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stonebender ([personal profile] stonebender) wrote2008-07-17 11:31 am
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It should be noted on this day, the 17th of July in the year 2008, I [personal profile] stonebender have managed to complete a task that I have been working towards for 25, 30 years? At this moment every comic book that I own, all 4192, are in my database!!!


I started trying to get all of my comics in a database way back when I bought my first computer. Remember PFS: File? I bought it for my Apple IIe and proceeded to enter comics into this flat file program. After entering something like 500 or so comics, we decided to upgrade to a Mac IIse. PFS: File wouldn't run on my Mac. So, I had to transfer the data into another database program, I chose Microsoft Works. I thought it would be simple. There was an export button on PFS: File and a way to import several formats into Works. It turned out not to be so simple and effectively turned out to be impossible, for me anyway. PFS: File had a proprietary format that they were unwilling to give me the information that I needed in order for me to make my database readable by Works. I tried all the tricks I could think of but no luck. So eventually, I gave up and started entering my comics into Microsoft Works all over again.

Lots of people wondered why I used Works. For me it was easy to copy and paste entries. Which was very useful when you're entering 110 different issues of the Amazing Spiderman. Over many, many years I had all kinds of technical difficulties. Sometimes I messed up a backup and couldn't figure out what had already been entered from what needed to be entered. So I had to start over. I also tried many different programs. A few times I really wanted everything to be in a relational database of some sort. That turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. So I went back to flat file. Often because I was transferring from one program to another something went wrong and blew everything up. Sometimes it was because I was transferring data from one computer to a new computer. Remember trying to transfer data on floppies?

It's understandable that I was very discouraged and had pretty much given up filing all my comics. I suppose I was successful this time because I used an online service called My Stash. It had a couple advantages for me. It had that "new toy" feel. So it motivated me to start entering comics *again*. I also thought it would be a good idea to have a back-up of the the database on my system and on another computer entirely. Hopefully I'll never have to re-enter these comics *crossed fingers*.

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