Heck, summer’s almost over but that’s no excuse to be down in the dumps, so we’ve decided to hold a snap competition to cheer us all up. The prize is a fabulous Collectorz.com Bundle which includes any three of their uber cool cataloguing programs (there’s a choice of 7, including Music, Movies and Books) PLUS a groovy Microvision Flic handheld barcode scanner. The whole kit is worth a spectaculicious $288.00 (£174.00) and will let you catalog your collection of music, DVDs or whatever faster than you can say Fat Ferret Finger Food. Read on for more info…
All you have to do is write in a comment below THIS post telling us why you need to organise your collection so badly. That’s it. The winner will be the comment we figure is the funniest or most interesting, so be creative and have fun with it. The competition will close at noon GMT on September 15th and do remember to give your real email address when you enter in case you’re the lucky winner (we promise we won’t abuse it, we’re not that kind of Ferret!). Here’s the full set of Ferret Competition Rules. Good luck and a big thanks to the Collectorz.com crew for their generosity!
Well, I am going through a divorce and could really use this to keep tabs on my cd’s, dvd’s, and I guess things with bar codes?!
if i get one of them fancy barcode printers, or a tattoo artist, could i use this to keep track of my women, or kids? or both..
No lie…my collection of collections (DVDs, books, comics, CDs) has pushed me and my family out of two apartments and is about to push us out of our house. We have boxes and boxes of these things filling the basement and bedrooms. See, when we move, we don’t unpack the books, so we fill up the bookcases all over again with new books.
It’s so bad that even if I KNOW I have a book that I need, I sometimes buy a second (or third…or fourth [yes, it’s true]) copy just because I don’t know where to begin to find the one I have. My wife is just as bad.
Home inventory…a sweet, sweet dream. At the very least, this system would save me from having to buy a bigger house!
I really need this gadget because I have SOOOO much crap and hi-tech bits of this & that I can’t find anything. I’ll zap all my stuff, then I’ll have to bar-code the Flic so that I can find it. Oh wait, I’ll need two of them so that I can attach one of them to my belt so that I can find the first one. Or–or– I can’t even find the words now. Can you bar-code words?
I’ve got well over 200 DVDs, 500CDs, 500 pocket books and 100’s of other assorted books and magazines.
They’re all in boxes with a very poor manual indexing system. Often the book/CD/DVD I think I’m looking for isn’t the one I think it is. I have no visual record of the covers.
I also have no reminder of who I have lent an item to. I have a record (sometimes) but no reminder. It’s months later I may comes across the sheet with the loned items and say “holy crap, xxx still has my yyy!”
My apartment looks like a warehouse with all these boxes around.
This bundle won’t solve that but it’ll make it easier to track. The barcode scanner should make it a breeze (ok perhaps a flutter of air).
This bundle for me is not just a wish, it’s a requirement!
As of September 9th 2006 I have over 5000 DVDs-
Need I say more?
(P.S I have around 40 HD-DVDs and 24 Blu-Ray Discs, but they are under control…so far)
Although I don’t have much of a need for this, my sister works for a social services organization that helps adults with mental disabilities find jobs. Every year they hold a huge fundraiser benefit concert, and she actively volunteers her time throughout the year to canvas and collect donations for the silent auction held at the concert. They need to rent a truck (which comes out of her own pocket) to collect all the goods. I volunteer every year to help organize the silent auction, and keeping track of everything is a messy and confusing proposition. Seeing this contest made me think that maybe we could use something like this to organize all the auction items.
cheers
Every since Pluto stopped becoming a planet, my world has gone crazy. Just because some scientists think that size matters, they feel they can play with with the emotions of the rest of the world? These are the stuff that form the basis of our world view guys. Just give it a moments thought before you make such outrageous claims. How would you feel if I said that the colour blue doesn’t exist all of a sudden? What will you call the sky? The sea? Exactly. You’ll not even be able to say you’re ‘feeling blue’! I mean, our worlds are categories man. Full of catalogues and categories. Thoughts, ideas, del.icio.us tags. Everything’s categories. Forget the namby pamby DVD and book collections, we need categories to breathe, to eat, to live. What if Chinese cuisine disappeeared overnight from your vocabulary. How will you have those incredible take-outs of origami boxes? What if pizzas stopped being called food? Or fish and chips? Come on, have a heart. Don’t go around redefining the world which you guys have taught us in the first place. And if you do need to get rid of a planet, why not Uranus? I mean Uranus has had more jokes than any other planet I’ve known. Now that’s a headline I’d like to see – “From tomorrow Uranus is not a planet.’
