Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Weaver]

I have got so many bits of kit in the office. Modems; switches; WAPs; poe injectors; cables; psus, spare router Firebrick FB2500; 4G portable backup router; more cables; mains anti-surge units; UPSs; more cables; a 4G antenna, I hope; etc etc. Janet does not know what they all are and can't find anything and can't keep it all tidy.

Any ideas for keeping all this kit straight so that she can find things, keep stuff in order, identify what is what, know what things are for, not lose things and so on?

For example, she has buried/misplaced my 4G antenna which is in some faceless box, so I will either have to get some help searching through all the gubbins for it or will have to give up and buy another. Like the scene in the giant warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

I have started writing a text file that explains what gubbinses are called, what they are for, what they look like and where they should go, also a note if they need to be kept together with item x.

[banger]

Database by serial number and model number, short description. If no serial get a label maker and give it a serial number for the database. File by box number.

[burakkucat]

I have started writing a text file that explains what gubbinses are called, . . .

I have always regarded the word gubbins to be like the word haggis, to be both the singular and the plural form of the respective words. 

[Weaver]

banger - that is a good start, spreadsheet would do for a small database.

Also need a physical storage solution to bring all the gubbins under control so you can see it, find it.

[Westie]

How about a series of shelves? Each shelf could be given a unique letter/number identifier, and a gubbins' location on a shelf determined by measurement from one end.

Unfortunately, the only way I know to keep "stuff" organised is to buy yet more "stuff" to assist in the process. 

Another option is to have no "spares" at all, and if something breaks just do without it until a replacement is sourced. However, given your location and situation, I'm not sure that is a viable alternative ... and the hoarder in me would find that impossible to live with! 

[Weaver]

We have lightning damage and I rely on the network to get help from my wife when I am in pain.

[oh no, begin rant] Deliveries of parcels if by white van man not by the royal mail are sometimes pretty useless because the idle **** only come over from Inverness to the Island when they absolutely cannot hold off any longer, not according to the commitments for delivery time made originally with the sender. (One fool put some stuff for my wife's employer in a wheelie bin outside and did not tell anyone so no one had any clue and the stuff got thrown away. Another mad simpleton delivered my stuff to a shop in Broadford owned by people who did not know us and then came to the house sheepishly asking us to sign for the non-delivery but did not have the goods either. He was I believe sacked. I once had a shouting match over guaranteed next day delivery of a £1k PC when the firm was too lazy to bring it over and made the top manager get someone out to come over to Skye that night.) Delivery rip offs and refusal to deliver to the Highlands is a kind of pervasive para-racism and the only way to fix it is legislation which I would like to set in motion. Cornwall does not experience this, an example chosen if London is the centre of the world, and we have the Skye Bridge, not that the Island thing matters: In the case of a destination on a different island the royal mail will take stuff so the shippers could just use them. Deliveries from Germany are always better than from England as no 'geographical-para-racism', or whatever the word is. [ Phew, feel better now. </rant> ]

I make sure that I have instant swap-out kit but I do admit there is a small amount of hoarding going on though not much. I have retained some kit which I bought for review purposes, and have some kit that is no longer needed because circumstances have changed.

You are right, I need more shelves badly. And some method by which Janet can spot the right thing amongst all the incomprehensible boxes.

[Westie]

We are shortly due to move, so everything we have that will fit into a box is being packed away. For the removers each box is marked with destination room, and for us every box has a consecutive number written on the top and on the front with marker pen, and a summary of the contents written in pencil or pen. We also have a separate list of box number, contents and destination. When we want to access/unpack a particular item we can then consult the list and then look for that box number, which should be readable from across the room. (We could keep the list on a database, but want to be able to use it before the computer etc is plugged in.)

Of course that system only works if things are boxed up into manageable portions. It's a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It's (somewhat) easier if the haystack is in bales and you know which bale the needle is in, as long as the bales are small enough to search inside each one, but not so many of them that you can't even locate the right bale!

So maybe (smallish) packing boxes, tape and marker pen together with list/database may work for you without needing to put up more shelves. 

[Weaver]

I am going to follow that up, thanks! :-) I think I will need shelves though so that it gets stuff high up off the floor, gives us more floor area back as it is a small room, and having shelves prevents the problem of visibility where boxes obscure the view of other boxes if they are all piled up.