It's much easier than that. Just a text file that I keep in a git repo (so I can sync it between systems).

First, I assign string IDs to storage locations following a simple hierarchical pattern. For example, `H` might be the hallway. `Hc` might be the cupboard on the hallway. `Hc3` might be the third drawer in that cupboard, and so on.

Now if I put my old external harddrive into that drawer, I write into the inventory text file: "Hc3 external harddrive". It's the storage location, followed by the asset name. If the thing might have many names, I just chain all of them together.

Now all the queries come down to simple grepping, for example:

- "grep '^H' inventory" gives me all the items I have stored in the hallway.

- "grep Windows inventory" shows me where I put that old Windows 7 DVD.

My system also includes optional "intents" to be appended to the storage location. There's "#s" (sale), "#o" (offer = give away for free), "#g" (garbage), and "#e" (evict = move to a less accessible storage location if space is needed).

So I can just show the output of "grep '#o' inventory" to my friends, and they can see at a glance what stuff I have to give away.

One time I took square photos of all my things and put them in CouchDB with just a label. It was pretty fun to see an alphabetical list of photos of nearly everything I owned. Like an RPG inventory.

This is an amazing idea. First thing that comes to mind is a process to automate labeling like with google images. Is there anything open source that fits this?

That seems like it would take longer than just manually labeling the things to begin with, especially with edge cases (what happens when there are 2 items in the picture? how do you handle mislabeling?).

That would be pretty neat, but I just spent like fifteen minutes going through the photos and typing a word for each one... toothbrush, Zippo, shoes, plectrum, document... kind of fun, actually!