I’ve got enough problems of mine to handle. All this hundreds of DVDs, thousands of books,, innumerable amount of music, and I can’t find the one I want. Just because they aren’t in categories, catelogues and collections. It’s this romantic evening with the wife and I want to light some candles, play some ‘Moondance’ and then maybe watch ‘Roman Holiday’. But for the life of me, I can’t find the damn CD. Did I put it in alphabetic order or did I put it in chronological order? Or was it autobiographical? Man, the evening’s already screwed and you want to redefine Pluto?
So, you scientists, the deal is this – call The Red Ferret, tell them Pluto is a planet once more, tell them to gift this Microvision doodad to this cranky chap whose life’s a mess anyways without thinking of Pluto being just a piece of rock spinning around the Sun, and get the jerk out of your hair. At the very least, you’ll sleep peacefully thinking someone somewhere had a good time even if you didn’t.
Is this gadget Windows only? If so let one of the lemmings who use Windows, along with all it’s viruses and other junk, win it; because I use a Mac and love it.
“If you want to play games, get a Windows-based PC. If you want to get something done, get a Macintosh.”
Now Ron, you’re not trying very hard are you? Is that the best entry you could come up with? :-) Seriously, three of the software packages come for Mac or Windows and they’re working on getting the scanner to work with these Mac programs as we speak. ‘K?
I don’t need to organise my collections but it looks like a great toy… and you can never have too many toys.
I should also win because I keep buying Ferret-recommended stuff and need something for free to appease my Domestic Financial Controller.
PS. Hi
I’m not asking for a big miracle. Let us be realistic.
These cataloguing tools will not actually make individual items from shelves of books and stacks of DVDs leap into my hand whenever I have the gnawing need to hold and use any particular one of them.
However, the balm, the sheer bliss, the holy cleansing surety of KNOWING, rather than suspecting, that I really do own that text, that film, that disc.
Then the hours of frantic burrowing will have pace, purpose and righteous passion. My mind will be released from doubt and despair. A handhold on order will remain. Sigh.
Jonathan Scott
Hmm, a good ferret fan would seek out a better bargain:
CueCat-$1.00 [http://search.ebay.com/cue-cat_W0QQfromZR41] [http://www.readerware.com/rwcuecat.html]
Readerware [http://www.readerware.com] $75 for all 3
Readerware- The tool for anyone who needs to maintain a collection of books.
ReaderwareAW – The same great features as Readerware but for CD collections.
ReaderwareVW – For video collectors, with support for DVDs, VHS and LaserDiscs.
I need this because I don’t have enough room for any new stuff and I don’t even know where to start organising stuff for eBay. I wish this was a joke.
Red, see fourth entry above.
“Now Ron, you�re not trying very hard are you? Is that the best entry you could come up with? :-) Seriously, three of the software packages come for Mac or Windows and they�re working on getting the scanner to work with these Mac programs as we speak. �K?”
People are ‘always’ working on Mac programs when it’s too late.
And I thought this was Red’s column.
No chance of winning now. Eh Red?
I really don’t have much of a need for this personally. However, I do work at a middle school and this would be a great addition to their library. Werd!
Want to see what my closet looks like in one week’s use?
Hold on to your hats:
http://lh6.google.com/cgeyser/RQTaNVbIABI/AAAAAAAAAB8/H0NjJhFN20s/CIMG0285a.jpg
I really need this setup to organize my stuff. Please pick me! Otherwise within this month, this closet’s going to burst!
Red! We need to win this as I`m going insane with my wife blathering on about “this place is a mess! | where is everything? | Tidy up! | What are all these things everywhere? | Get rid of this/that/the other… ” etc etc….
Basically, I`m a hoarder of media (she`s a hoarder of clothes). If I can`t appease her and make sense of all the cd`s/dvd`s/books etc then:
a) I`m going to have to burn my collection. But then I wouldn`t have anything to keep me sane when my wife goes off on one.
b) I`m going to have to burn my collection, and my wife at the same time (make a nice pyre and tie her to a stake in the middle of all those books she keeps telling me to get rid of, and maybe do some crazy chanting as she lights up). Be a shame to lose the books though.
c) I`m going to have to make a statement for the disorganised hoarders of the world and burn my collection with me in it, laughing maniacally. No more reading the Red Ferret though. Nah, couldn`t do that.
d) maybe just ‘dispose’ of the wife, and then I can expand the collection to her empty wardrobes :) Yeah, I like that one. Hmmm. I`m already planning out in my head what to put in all that lovely space. Did you know I only have 2 (TWO!) drawers and a small cupboard for my clothes in the bedroom… SHE has (lemme count…) TWO drawers, ONE small cupboard, ONE ginormous inbuilt double-wardrobe with LOADS of hanging, shelves, drawers etc, and another free-standing wardrobe as well. SMEG!!! I have two little girls (1 and 2) who have more clothes space than I do. Something`s just not right, Red!
