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The
Database Software
A
couple of the things that historically tend to plague
imported asian products that haven't yet become mainstream
are badly written instructions and slightly raw or
basic software. I've already mentioned that the printed
manuals do a perfectly adequate job of getting their
point across but in all honesty I was expecting the
supplied database software to be quirky, unorthadox
and possibly downright buggy. I was wrong!
Once
you've installed it, a singularly painless experience
in my case, you open up to fairly mundane looking
interface and the first task is to begin the stocking
and logging process.
Click For Larger Image
Logging
The
logging procedure in its most basic form involves
a few very simple steps.
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Firstly
you select the device ID. If you have more than
one DC300 connected this is where you'd select
which one you're currently working with.
With
this done you then assign a slot number by typing
it in or by clicking "Empty Slots"
and choosing from the list of available unoccupied
slot numbers.
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Next
you select a disk category. Each of the categories
can be edited with a double click or you can
create a new category by simply typing it in
the box. Next fill in the "Title"
box and if required the "BarCode"
box and click "OK" and you're done.
Double click the entry to align the carousel
and lower the collection arm and place the CD
on it ready to be ingested. I couldn't find
any explanation about the "BarCode"
text box but I can only assume it's quite literally
for you to enter the rather long barcode number.
Personally I've used it for CD serial numbers.
Repeat
the procedure until all your disks are logged
and you're done. Although I tried to put specific
categories of disk in certain number ranges
this isn't essential as you can display the
disks in ascending or descending slot number,
title or category order with a click of the
mouse.
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Another
nice touch is the ability to get the directory
data directly from each disk (field 1 "Content")
by placing it in your chosen drive and clicking
"Get". One more right click and you
can get the all the sub-directories, files and
folders too, and if this isn't enough all the
detected files and folders are fully searchable!
The
field below this (field 2 "Remark")
is a free form data entry box where you can
add just about any remarks you want, like who
you've lent the disk to or where the NoCD patch
is located and so on and again all the data
in this field is searchable.
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The
search function is actually pretty impressive.
You can do a full search by title, BarCode, Content
or remark and by machine ID.
So
what I'm saying is if you know you've got a
file on one of your CDs hidden two levels deep
and called "me_drunk" you can type
it in, find it and eject it in literally seconds.
How handy is that? And it doesn't stop there.
If you have a music CD and you want to record
the track details you can click "Get CDDB"
which, provided you're connected to the 'Net,
connects to freedb.org,
grabs the track info and then adds it to the
remarks field (below). And of course as I keep
saying it's all searchable.
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The
only oversight here is that once the track info appears
in the "GetCDDB" window (below) there are
no clues about what you should do with it. It's only
by clicking"X" and closing the window that
you're asked if you want to overwrite the information
whereby selecting "Yes" adds the data to
the "Remarks" field.
Get
CDDB
And
if you want to personalise things even further you
can associate scans of your disk sleeve, the disk
itself or even your own artwork with each disk in
the database and thumb through them at your leisure.
And if you've got a lot of disks you need to remove
from the DC300 in one session you can use the "Multi
Selection Eject" function where you set the disks
you want out and it cycles through and ejects them
wating about 6 seconds at each for you to remove it.
A nice idea but one that probably doesn't save a whole
lot of time over doing them individually. One thing
that might make this function more useful is if the
titles chosen remained selected even after this window
is closed so you could run it again to put the disks
back when you've done. You'd need a "Clear"
button to deselect all your selected titles ready
for a new session but I doubt that's much of a programming
challenge.
Another
minor gripe is that although you tune the look and
feel of the database software to your liking by slecting
things like language, font, font colour and so on
the settings are global. It'd be kind of nice to assign
a specific font or font colour to individual categories
or disk types to make them easier to locate by eye.
And
although the physical security of the DC300 may be
a little lacklustre it's good to see DACAL have included
a password function with the database to keep prying
eyes away from your collection.
Fire
it up with the password set and your greeted with
a colourful refusal.
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