throwing things away, in order of age. An interesting side effect of this is that other things tend to disappear at the same time - a 12" amber monochrome monitor is a lot less useful after you toss the 15-year-old full-length ISA control card for it.

Check SourceForge

[christopherfinke]

Upon searching SourceForge for "inventory", 4 out of the top 5 matches appear to do what you want. I didn't check them all real close, but none of them appear to have the ease of use that they should, but here's what I'm thinking:

This wouldn't be all that hard to put together with PHP and MySQL, and I've got a lot of code laying around that could be reused to put this together pretty quickly. Anyone want to help with development? Contact "chris at efinke dot com" to pitch in.