[kaido]

I want to pick up a good cataloging system for my DVD movies & Xbox games. Originally I was going to buy Collectorz:

Collection Database Software for Windows and Mac OS X: catalog your inventory of CDs, DVDs, books, games, etc..

But then I remembered Delicous. How do the two compare?

[Delicious Monster]

Man you'd be surprised how many people write to support with this sort of question. It usually ends up ruining my day — not because people are asking for a comparison, but because giving an honest comparison means downloading and running the other program for a while and most media management software makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork.

As such, and because I have so much Delicious Library 2 to be writing right now, I will just give you four biased, uninformed thoughts off the top of my head that I gleaned by looking at their website just now.

1. Collectorz works on both Mac OS X and Windows. That means it was probably written in Java. As a former Java programmer and evangelist, let me tell you — as good as Java is on a Mac, most Java programs are a nightmare. Whenever I see that something runs on Mac OS X and Windows I usually cringe. Bear in mind, that's just conjecture on my part, the Java thing, but in general I personally dislike using software that has to compromise my Mac usin' ideals for a bunch of Windows people, unless that software is completely immersive, like Starcraft. Mmm, Starcraft. And you think Delicious Library 2 has been too long coming?

2. Collectorz does that thing where you have to use a different program for every type of media. I hate that. 'Pedia does the same thing. Drives me nuts harder than a pirate with a steering wheel in his pants.

3. Collectorz has more categories than Delicious Library. They probably have more features too. I bet they use sources other than Amazon. You know, all those things you can say about any other media management software versus Delicious Library. However, like the iPod versus its competitors, Delicious Library stresses usability über alles. Why do we do this? Because it gives us a legitimate reason to use an umlaut.

4. Inexplicably, Collectorz costs significantly more.

Anyway, I have to stop typing "Collectorz" now because that trailing z is making me crazy.

- Mike

[Yaztromo]

I don't blame Mike for not wanting to download and run the competitors product. I tend to avoid this for my development projects as well.

Fortunately, I don't work on any projects akin to Delicious Monster, so I can rip it apart at will .

First comment -- Collectorz isn't Java:

[FONT="System"]$ file /Volumes/Music\ Collector\ Install/Collectorz.com\ Music\ Collector.app/Contents/Resources/Installer\ Items/Music\ Collector.app/Contents/MacOS/Music\ Collector
/Volumes/Music Collector Install/Collectorz.com Music Collector.app/Contents/Resources/Installer Items/Music Collector.app/Contents/MacOS/Music Collector: Mach-O fat file with 1 architecture
/Volumes/Music Collector Install/Collectorz.com Music Collector.app/Contents/Resources/Installer Items/Music Collector.app/Contents/MacOS/Music Collector (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
[/FONT]

(And no, it isn't a Cocoa Java shim either -- the file size at 1.4MB is way too big for that).

There are no JAR files inside the package, nor any class files. Lots of NIBs in the Resources directory though. It looks like a PPC Cocoa application.

That having been said, while I've never used Collectorz, it certainly doesn't look anywhere near as nice and clean as Delicious Monster (which I do use, as a registered user). Maybe it has some good ideas in it, but to be honest it look like one of any number of GUI database front ends. And I didn't see anything like the iSight scanning built into DM (which was a huge selling point for me. I had tons of fun sitting around scanning in every book, CD, DVD, and video game I own (at least those which have UPC codes -- I have many really old books with no UPC, many without an ISBN either which had to be entered in manually)).

However, as it appears that both programs are available in trial form, why not use both and see what you think for yourself?

Yaz.

[Delicious Monster]

Well, there you go. Free trials — learn it, live it, love it.