Lately I’ve been kicking some ideas around in my head for this site. There are several topics that I would like to post about but that remain in my head for the reason of not having a good way of organizing what I want to post. Specifically, I would like to post:
- My SCUBA dive logs
- The books I have read lately and all of the books that I have on my bookshelf
- My record and CD collection
Ideally I would have some sort of custom form to post individual items in each of these categories. And a top-level category page for each where statistics could be compiled. For instance, the dive logs would be conducive to having statistics on average depth, max depth, total bottom time, number of times I have dived in various conditions, etc. It would also be great to have some graphs along the lines of what various web analytics tools generate.
Similarly, I would like statistics on the books I read. I also would like to be able to organize and list by author, genre, etc. And have some sort of visual display of my bookshelves. Maybe a way of locating where my books are on my physical shelves. And a way of noting what book I have loaned to who. Maybe some way to integrate with Amazon.com or similar to automatically pull ISBN and cover art data. The same applies to my physical music collection.
If anyone knows of plugins that can do such magic or a way of doing it within the current boundaries of WordPress, I’d sure like to know about it!
People like GoodReads or LibraryThing for books read. I’m sure there’s also a webapp for SCUBA dive logs, or you could do something with Google Forms in Google Docs.
Yeah I’ve thought about both GoodReads and LibraryThings in the past. Same with a few different apps for SCUBA logs. What I’m looking for is that sort of functionality but that I can host in my own database on my own website without having to rely on other websites. I want something that plugs into WordPress and lives on my web server.
Maybe I’m being too old-school when it comes to data storage and retention. Should I just embrace the cloud?
I think you should, because there’s no point in reinventing the wheel if there’s something out there that’s specifically designed to do what you want and works well.
PS: typo in the first line. “bee” should be “been”.
Thx for the typo catch!
I guess I’m irrationally skiddish of trusting my data with a 3rd party service. Maybe that will change soon… Cataloging books seems like a good place to start.
Well, you’re already trusting Google with all of your email and chats. If you were really skittish of trusting your data with a third party service, you’d be running your own mail server off-campus.