Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with asset

Pain in the Asset

parallax7d — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:07:22 -0800

Mostly mac based school looking for an IT asset tracking system, and an equipment checkout system. (not necessarily combined) There are lots of solutions out there, what has worked in your organization, that you would recommend? I don't want to be too specific about our goals, things are up in the air and planning is foggy. TrackIT is out for sure (bad past experiences). I'm more interested in the systems that you are proud of, or enjoy using, because they WORK.

Where does ABCP come from?

thrako — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:49:41 -0800

Who uses asset-backed commercial paper to borrow? I would like to know whether non-financial companies account for a significant part of asset-backed commercial issues in the US. I understand that a bank or other financial institution will always be involved in the process of creating ABCP, but how often does a non-financial company use ABCP to get funds? The Fed Board website has not been overly helpful, they break down commercial paper into "financial", "non-financial", and "asset-backed".

Asset booking for cars

dance — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:53:47 -0800

My organisation has entasked me with installing a computer-based car booking system. We have roughly 14 cars. We currently use a huge whiteboard to manage this. But we imagine it could be easier to manage if people used a computer to query a database via an asset booking GUI. At least one of the computers ought to be a touchscreen installed somewhere central with a super easy GUI for those who are not so computer-literate. Access control an advantage (registered users, etc). Ability to leave messages about what's wrong with the cars - and equally see what others have reported - a wonderful thing. Also a real boon could be the ability to tell the system, I want a car from then to then - what's available? So..does such software exist, and if not, are my only options coding it myself or using a rentacoder site? Could existing software be modified to this purpose? How does one build a GUI for a touchscreen? Just make big buttons?

Hope someone has tried this before. Thanks as always for any and all help.

Holy Grail of web-based file management?

metajc — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:36:01 -0800

Holy Grail of web-based file management needed for girlfriend's non-profit ... so far, no luck. My girlfriend has been picking my brain for months about ideas for a file management system for her office. I've scoured Metafilter and shown her many sites but nothing has been perfect.

Her criteria:
- Hosts all kinds of files from JPEGs to spreadsheets
- Web-based
- Intuitive, Accessible to non-Geeks
- Searchable / Tags
- Bulletin board for messages, links, web addresses
- Tasks and Calendars would be great
- Budget is limited (Boss hasn't mentioned $ figure though)

Has already looked at:
- Basecamp (I think she likes it but hasn't settled)
- Wikispaces (?)
- Access (I would think this would be intimidating)
- PHPfileNavigator2 ("too clunky" and questioned the search capability)

Personally, I use Basecamp but I think there has been resistance for some reason. If you all want to vote or have other apps in mind, I thank you kindly. Let's put this to bed.

Book 'em Danno

Iteki — Sat, 17 May 2008 05:18:01 -0800

Suggest an offline booking system, no wait... Suggest a one-click WAMP solution, no wait... Flash and flat files mebbe? Scroll right down to skip the rambling details and answer the short version of this question.

Situation:
I have 25 computers each handed out for up to an hour twice per am and twice per pm.
I have 500 users competing for these resources on a first come first served basis.
I am required to know who was using what computer when for legal purposes.

Present solution::
At present the doors open and people come and queue for a "ticket", we hand them the ticket for their computer and then choose their name from a dropdown in this excel file(screendump).
This was fine when there was 50 of them, but the list is getting a little nuts now, and we sometimes get a ticket back in less than an hour and so pass it out again, so there is a lot of farting around in the file basically. The only actual problem with this system (apart from it being insane!) is that it takes too much time.

Suggested solution?
We are looking at various long-term solutions, but in the meantime I need a better short-term one than the one we patched together above. I like the aspect of the physical tickets as people don't forget they have booked, and also it gives me a physical notification that they are done at their machine when they hand it back (I am not, nor want to be, deskbound). Giving each person a user-id and password is probably what the long-term solution will be, and installing some sort of internet-café/library software, but that's outside my perogative. I also like the aspect of having the userlist as I learn each persons name, and I also would like to use that to tie to some other aspects of the users account, for example "needs help" or whatever.

What I ideally want is to have a user-database with a few fields, and then drop it into a similar setup as we have, but where I can just start typing their name to get the list (as opposed to having to click in excel), and where I can see a clear visual representation of the entire fleet of puters and their status. I rekon I can do this myself easily as a web-based solution, but I absolutly cannot have this online, the userbase is confidential, and yet myself and my colleauge both need to be able to access it from our own computers at work. We have a common folder on the server where the excel file presently sits. Is that something I can do with xampp or easyphp or wamp5 or what? WITSuite looks like the smallest all-in-one solution, but is it safe to run like this and can it be run in the way I am describing?

I am also open to the thought of doing it in Flash as a standalone, and am also happy for suggestions of actual software to deal with this in a simple way, I don't want the bells and whistles that I have seen on some cafe/library/resourse management progs.

EXTREMELY SHORT VERSION
What is the smallest, best, lightest, oneclickiest version of a local WAMP solution that I can keep offline and run from a shared folder on our server for a simple ajax based site. Xampp, easyphp, WITSuite?

Where's all my stuff?

ostranenie — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:09:46 -0800

Help me find a locally running (NON-Apache/PHP/MySQL) Windows based inventory management system. I want to manage about 10,000 cables, devices, computers, tables, chairs, monitors, clocks, rubber chickens and other random generic items in about 20 rooms. With some kind of hierarchy..and with notes and a serial number on each item. Just me. On my Windows box. Yes, I know about XAMPP and PHPTriad and all the half-baked PHP applications out there that sort-of work. Freeware a plus! Thanks in advance.

