# Adios Alpha, Buenos Dias Beta! (Inventory Program)



## webmonk (Jul 19, 2006)

After a lot of great effort by my batch of Alpha testers, I feel the inventory tracking software is ready to move into open Beta. 

What does that mean? Basically, it means that I think the program is stable enough and is to the point where it's ready to be used by the public. It also means that I'm aware there are still bugs in the system and features that aren't fully implemented, but am counting on you to report them back to me as you run into them!

Sign-up is easy. Just go to www.penventory.com and follow the instructions. Once you've created your account and logged in the main page will have more information on what to be on the lookout for.

And just in case you're wondering... It's free, and I intend on keeping it that way.


----------



## PenWorks (Jul 19, 2006)

I must admit I have been very loosly following your threads. Not being a member of the Geek Squad [] ( JK ) There are many times I would rather draw down on my computer with my .45 than I can remember. 

But I just went to your Beta site and was very impressed with the work of you and others have put into this in what seems like a very short time. Thank you Jon and your geeky friends who have puched this along. I see this program as a MUST have to any penturner that has any kind of inventory and wants to keep track. I know this is still in it's early stage and can only  marvel as to what you or you guys ( not knowing) will come up with as the final product.  Thanks ! []


----------



## JimGo (Jul 19, 2006)

Jon, this looks GREAT!  I can't believe how quickly it has come together!


----------



## webmonk (Jul 19, 2006)

Thank you for the kind words! I've been very pleased with how much positive response and great input I've had from everyone. This project is turning out to be software for the community, by the community. A modern day Stone Soup if you will...


----------



## JimGo (Jul 20, 2006)

While that may be the case, the chef behind the scenes is doing a great job!


----------



## tcastel (Jul 20, 2006)

As one of the Geeks that been helping Jon beat this thing up, and as I do alot of this for a living my hats off to Jon. I've written and debugged alot of software and can recognize talent when I see it. Jon deserves alot of credit for what he's accomplished in such a short period of time. And to not only offer the program for free but to host it also says alot for Jon's character. I do believe it would be nice to show our thanks.


----------



## Dario (Jul 20, 2006)

Hear! Hear! 

Great job Jon and thanks!!!


----------



## Jerryconn (Jul 20, 2006)

Jon,  Very, very nice I played with it a little this is going to help us all!  Thanks for the time a effort put into this and thanks to the alpha testers.[]


----------



## Jim15 (Jul 20, 2006)

Hello Jon,
   Just registered at your site and it looks like a great program. Thank you for taking time to do this for all of us. Thanks to all the alfa testers also.


----------



## Penmonkey (Jul 20, 2006)

Thanks! I really like it!


----------



## huntersilver (Jul 20, 2006)

Hi Jon,

thanks for all of the work, I was wondering you were also basing
some of the code on a type of MRP program?

thanks


----------



## webmonk (Jul 20, 2006)

Hmm... No, not that I'm aware of. I'm an e-commerce programmer during the day so most of the coding was based on solving the problems of implementing requested features in realtime with the standard bag of tricks.

Thanks for trying it out!


----------



## Ligget (Jul 20, 2006)

Jon, thank you for the time you spent on this program, I am sure a lot of turners will benefit from this.[]


----------



## thewishman (Jul 20, 2006)

I tried it last night - nice and easy to get started. Many thanks![]


----------



## Bob A (Jul 20, 2006)

Jon, this looks great.  As of now I won't use it as my inventory is not that large but I can see it as being a good tool in the future.  Thanks for doing this.


----------



## webmonk (Jul 20, 2006)

Welcome!

Thanks so much for taking a look and please don't ever be afraid to ask for features. The worst that could happen is I'll tell you I'm too busy.


----------



## AJM (Jul 20, 2006)

Very nice, I have already started to inventory my kit's and such.  Thanks


----------



## AJM (Jul 20, 2006)

I would like to see a print feature also maybe you could have a line for totals of kits, blanks and completed pens.  Thanks  and keep up the good work.


----------



## webmonk (Jul 20, 2006)

Sounds good to me. I could easily put together an inventory summary page that was printer friendly if that's what you mean you'd like to print. Can you tell me the specifics on what you'd like to have?

Thanks!


----------



## chigdon (Jul 20, 2006)

I just started playing with it and I am impressed!


----------



## AJM (Jul 20, 2006)

Jon, I was thinking that I could print out a summary of the inventory that I could take to the workshop  when I'm away from the computer. Number of kits and blanks.  I'm just trying to think of ways to use the info.    Maybe there is a simple way of doing this that I'm missing. I like the way you have everything organized and easy to update.[]


----------



## johncrane (Jul 20, 2006)

G'DAY Jon great stuff mate. you have done a great job. give your self a pat on the back.


