My problem is that my love of music far exceeds the abilities of my long term memory. Hence, whenever I go into a record store to shop for music, I invariably find many cool things, some of which I can't remember whether or not I already own. So one day I spent a couple of hours and typed everything into my Mac and printed out a little booklet that listed my entire music collection, sorted by artist, that I could carry around with me in my wallet. The problem with this was that whenever I acquired new stuff, I had to type the new entries into my computer, find a printer somewhere, print out a new list, cut it down to the right size, and staple it together. This was a drag.
Finally, I bought a swell HP100LX palmtop computer. It rules. I set up a database and downloaded the music info from my Mac to the HP. Now, with the press of a few keystrokes, I am instantly able to call up any record or CD that I own. Sure, I look like a geek when I'm playing with a palmtop computer in a record store, but one look at me pretty much reveals that I'm a geek anyway, so no real harm is done.
One nice feature is that it is actually fun to enter in new CD's and records when I buy them, so I always update the database immediately after making a purchase. So while the list you are reading now may be slightly out of date, the database in my jacket pocket is always current.
Finally, I am pleased to announce that I made Paul Phillips's Useless Web Pages Music Section. Check it out. I'm not the only one who does stuff like this.
