wild edibles on your computer

[Canadian-guerilla]

just wondering how others here organize their wild edible pictures / articles on their computers

Directory

BAD ( just pics to id the bad ones )
BERRIES ( good / bad / lookalikes )
EVERGREENS
FLOWERS ( edible flowers you can pick and eat )
ID ( misc / general stuff )
LEAVES ( includes stems/stalks )
LINKS ( to plant id websites )
MUSHROOMS ( morels / chicken of the woods )
NUTS
OTHER ( misc articles > wild edibles / foraging / cordage / drying )
PDF ( misc pdf's / a specific pdf would go into the specific directory )
PRETTY ( plants / flowers, i may never find, but i think are " neat looking " )
SEEDS/CATKINS ( edilble and to id with )
TTNP > thorns/thistles/nettles/pickers ( anything that has an ouch possibility )
TREES ( separated by tree > edible parts > leaves > bark > other uses )
TUBERS ( anything edible found underground )
VEGGIES ( domestic / found on a farm / garden )
WATER ( found near or in water )
WILD EDIBLES ( my favs )
YUCCA ( includes cactus/aloe vera/saw palmetto/similar )
ZZZ ( misc pics waiting to be moved somewhere else )

each wild edible has it's own pics / lookalikes / articles / pdf's
a lot of my pictures/articles may be in multiple directories

[Winnie]

I don't really use my computer to store that info. I prefer books for that sort of thing. I do use the computer to confirm things from time to time, but my initial research is always done with a book.

[Rick]

I'm with Winnie. I use the internet to research stuff along with my books but don't store it on my PC. One reason is I already have it categorized in my books and the other reason is I don't want to take a chance on losing it. Even remote hard drives can be stolen.

[canid]

here's my method:

1st: plan out an elaborate directory structure (generally under 'C:/Documents and Settings/UserName/My Documents/Documents/Wild Food/' and 'C:/Documents and Settings/UserName/My Documents/Pictures/Wild Food/', with subdirectories arranged by Taxanomic groupings.

2nd: throw that out the window, forget and end up with a jumbled mess.

3rd: get used to this system until you, and only you can remember where everything is.

this applies to all my documents, writings, software, programming projects, etc. as well. i have so much data on my computer that when i finally get around to putting everything where it belongs [usually when i back-up to one of my external drives] it takes about a full day.

[crashdive123]

You can store stuff on a computer? Who woulda thunk it.

[Rick]

Canid - You've been in my work shop again haven't you.

[rwc1969]

I have tried many schemes for organizing this stuff, but what I do now is lump it all together and organize by date.

That way in the future if it's March I can go back and look at March data and remember what I was hunting or gathering.

I actually created a database for wild mushroom finds, and now that
I'm getting into programming was thinking of creating a GUI app that will read in the data and store it off to the proper directory or what have you.

That way whenever I have new pics, vids or info I can just open up the UI and store or retrieve info based on a name, date, etc.

As it is I have about 100-200 pages of word doc stuff on finds, weather, dates, habitat. And I have well over 3000 photos and about 70 gigs of video. It's all just out there, on paper, disk, cd, flash drive, one big haphazard mess. It would be nice to bring it all together into one user friendly app that allows me to easily retrieve everything I have on say Mullein, or Autumn olive for example. Or to be able to go in and say show me every video, pic, word doc, spreadsheet data for all years from march 1 thru march 31.

It's really hard to keep this stuff organized in a logical way because depending on the situation I may want to just know everything about one plant, habitat, or time frame.

[your_comforting_company]

I organize mine by latin name. Other than that they all just go together. Part of the process for me, is learning one plant at a time thoroughly, so that any time I wonder about last year, I can go back to the latin name (one of the first things I try to learn) and find all my info.
I like the GUI idea. Probably a good market for something like that among new foragers.. Might have yourself a new business! I could definately use it since my organizational skills are.. ehem.. lacking..
For the most part, as long as I can remember the name I give a plant, I can find what I'm lookin for.

