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Canventory Future Project
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A complete and current digital reference for beer
cans?
Introduction
Everyone surely agrees that in this digital age, there should be a complete
online reference for beer cans. There are a number of reasons why there isn't
already and I will describe some of these reasons in more detail below, but for
now, you must agree that it would be nice to be able to find out how much a particular
can is worth at the click of a button. And more importantly, know that the
information about that can is current. You might even want to see all variations
of that can and be able to see detailed images showing all sides of the can or what
other cans came from that same brewery. It's almost unlimited what you could
do with a digital reference that was maintained and kept current by the people that
are actually using it. This is what the canventory project can be.
The issues
It would be a monumental task to try to go and take pictures and build
a complete database on your own. That's what I originally set out to do but
ended up reworking the software for the individual collector to catalog their own
collection. I don't think anybody has that much time and money on their hands.
It has to be a team effort.
Digital cameras are great and this couldn't be done without them, but if it takes
a team effort, then how do you get every one to take consistent pictures?
Do they need to be consistent? I think a database of mixed lighting, angles
and distance would be better than none, but it wouldn't look very professional.
I honestly think that consistency would go a long way towards usablility.
I think at some point we need to do a comparison on what peoples images look like
in Canventory. Then find the ones that look the best and learn from that person.
Inacurate information. What good would any of it be without accuracy?
I think this is the whole beauty of having something electronic. Innacuracy's
can be resolved! Do the best you can to get the database completed and making
it acurate can be achieved over time.
Where do you draw the line? Cones, Flats, Zips, Pulls.... what about soda
cans? Foreign cans? etc. Well, once again, this is electronic, put in
whatever you want and only look at what you care about. Let the cone guys
worry about cones, let the Zip guys worry about the zips. and so on. I'm not
saying just start dumping stuff into the database, I think it would be wise to start
small with say... Crowntainers and work out the bugs. Once its running smooth
then open the flood gates to everything.
Money! It's always an issue. I think this would have to end up being
a subscription based site. The big question is would someone pay an annual
fee to have access? I think so. Unless there is someone with some money
out there that want's to float the bill then I think it's the only way.
There are many issues to consider and you could go on and on but the worst that
can happen is it fails and we are back to the book.
How will it work. (The dream)
The plan is to develop a site and database that can do all of the things I've talked
about. I would like at some point to build the ability into CanventoryBCE
to submit to this site. Basically click on an item in your personal database
and click submit to push it up to the master. I don't think we would have
eveyone submitting at first, just a select few.
Duplicate elimination, cleanup and verification would then be performed on the server
before it would get pushed to the database. Then it would be an on going task
for people to submit corrections and additons. That's it in a nutshell.
Can it be done?
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