I usually take inventory each 3-4 months to make sure I did not forget to mark a DVD as loaned out or returned. I used to do it with pen and paper. I print out a simple list of titles with a checkbox in front and then run through my whole collection, checking off those I physically have. Which then allows me to know what I really do have, and what I need to hunt down.
Now, today, I somehow got the brilliant idea to use my barcode scanner to take my inventory. So I got myself a nice USB cord extension (no way I'm taking the collection back to the computer to do that!), reconfigured the scanner to add a <CR> at the end of each scans, and started scanning into a text editor.
It worked great! I had to do to the computer once in a while to save, and to switch to a different file for those that don't have the UPC, but all in all that part went well.
I then imported the scanned UPC in Excel, imported the XML from DVD Profiler, set up some lookup functions and voilà! Automatic checking of physical inventory. But that's also when the problems started.
I had so many discrepencies between the actual UPC on the DVD box and what was in DVD Profiler, it isn't even funny! It shows that I used to not use DVD Profiler all too well. I used to just add by title without regards to UPC, so you can imagine..
Anyway, to make a story short, I now know for a fact that all UPC match as of today between DVD Profiler and the actual boxes, and that it took about 6 hours to do, including a slight pause (about 20 minutes) for supper!
And that's how I spent my national holiday
The good part of it though, is that it made me discover stuff I had bought on CD that I didn't even know I had! The joys of having every CD ripped to the computer and played back with Winamp using shuffle on the complete collection!