----------



## TexasJohn (Jul 21, 2006)

John - Great work.  This sure will help me get organized - something I have been trying to do for over 60 years  .  Thanks for all the hard work that went into this.  []  Texas John


----------



## melogic (Jul 21, 2006)

Jon,
On the printing thing as someone mentioned, would it also be possible to allow us to print out our inventory of finished pens?
Also, should the alpa testers use their current logon and password you gave us or should we re-register?


----------



## webmonk (Jul 21, 2006)

I've been working on the report/printouts for pens this morning. A little slower going today as there are some fires to put out at work today. If not today, that feature should definitely be available sometime this weekend. Any specifics on how/what it should include in the report?

It's fine to continue using your current login.

Thanks!


----------



## webmonk (Jul 21, 2006)

I've added two things today (my apologies to anyone trying to use it while I had the system down). 

a) You can now edit your finished pen by clicking the Edit link from the View Pens page or completely delete it with the Del link. 
b) You can view a printer friendly list from the View Pens page by using the link beneath the title. This list includes Code3of9 barcodes based on the inventory number you've assigned to the pen.

Let me know if you guys find any problems or have ideas on how to make those things better!


----------



## lwalden (Jul 21, 2006)

Slick! I'm loving this! I put in a few starting items on kits, blanks, and finished pens, then showed my wife. She's the business end of the partnership, and she was having a hard time not pushing me out of the chair so she could get started bringing some order and accountability to our inventory. Great Job!!


----------



## webmonk (Jul 21, 2006)

Hehe! Great to hear! 

BTW, I've added printer friendly inventory lists to kits and blanks and added a status to the completed pens. Let me know if you can think of anything else to make it better!


----------



## cozee (Jul 21, 2006)

Went and registered. Checked out everything that could be clicked on. Still gotts do a little reading but as a newbie, all I got to say is awesome!! And thanks!!!


----------



## dfurlano (Jul 21, 2006)

Jon, do you happen to know excel vba?  I am having a little programming trouble on something I am trying to do for myself.


----------



## webmonk (Jul 22, 2006)

I've done some VB, but it's been a while since I've done any windows programming. I'd be happy to look at it and see if it's something I can help with. At the very least I might be able to point you somewhere that has the answer. Feel free to email me with details: jon@centralridge.com

@cozee: Thanks and welcome!


----------



## Daniel (Jul 22, 2006)

Jon,
 Sent you an e-mail but wanted to add the highlights here for public consumption as well.
 so far everything that is there worked for me. I entered a pen inventory, a blank inventory as well as created a pen, actually pencil.
found only one thing that does not get recorded for creating a pen and I mentioned that in my e-mail. not a big deal just one of those things that needs to get ferreted out by this process. actually there is no menu to ad material but the inventory page has a location for it once a pen has been made.
I would like to see a space for entering the cost of pen kits as well as cost of blanks. also a space to enter selling price.
also a supplier and order number for blanks like you have for pen kits.
I would also like to see an accessories catagory for things like custom clips, center bands etc.
those are the biggy additions I would like to see. I won't go into the detail and summery stuff here. 
this program is simply amazing. and I can't belive how fast it has come together. thank you and all the testers for the hard work.
the interactive growth thing was a great Idea,(users can add items) just hope it doesn't become a nightmare. I didn't actually try to enter the same pen kit twice to see if it refused to, but if it doesn't already have that you may want to make it your next project.
again my wife says thanks you are a god send.


----------



## webmonk (Jul 22, 2006)

Hi Daniel,

I'll dig around to see if I can figure out what's up with the missing material list.

I'm a big fan of the interactive growth (cool name you gave it by the way ) functionality as well! I knew going in it could turn into a huge list, so I built in the ability to make it so that you can see the global list (what you see now) or you can choose to see only the  attributes you've personally added. I haven't turned it on yet because there's still a little more coding to do and I've been focusing on other things until it's actually an issue.

Also, adding attributes that are already on the list will have no visible effect (there are quite a few duplicates already). The only thing that adding a duplicate would do is create a situation where someone deletes one of their attributes, but it doesn't actually vanish from the list because someone else still has the one they created in the database. I probably didn't word that very clearly... 

Now I'm off to the hobby store to grab some turning supplies myself. I'll be back on the system later to make some additions thanks to your input.

Tell your wife she's very welcome!


----------



## OKLAHOMAN (Jul 22, 2006)

Oh my!!! Oh my!!!I just went to the Inventory site and after picking my jaw off the floor and wiping the tears from my eyes I ran out to my shop to take a inventory and will have my wife inventory completed pens so I can put them into this amazing inventory control. Just one addition I can think of might be a page for desk sets ie: pens with holders-letter openers- etc.


