Hero Inc.

The more I search for a great application to solve my current issue, the better each application becomes. The current "find of the century" is GCStar .

GCStar is a media collector that can catalog Movies, Books, Video Games, Board Games, Stamps, etc. It even allows you to create your own type of collection and define the specified fields needed for each item in the collection. I personally jumped at this application due its ability to record my DVDs and pull the necessary information from the web. The additional collections were just secondary items that sweetened the deal.

Before GCStar, I had built my own PHP/MySQL based application to hold my DVDs and display them. I had to input the information manually and it was a pain at first but decent in the long run. GCStar would pull the information from the web (IMDB, Amazon, etc). The only changes I had to make were to resize the DVD images so there was a consistency across my collection. GCStar also allows the information to be exported to different formats. I found the HTML format (samples of how it can be displayed [Books,Movies] and best to use FireFox) to be the most useful because I wanted to display my collections on my website. This also led me to begin building a simple WordPress plugin to assist me in posting these collections faster. I’ll post more on this plugin once I have a user friendly and limited manual input version ready to post on WordPress plugin websites.

GCStar also lets you track who has borrowed items from your collections. By saving the name and email addresses, GCStar will launch the local email client to send automated emails if you require your items returned. I find this especially helpful since people seem to borrow my movies and games and my horrible memory doesn’t remember it.

Tellico is another program that promises to perform the same tasks as GCStar but it was originally developed for books and that’s where it seems better suited (based on limited interaction). I’ve found GCStar to be simple, intuitive, and powerful. I also like the XML data that is stored instead of using a database. This may mean I have to wait a longer period of time before my collection is loaded into the program, but it also means I can take the data later and use it as I please if GCStar doesn’t continue providing me with all of the features I enjoy. Based on the screenshots alone, I was ready to download the program and begin building my collections.