In seek of IT Asset Managemtn Solution

bDiddy — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:36:17 -0800

I need help finding a good, easy to use IT asset/inventory tracking software for my company. I work in the IT department of a medium sized financial company. When I started the company was about 150 people and inventory wasn't really managed. Now we're about 3 times as big and there's a lot of inventory around and we really don't have a very good way of tracking it. Our current system is through emails and a spreadsheet. I would like something that is a bit more robust.

Things I would like:
- Web interface
- Customizable reporting
- Ease of use

Basically, I need to tie assets to users so that the accounting department can bill them appropriately. Being able to tie a user to a location would also be nice. The most important thing is that it be easy to use as if it isn't it's just not going to be used.

I don't necessarily need software that can probe the network for items, though that wouldn't be bed. Price isn't that big of a concern to a point. I don't think I would get approval to spend $100k on this.

An available demo would be nice too.

Any ideas for me?

DAM the torpedo.pdfs!

Salmonberry — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:28:20 -0800

Digital Asset Management. I'm looking for a web based solution that archives and stores files, but I don't need full on project management. I've looked around and it seems like most options go to project management. I'm not opposed to using one of those systems, just might be overkill. I like the way Basecamp looks, but I need a system with different levels of access. For example, if I put up a file for a printer, I don't want clients to go get it. I don't want my clients to be able to talk to my printers.

Basically this is for marketing, people in different physical office locations, no shared intranet as some are at different companies.

I'd like to be able to upload files and give my clients, creative teams and suppliers different access levels.

I'd like my clients to be able to access and download, via the web, completed artwork and look at archived artwork for up to roughly 6 months.

I'd like to be able to have the creative teams and printers, suppliers, etc, work with files via the web interface, rather than through a combination of ftp and email.

Needs to be mac and pc friendly. No software can be downloaded, as many clients have IT administrators that are naturally edgy about having to load software onto their networks. And cheap - think Basecamp pricing.

Thanks for any suggestions. If you're on Basecamp, would it be a solution? I like the interface and I think the clients would find it easy to work with.

Document management on a shared hosting server?

sprocket87 — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:43:18 -0800

Help me find an online document management system / digital asset management system. I'm looking for a document management system (DMS) / digital asset management system (DAM) for my scanned documents. I plan to store all of my important documents, from credit card statements to bills to receipts to insurance info, etc, digitally. I'll be using a scanner with ADF & duplexing to digitize my papers. I need a management system to organize and archive them.

Ideally, I'd like to have some software that can be set up on Dreamhost for a hosted solution. However, to allow for more flexible responses, here are my overall stipulations:

1. Must be free or inexpensive. See 2.

2. Must be hosted online. I don't trust local copies (hardware failure/fire/theft/etc). This applies to portable (DVD, etc) media as well. It does NOT need to be a hosted system per se, in that Company X provides the DMS/DAM software and hosts it. I am willing / would prefer to use a 3rd party host, such as Dreamhost, for cost reasons. They are much more flexible in that they offer tons of storage and bandwidth and whatever else you want for a much lower cost. I don't want to pay $X/mo just for an online DAM. I am willing to pay $X/mo for a shared host that allows me to host anything else I want as well though.

3. Must be somewhat easy to install, configure and use, whether it is a provided & hosted service or a service I set up on a shared host.

4. Does not have to control my scanning experience; I can use a separate tool to get the files digitized but I'm looking for the DSM/DAM service to organize them. Obviously an online service wouldn't have much control over my hardware anyway :)

5. Should have the usual DMS/DAM features: File indexing for a wide array of filetypes (doc/pdf/all images/tiff/archives/etc), support OCR if possible, allow categories and advanced naming/file control, exporting, etc.

I love the looks of Linux DMS tools like DocMGR, but the setup looks somewhat overwhelming. I'm comfortable with basic Linux tasks, but configuring a shared host is a bit confusing to me. Is there any way to even set up such services on a shared host? For instance, is it possible to install DocMGR on Dreamhost? I suspect not, as it uses PostgreSQL and Dreamhost uses MySQL. But beyond this limitation, how does one go about installing their own applications on a shared host? I mean, Dreamhost provides a shell prompt, but not root - are you even allowed to install software? And what about dependencies, etc?

I know Dreamhost offers several "One-click" installable services, like MediaWiki, Wordpress, Joomla, etc, but I don't think any of these are exactly what I'm looking for. I'm assuming it's possible to set up some other service, albeit with more work, but I'm not having much success finding documented "How To's" for this. For instance, how to set up docmgr/doxfs/etc on a shared host.

Also, I know there are some basic Windows tools like PaperPort and Docsvault that do a great job of managing local copies of digital files, but I want them online. I understand I could simply backup a directory to an online host, but I'm thinking a hosted database would be preferable for advanced administration, etc.

Obviously I have a lot of "wants" so this is pretty wide open. Understand that I'm not a corporation and don't need any huge DAM solutions, but I'd like something a little more advanced than a basic client-side software.

Track my Assets

jasondigitized — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 08:54:51 -0800

I have been tasked with creating a I.T. Asset Management / Inventory Process for my company. We are a relatively small shop so investing in a big framework / system would be overkill. We have maybe 200+ nodes, 20 Servers, 20 laptops, 20 Blackberrys, 15 Network Printers. Essentially I would like to track inventory from procurement to disposal. Anyone have a good approach, methodology, or system that I could follow? Do I need a label maker, a spreadsheet, a WMI script? I have no clue where to start and how to do this following some best practice.