Funnily enough, I`ve been looking online recently for some sort of freeware cd cataloguer. This prize would obviously be the mutts nuts though :)
So, once I graciously accept the prize from yourself Mr. Ferret, my plan is to catalogue everything, thereby enabling me to dispose of the non-essentials, which will make more space, make my wife happier, and create more room for me to actually put some clothes into. That is, unless she decides to take the newly-created space for her accoutrements herself.
e) win the prize, sell it on Ebay for a squillion, and then hire a (discreet) hitman to bump off the wife (maybe even make some money on selling body parts to chinese surgeons… who knows… does having acid for blood preclude that idea??), use the newly acquired space for the goods and then try and buy something similar again to catalogue everything. Hmmm, I could make some more money by taking out some sort of insurance policy on her, so I could buy the gear again. Even better, the money I`ll save on her not buying more clothes (and wanting a bigger house to fit all of her crap in), and I can buy all the catalogue stuff AND lots more gear to catalogue. Next thing you know I can buy a tech start-up and soon rule the known universe!
Aaah, I can see it all now :)
But first Red, you need to award me the prize. C`mon! Free Me!
I need this because well the space aliens told me that if i dont win it i would be in real trouble..
I cant let that happen..
You cant let that happen.
ohhh Please save me from the space aliens.. and if the Space aliens do get choked at me , then that would mean the voices in my head would just start going mental…
It would be like a bunch of crazy voices battling the space aliens… this would be one very bad PR fiasco for planet earth.. they wouldnt be to keen on letting us join some space federation or something.. all because of not winning this thing…
so yeah i got to win.. for the good of mankind…
Tiny point…don’t fret if your comment doesn’t appear immediately. My Askimet spam filter can be a bit…ahem…over enthusiastic sometimes and I have to release the comment manually. Only happens very rarely thank goodness. :-)
Back in 1992, my bachelor uncle bought a real nice 6 room Cape because he could no longer live with his mother (don’t go there). Now this guy has always been a bit of a “collector” – but once he was on his own – the obsessive/compulsive kicked in like a double-shot of espresso on an empty stomach.
Cd’s, Dvd’s, Books, Records, CED Laserdisks, and Video tapes (8mm, VHS and Beta !) are stacked in piles from the floor to the ceiling – leaving naught but a rabbit-run’s worth of room to walk about the house. Of course, all this stuff was sorta catalogued at one time – but he has long since abandoned all hope of keeping the Olivetti-born, typed pages current.
Make a long story short – this guy needs a way to rebuild the database – and fast. Sitting down with the bar code scanner and cataloging everything in sight would just make his day. Everyone needs a hobby – and giving him one – leaves me more time for mine.
I am lazy. I’ll admit it. Remote controls are great for skipping through those annoying trailers and anti-pirate ads, but they won’t change the discs. So I had kids. But they leave the boxes on the floor, which means it is dificult trying to get the wife to put them back into my cleverly designed filing system. Boy, I could really use a device like this to help her out. I already have a computer-based cataloguing system, which taps into Amazon’s massive database, but I have to type the title of the DVD/CD/Book and match them, and that is too much like hard work for an idle, but orderly, culture vulture like myself. Sooo… let me win and I can give the wife a gift that keeps giving.
1. The wife said clean up my mess of books, records, ect. or she’ll through them out.
2. Lost my cue cat years ago.
3. I’m lazy as all get out.
4. I WANT IT!!!!!
Three kids a wife and a dog, some help with confusion would be nice.
I’m running a sweatshop and some racketeering activities here, so its no joke when you want to keep track of a bunch of bootleg material!
The authorities keep on clamping down on my operations, hence the need to re-catalogue everything with each sweep. Its driving me nuts, and the barcode scanner would definitely come in handy.
Should the long arm of the law finally catch up with me and I get thrown into the slammer, at least I can start cataloguing the inmates there…
Look at my closet now.
http://picasaweb.google.com/cgeyser/MyCloset/photo#4973339811147939858
I need some organization asap! Help!
i can use this to keep up with my teeth, all 3 of them. dont want to get them mixed up with my wifes 4. shes my sister, and really hates it when i use her teeth. i chipped one of hers this one time, eatin some opposum, i bit down, and hit a bone. she chased me all over the place, with my shotgun. i learned to run real fast that week.