Inventory program

[Sandy]

I think an equivalent to Access is on Libre office but not sure

There is and its called Base.

 

[cpedw]

If it's truly equivalent to Access, I would go a long way to avoid it!

 

[Zing]

Notes on the IPad. I would have used Excel, but the laptop is so much more unwieldy to use when ‘stocktaking’ and Excel for IPad is no good. I also back up with a photo of each area or part.

 

[Sandy]

If it's truly equivalent to Access, I would go a long way to avoid it!

Why? It works for most simple databases. It is not as if you need SQL or Oracle.

 

[cpedw]

Why? It works for most simple databases. It is not as if you need SQL or Oracle.

Not really the place to vent my spleen but, as an amateur yet experienced programmer, I've never encountered anything quite so counter-intuitive and needlessly complex when I tried to set up an address book on Access. It didn't appear to be possible to avoid SQL though I never did fully understand that.

 

[Giblets]

There are some good Android apps. I use one which can go down several levels - boat, cabin, locker, container. It's called Magic Home Inventory

Have downloaded this app for a try-out but, for the life of me, I can't seem to be able to enter any individual items! Does every item have to have a picture associated with it or can I just use straight forward text entry? Any tips please?

 

[mattonthesea]

Not really the place to vent my spleen but, as an amateur yet experienced programmer, I've never encountered anything quite so counter-intuitive and needlessly complex when I tried to set up an address book on Access. It didn't appear to be possible to avoid SQL though I never did fully understand that.

Context: my learning technologies department was given a couple of bespoke study days when we first used Access. So perhaps the intuitive feel I have for it is based in familiarity.
I used to use it for organising and tracking a module I ran; 1000 students each year from 10 different courses, 20od lecturers taking a variable number of groups of six students, mixed from different courses, and starting off in as many rooms as I could get from timetabling? Bit of a pain in September setting it up but I could track them easily thereafter.
I imported and exported admin stuff using Excel and the admin staff loved me for it. Results, stats, ad hoc info requests etc all presented on time and with no fuss. But information management is my hobby and I can imagine others not so keen!

After that a boat inventory was a bit simple ?

 

[Poignard]

If you feel the need to computerise something so basic, why not simply make a table in a word document?

Location	Contents	Remarks
Forecabin, port, bin	Extension lead, spare hand towels, spare tea towels, soap, toilet rolls.

 

[KompetentKrew]

It does the trick for me, but as Dunedin pointed out above, you could achieve a similar result with Excel and have the advantage of it being in the cloud for any device. I like the simplicity of the app though

I dislike Excel for this.

I'm not criticising anyone that uses it or finds it useful, but it's not really a database - if you have a list of boat spares in column A, and outboard (A1) and stormsail (A2) are both in the starboard locker, then you have to copy and paste "starboard locker" into both cells, say B1 and B2.

The point of a database is that things have relationships with each other so that, in a proper database, the outboard and stormsail are both elements or "children" lf the starboard locker.

Excel is just a list when used like this (really a spreadsheet is for adding things up and doing other maths), whereas a database is a tree or network of things that relate to each other. The stormsail is in the starboard locker and in the category of sails - these are its "relationships".

Magic Home Inventory appears to have a backup option, so the backup can be saved in one's Google Drive.

 

[dgadee]

Can any of these programs help me find the spare water pump I know is somewhere on board?

 

[dunedin]

Can any of these programs help me find the spare water pump I know is somewhere on board?

Yes if you had one. Pull up list from Dropbox, type in pump to search box and it will find all items related to pumps.
But of course it relies on a degree of sad OCD to create the list in the first place, and update when things get moved or removed

 

[pandos]

Can any of these programs help me find the spare water pump I know is somewhere on board?

The best way to find that would be to buy a new one or change the system so that the lost one will no longer fit...

 

[pessimist]

Thanks everyone. I'll take a look at a spreadsheet but SWMO is not enthusiastic about the display on a 'phone.

 

[Thistle]

Why has no-one suggested memory? It's free, already installed and instantly available; degradation can be significantly reduced with regular usage.
KISS!

 

[dgadee]

Why has no-one suggested memory? It's free, already installed and instantly available; degradation can be significantly reduced with regular usage.
KISS!

I forgot about that.

 

[Poignard]

I would need something to remind me where to find the inventory.

 

[Sandy]

Why has no-one suggested memory? It's free, already installed and instantly available; degradation can be significantly reduced with regular usage.
KISS!

I find that memory at 0300 hours in a F7 is a tad 'sluggish' due to stimuli overload, reaching for a document brings the CPU up to speed very quickly.

Check lists are another really useful way of helping memory and the CPU.

 

[dunedin]

……..Check lists are another really useful way of helping memory and the CPU.

So what app do you use for your checklists

 

[Sandy]

So what app do you use for your checklists

I use a word processor then print out my checklist. I've even splashed out for some and had them laminated.

I spend a few years playing with HP-UX servers and InterSystems Caché, but feel that would be a bit OTT. Saying that I do miss using vi!

Somewhere at the back of a drawer there is a tee-shirt with

cd /pub
more beer

One or two here will enjoy the joke.

 

[capnsensible]