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Inventorying Miscellaneous Computer Junk?

Posted by timothy on from the bane-and-blessing-of-extra-bits dept.

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."

3 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. First Post by AntiGenX · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

  2. I'm a karma whore! by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.*

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  3. Why spreadsheets? by Dibblah · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.