----------



## webmonk (Jul 22, 2006)

Thanks for the kind words Roy! I really appreciate the encouragement. 

I like the idea of creating sets and I think I've got a good way in mind to accomplish this. It's going to be dependent on another part of the system that's still being written, but it shouldn't be too long before you'll be able to combine any of your completed item into a set.

Good suggestion!


----------



## webmonk (Jul 22, 2006)

Thanks to lots of input from Daniel (and a whole list of others) I've made quite a few additions today. Here are the highlights:

Cost Tracking - Lets you key in an average cost of kits and blanks and key in your pen cost. We then use those numbers to do some basic reporting (link is on the left).

Location - Keep up with where it is!

Comprehensive Editing - Pages added to let you edit just about anything.


Keep the suggestions coming!


----------



## tipusnr (Jul 23, 2006)

I guess I haven't really been following along either as my computer was out of commission for awhile.  As you have to log in to see anything, I assume the program is not downloadable for use off-line?

My reason for asking this is that as the program gets more popular and the database grows it will, necessarily, get slower and slower.  Also it will get more expensive to operate as bandwidth and storage needs grow and will need fundraising (just as this site grew to that stage). 

The fundraising issue is just my business degree talking as I'm sure you've considered this.  The slowing down is what would concern me as I am drastically trying to wean myself from this computer and enjoy other hobbies.


----------



## RonSchmitt (Jul 23, 2006)

AWSOME job on the program, Thanks for your time & talent.

As for _<u>You folks need to give me some input on what would kind of reports would be useful to you. No promises, but I'll try. </u> _<u></u>How about a spot to add a cost for general consumable supplies that are used, finishes, sandpaper, glue, bushings, etc. It wouldn't need to be broken down into categories, just a general "catch all" category for the other stuff that is used.


----------



## webmonk (Jul 23, 2006)

Scalability isn't much of an issue for this project. The engine it's running on will handle around a million queries per second and at the moment we're averaging 26.57 per second. The server load average is down around 0.7. Once we get 100,000 or so users running you might start to see performance degradation. 

You're right about bandwidth/storage though. For that reason I have not included any images (or image storage) in the system yet. Moving text data around is virtually free until you get into the millions of queries per day kind of thing and even then it's not daunting. Storage isn't too bad either. There are currently 119 users storing over 1000 kits/blanks/pens and the entire database footprint is only 89KB. So again, scalability won't be a problem. 

Yes, it is a completely online application. It would be possible to install it on a server of your choosing and allow you to run it as your own system. Doing that should get you around all of the above concerns.

Thanks for taking an interest!


----------



## webmonk (Jul 23, 2006)

Thanks Ron! Glad you like it!

I'm working on an advanced bushing tracking system so the bushing issue should be handled with that. When you're talking about a catch-all spot for general items, do you mean a tracking system for those as well (like kits and blanks are) or would it just be an input field along with the pen so you could guestimate that you spent 25 cents in extras there?

Thanks for using it!


----------



## webmonk (Jul 23, 2006)

We've been discussing bushing storage and I need some community feedback.

I had the good fortune to be able to take a look at a very wise gentleman's bushing system he's working on (in the very early stages) and I thought it was great. Oddly enough it turns out we had both been thinking about almost the identical thing this week. His is mostly a physical organizational system but the concept is nearly identical. 

What you do is measure the inner diameter of the bushing and the outer diameter. You give each bushing (individually, not as a set) an id number of some kind. Then, you measure the tube sizes and hardware sizes of your kits. At that point, the system can do the matching for you. For instance, I made a corkscrew last night and didn't have the bushing set for it. Turns out that I was able to use the big one from the Gentleman's pen and the small one from a euro-deco or something. Took me about 10 minutes to find that out. If the system was doing it for me I would have known in seconds. It would also be useful for when I decide to try out a new pen kit. I would be able to find out up front if I also need to order the bushings with it.

Physical storage needs to be left up to the user. The collection I saw was neatly organized in a grid box. My collection is a bunch of baggies all thrown in a tin. I want either way to work so I'm still giving some thought to implementation there. 

I'm pretty sure I've got it straight in my head on how to make all the programming/database stuff work for this. What I need is ideas on anything I'm overlooking, other things that might be useful, etc.

Thanks in advance!


----------



## Daniel (Jul 23, 2006)

I see two ways to Inventory Bushings.
I will use Cigar pen Bushings from P.S.I. here simply cause i have the cat. right here and the Ciger pen has varying sizes of bushings.