[canid]

I actually created a database for wild mushroom finds, and now that
I'm getting into programming was thinking of creating a GUI app that will read in the data and store it off to the proper directory or what have you.

what dbms are you using? i bet it would be well suited to a web app.

that's an interesting project i haven't even thought about yet. i've spent a lot of time thinking about [and not going about, har] writing a decent app for provisional mushroom identification, but just a catalog cms would be great, and with organized file storage for photos that would be great.

[Rick]

Just a reminder that we do have that on the forum. And!! It tells where you can find them.

http://www.wildcrafting.net/

[rwc1969]

Canid, I used SQL server the free version. It was a project for class, but really got me thinking.

I had thought about a program for identifying mushrooms too, but that would be a serious challenge. Somebody wrote and posted a program like that on a shroom forum I visit and it was available online, but didn't work very well. There are so many variables that go into identifying mushrooms. Here is one for narrowing down species of Russula in North America: http://www.mtsn.tn.it/russulales-new...ibby_fatto.asp

That's why I backed off that idea and started thinking about the app for organizing, storing and retrieving wild edible data in general. I think it would be easier to accomplish and would allow me to practice some real world use of DBMS and object oriented programming.

[rwc1969]

...For the most part, as long as I can remember the name I give a plant, I can find what I'm lookin for.

That's part of my problem as I sometimes label them with common names and sometimes with latin. The stuff I'm new to usually gets a latin name, but once I get familiar with it I start using common names.

[canid]

which sql server? there are several of them, by various companies.

as for the platform; i should mention that i like the idea of a web app because you can use the same app locally and not have to re-write it if you wanted to publish it on a webserver for remote or multi-user access.

[Batch]

Canid, I used SQL server the free version. It was a project for class, but really got me thinking.

MySQL?

Are you using a bundle like xampp? If not what are you using to interface with the database?

I am trying to get back into databases. Though I was looking at getting back into the swing of things with Access or Filemaker Pro. I really should just go with SQL and PHP.

[canid]

Batch: do yourself a favor and leave filemaker well alone.

it really is the non-programmer's dbms, and it's inexcusably bloated. i know you can do a lot with it, but the way it abstracts everything from programming interfaces [aside from light scripting] hurts more than it helps.

the last programming job i took required basically porting and expanding a set of filemaker layouts/scripts into a CMS. absolute nightmare.

my 2¢ anyway.

i've found there's almost nothing aside from byte level work and hardware interfaces that you can't do with php/perl/python/ruby, mysql and javascript, and you can do a lot of the hardware/byte level work serverside in most of those languages.

[your_comforting_company]

I agree. Perl may be old, but it is VERY flexible. I used to love perl and javascript, but that was years past and sadly, I've forgotten more of it than I learned to begin with.
I do still have the old textbooks stashed away somewhere. I'll dig them out and loan them to you if you are interested. Might take me a couple days. Been working sun-up to sun-down on this job, so it'll be whenever there's enough light left to look in the storage shed.

[y2k]

the issue is, do you have them microfiched, so that you can have the pics WITH you? A 24x magnifyer lets you view fiche.

[Rick]

Or you could carry a field manual. A lot cheaper than a microfiche machine.

[y2k]

microfiching makes an entire library carryable in your pack. A manual aint much, if any help, really. The ability to create fiche is so helpful that it's a major deal. So handle it like you would anything else that can't be bought by yourself. Team up with a lot of others, and get it done. once everything is on CD-fiche, making copies is easy-cheap. Why should I have to explain something so obvious?

[crashdive123]

microfiching makes an entire library carryable in your pack. A manual aint much, if any help, really. The ability to create fiche is so helpful that it's a major deal. So handle it like you would anything else that can't be bought by yourself. Team up with a lot of others, and get it done. once everything is on CD-fiche, making copies is easy-cheap. Why should I have to explain something so obvious?

What camera do you personally use, and where do you get your microfiche developed?