Monday, March 07, 2005

MediaMan v2.1 FREE [Win2k/XP]ONLY

Over the years that you have been alive, you doubtlessly have accumulated a huge collection of movies, books, games, and CDs. Sometimes, remembering all of what you have can be a difficult challenge. Most people don't usually think about going all out and organizing their media catalog like a library, but if you have enough titles in your collection, this type of thing makes sense. I have found what I believe to be the ultimate free media cataloging software for Windows. It's called MediaMan, and it sure is useful. You can add your entire collection to this software and manage everything from within one program. This isn't some sort of hokey program that only allows you to type in the title of the movie and a few other tidbits of information - it actually asks you for the ISBN, EAN, or UPC barcode and then goes to Amazon.com to retrieve all of the appropriate information about the title, including the cover art and user reviews. The information is then imported into the proper category of your library, and this feature works surprisingly well. If you get bored with entering the item numbers by hand, use your Webcam to scan the barcodes and import the information in that way - super fancy. MediaMan also lets you change the status of individuals titles, so if you lent one out to someone, you'll know why it's not in your physical library. This kind of thing is perfect for managing your ever-expanding collection. When you're finished with importing your current selection, export the database to a file that's ready for printing, or to an HTML file that is ready to be shared on the Web. I just wish I had enough media to make it worthwhile for me to use this program - it's that good

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