Get Organized!

[Otokoshi]

Well I found a little application that may be useful to many here.  I'm sure plenty of you here have a big collection of DVDs, Books, Games, etc.  I found this little app a fun way to organize it all.

Libra

It uses the Amazon search, much like MediaMonkey, to create an entire library of all of your stuff.  If you have a webcam, you can even use that to scan the barcode to find the product info.  You can then edit the items in your library.  Say I let my friend borrow a book of mine.  I'll select the book, and I can make a record I gave friend x book y on z date.  I don't have Vista yet, so I'm without the games explorer.  Who needs it?  With this you can make a games collection, change the properties so when you press the "Play" button it can launch your game.  This is also perfect if you have plenty of eBooks, so when you press "Play" it can open the .pdf file, a virtual bookshelf it you will.  I would love this if it worked on Linux.  The developer said it may work with WINE, but hasn't been tested.  Give it a try, and tell me what you think of it.

[Jari]

Hmmm... interesting software. Thank you.

In a way it reminds me of the long gone DVD Dewey. Actually, I kinda wish it had some of Dewey's features, such as; ID'ing a disc by reading it in a DVD-drive, IMDB support, stuff like that. Well, maybe some day.

Sadly I think that Dewey doesn't work anymore, as the sites it used have been updated many, many times since the last version of Dewey was released. *sniff*

Of course Dewey worked only for DVDs, unlike Libra.

[Otokoshi]

I'm glad you like it.  I do remember Dewey some time back, but it stopped working for me also.  I think it's done by one developer, and he does take suggestions on his forums.  I do think that webcam feature is neat, but reading the DVD disc would be a nice add-on as well.  The IMDB support makes perfect sense, I guess its just popular to have your search link to Amazon. 

I've also used Libra to store my CD keys for my games.  You can edit an info tab for each individual game, so I'll put login information or the CD keys.  Next install I'm not searching around for the codes.  I know Shadowdane's CD key has encryption, but I'm sure that if someone really wanted a serial they would find it much easier to download a keygen than hack my system. 

I have experienced some crashes, but nothing life threatening.  It's just a small helpful free program, so I'll make some concessions.  Making skins for your bookshelf is pretty easy, I'm making a copy of what mine looks like at the moment.  With a little xml editing you can add some flashy details to it as well.

[Midgar]

This is really nice! I used to think the opposite: don't get organized and just used a good search program for everything, as long as I could remember their filename that is.