For years I've been keeping inventory and accounting of all my various components with an excel spread sheet. However, as the number of machines and components to keep track of grows its becoming quite a chore to keep things updated as I have to update multiple sheets.

 

Sometimes, in the heat of a emergency fix I'll forget where I pull what from which machine. Thus, making a mockery of my neat looking spreadsheet.

I lost count of the times I ordered redundant parts, because I just could not find them.

 

So I'm promising myself a weekend to break out the excel manual and work on linking the sheets. But, before I do that does anyone have a good alternative system? Given all the fancy relational DB products out there must be something for the hobbyist DYI systems builder to keep track of parts.

What I used to do back in the day was something like this. I would take a complete inventory of everything I put into a machine. You know model number, size, speeds, mac address.......

 

Then I would tape that to the inside of the case so it acted as a clip board when I pulled it out and it made for an easy reference, but I would do it all in pencil so I could erase and change things later. Lord knows I've swapped out enough Ram, Video Cards, Network Cards, Sound Cards. I would also write on my IP address and whatever other information I wanted so I wouldnt' forget. One linux machine I kept forgeting the path to something so I wrote it on there too. Of course after committing it to paper I didn't forget anymore, but you get the idea. DO NOT write your passwords.

 

As well I've been known to burn all my drivers to a CD and tape that to the inside in a pouch as well for easy locating. LOL

I do programming in FoxPro. I could wip up something to help you, if your interested.

 

Give me some detail on what data you would need to keep track of.

 

I'll be offline for a week {Vacation} I'll be checking this thread when I get back!

Believe it or not, I just keep it all in my head.    I can't remember anyone's name, phone number, or birthday, but I can tell you the manufacturer, speed, and rough price that I paid for each of the components in my computers, servers, HTPCs, etc. as well as my stock of spare parts.  Now that I'm routinely building several servers at once for clients I'm starting to run into the limits of my working memory.  I definitely need to get an inventory system in place soon, so I'm also keen to see what this thread turns up.

 

The only thing that I don't keep close mental track of are the drives in my unRAID server.  For a while I was keeping track of the drive's serial numbers, disk slots, etc. on a hard copy custom Word document that I made, but I got lazy.  MyMain has a great drive inventory system as well, so it seems less important now.  However, if your server is down then MyMain's inventory isn't going to be very helpful...

I do programming in FoxPro. I could wip up something to help you, if your interested.

 

Give me some detail on what data you would need to keep track of.

 

I'll be offline for a week {Vacation} I'll be checking this thread when I get back!

LOL! I was actually thinking of trying to find my old copy of FoxPro 2.6, installing it in my WinXP VM and whipping something up. But, I'm thinking of trying one of the current DB products like Bento or Filemaker.

 

What I would love to be able to do is drag and drop stuff. For example, if I moved a CD-ROM from one machine to another, then I would drag and drop that CD-ROM from one machine info window to another machine and have all the data be automatically updated.

My myMain plugin for unmenu does this for drives.

 

I could probably add something for other components as well.

Guys,

 

This thread resurrected an idea I've had for some time: an online tool where people can store details of their computers, components, a/v gear, cameras etc.

 

The original idea was around the notion of having a database of serial numbers for insurance purposes. You know, if your house goes up in smoke (along with the spreadsheet of equipment you have in the filing cabinet) you have an online record of your equipment to help in making the insurance claim ;-)

 

Thinking about it, it could be so much more. So far, I've come up with;

 

-Users store info about their devices (PCs, cameras, TVs etc.)

-Users store info on components (video cards, hard drives etc.) and assign them to devices

-Components may be reassigned at will for all of us serial upgraders

-Components/Devices may be transferred to other users for when they're sold/swapped

-Users can use the system to track current equipment or 'Dream Purchases'

-Users can discuss specific systems, ideal for 'I'm thinking of buying this spec' type discussions

-Open XML interchange format to allow online vendors provide buttons which users can use to directly import components from online stores

-Export links to allow a users current system be linked to 3rd part forum signatures (sigs will always be up to date)

-Buy and sell devices & components

 

The idea has legs beyond computer users and can be used to store a/v gear, photo equipment, video equipment etc. Essentially anything electronic.

 

I've built the core of the site over the past couple of weeks and while it's pretty basic at the moment, is almost ready for beta testing. I'm going to offer free lifetime membership to people who help out with beta testing. Given all the help I've had from the unRaid community and how the site (I think) would be of great benefit to unRaid users in tracking their systems, I thought I'd offer people here the opportunity firts.

 

I'll be ready to do a closed beta of basic feature set in the next two weeks. If you're interested, please PM me to get on the list and I'll send you site and access details when we're good to go.

 

If you have any thoughts on features you'd like to see on such a site, I'm all ears!

 

As is the nature of these things, this is a side project and will see development in fits & spurts as I have the time and inclination.

 

Peter

 

I love this idea.  PM sent.