One is to simply inventory that i have Cigar pen bushing. using PKBIG-BU
this limits me to knowing that I have bushings only for the Cigar Pen kit though.
 this set of bushings has eight relative measurments.
Tube Diameter and Barrel diameter for finial, Center band (2 sides) and cap.
could simply entering that i have a set of PKBIG-BU be enough to also have all those other measurments entered?

second would be to inventory each bushing seperatly. giving each bushing in a set it's own inventory number.
PKBIG-BUF   (final Bushing)
PKBIG-BUCL  (center band Bushing Lower barrel)
PKBIG-BUCU  (center band Bushing Upper barrel)
PKBIG-BUCC  (cap Bushing)

this would allow you to acually store bushings individually regardless of what kit they where made for.
the program would then spit out every possible bushing you have that would work for the cigar pen center band lower barrel. keep the inventory entries consistant with the suppliers order numbers and how you store them is not a problem. you just have to go to the PKBIG-BU bag and identify which bushing is which. (how many of us get that wrong for the cigar pen or Havana?)
the only problem I see is that not all bushing sets have four bushings. some sets have a single double sided center bushing.
not totally sure if that would be a problem or not.
actually reading what the computer spits out at you may take a tutorial though.
I imagine something like this for the cigar pen from P.S.I. and this is a simple off the top of my head list

Finial Bushings:
PKBIG-BUF (P.S.I. cigar finial bushing)
050-0351F (CSUSA cigar pen finial bushing)
11AF      (Berea cigar pen finial bushing)

Center band lower barrel Bushing:
PKBIG-BUCL
050-0351CL
11ACL

Center band Upper barrel Bushing:
PKBIG-BUCU
050-0351CU
11ACU

End Cap bushing:
PKBIG-BUC
050-0351C
11AC     

this list only uses bushings from P.S.I., CSUSA and Berea and does not include any bushings that would work from unrelated kits.


----------



## Dario (Jul 28, 2006)

Another suggestion.

Will it help if you can tie some default values for each kit?

Say Sierra...for sure it is manufactured by Berea, it is twist pen, etc.

It is just a few clicks but makes it a lot easier to users IF this mod is simple enough.

Another way could be to minimize the drop down choices to just the possible options for what was already chosen.  If I choose Berea, the pen kit list should only provide only the Berea kits, eliminating all CSUSA kits, etc.

Ofcourse these are only fine tuning suggestions.


----------



## webmonk (Jul 28, 2006)

Heya Dario!

I think I might have something that will do almost exactly that for you, but in a slightly different way. Daniel, the creator of the Giant Pen List has been nice enough to work with me on this project and we've been talking about using that data to allow you to do lookups by part number. 

So basically you'd click Add New Kit, go down to the Part Number are, put in what you have, and click LookUp (or something similar to all that). The system would do its best to find it for you and let you pick from the best matches. Then it would autofill the rest of the form for you and allow you to tweak it if needed.

I've got a stack of other stuff I have to get done this weekend, but I'm hoping to find enough time to get something like that done. I'll shout it on the boards if I manage to get it done. 

Thanks for the feedback!


----------



## webmonk (Jul 29, 2006)

Just a progress update...

  -We've added the ability to track kits other than pens now (I like turning corkscrews).  
  -You can track your accessories (boxes, custom clips, etc.)
  -Lots of other little tweaks.

Possibly this weekend or early next week I'm going to be ready for one more heavy Beta test and if all goes well I'm going to release it as Live. I'll post an announcement when we're ready for the big test.

Thanks to everyone who has helped!


----------



## gppatnude (Sep 4, 2006)

[?][?][?]
It's not clear to me whether you are live or still in Beta mode.

Can you please clarify??


----------



## webmonk (Sep 4, 2006)

Hi Gordon,

The software is essentially live, the only reason I have not removed all the beta remarks is because there are one or two more big things I'm going to add to the system so I don't want people to think it's done.  The next big additions will be a bushing tracker that will have a few tricks of its own and then a section to track customers.

I've been remodeling our new house this past month and haven't had much programming time available, but I hope to be back on it in another few weeks.

I'm going to guess at the root of the question and say that you're concerned about losing data or the system changing to the point where that your current data will be useless. Rest assured that we're way past that stage in development and minus the expansion of features, you're using the live system.

Thanks for using it and just shout if there's anything it can do better!


----------



## dfurlano (Sep 5, 2006)

Is there any reason that Jeff shouldn't put a link on the penturners home page?  Just a thought if you looking to drive users.


----------



## webmonk (Sep 5, 2006)

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the thought! I'm not trying to *drive* users to the site so much as I am just offering a free service that I hope folks find useful. I would be fine (and a bit honored) if the community found the program worthy of that kind of promotion.


----------

