Been searching the forums, need help!!!!

[HawaiiMDer]

I've been searching the forums for 4 days now looking for tracking spreadsheets or databases to track my finds. Does anyone out there have any software and or spreadsheets they would like to share? Or what about suggestions to put in a excel spreadsheet would help as well. anyway any suggestion would help. Thanks in advance!!!!

Ken

 

[Ron Lord]

n/t

 

[Dig]

Yeah ...one of the guys has one made specifically to track your finds....ill see if I cant find it for you

 

[TN Girl]

Ken,

I posted a similar plea for help on the metal detecting forum titled "Tracking Your Finds" on 07/30/09 at 10:08 pm. I received several responses, one of which included this link to tracking software:

http://www.rb59.com/md/meal.html

I haven't had a chance to check it out, but thought it might be helpful. Others may have different ideas, as well.

GL & HH!

TN Girl

 

[grumpyolman]

If you have Microsoft Office the spreadsheet can easily turned into a custom tracking package for logging your finds. Jim

 

[HawaiiMDer]

Thanks everyone for your help!! I've made up a mock up of an excel spreadsheet and would like some input from all of you. Let me know what you think i need to include or exclude. Or any other ideas you may have, then i'll repost the finished spreadsheet for anyone to use if they wish. Thanks very much for everyones help and input.

Ken

 

[HawaiiMDer]

I guess i can't upload the file its the wrong type. Let me try something else.

Ken

 

[HawaiiMDer]

Ok let's try that again!!!! Here is the file!!

 

[JOHNMARKHAM]

wow thats a nice system...
ok ill just have to ask here, what would one use that has a iphone?
im just asking..
thanks
john

 

[grumpyolman]

I'd make the weight of the gold or silver column much more narrow. You only need about 5 character spaces to record that. I'd then increase the width of the location column because you might want to be more detailed about that and need more room.

The nice thing about the spreadsheet is it's highly manipulative. In two weeks if you want to make any column narrower or wider, add a column you forget, or delete one you don't like, it's easy to do. You can tell it to sum the values in a given column, like the weight, and you'll have the total weight of the recovered metal. You could even put in a formula that would calculate the weight in grams to penny weight, put in the price of spot gold for the day and it'll tell you how much gold (or silver) you have at the current gold price. You'd need to put in a formula for the various purities of the gold when doing the total value.

Betcha Erik would have a good way to do that. Jim

 

[offgridman]

http://www.rb59.com/md/meal.html


WARNING! My virus software identifies this software as having a virus in it.

The above address was given in a post here as free metal detecting software.

 

[HawaiiMDer]

I'd make the weight of the gold or silver column much more narrow. You only need about 5 character spaces to record that. I'd then increase the width of the location column because you might want to be more detailed about that and need more room.

The nice thing about the spreadsheet is it's highly manipulative. In two weeks if you want to make any column narrower or wider, add a column you forget, or delete one you don't like, it's easy to do. You can tell it to sum the values in a given column, like the weight, and you'll have the total weight of the recovered metal. You could even put in a formula that would calculate the weight in grams to penny weight, put in the price of spot gold for the day and it'll tell you how much gold (or silver) you have at the current gold price. You'd need to put in a formula for the various purities of the gold when doing the total value.

Betcha Erik would have a good way to do that. Jim

Grumpy,

I actually was thinking about that earlier today. I'm going to sum the weight column into troy ounces and somehow break the page when someone wants to send a group of jewelry to the refinery, that way they can have their own report for what they are turning into the refinery. Haven't work it all out yet, but i have some ideas. That's an awesome idea about keeping the most current gold prices updated at a touch of the key board. Lots to think about, thanks very much. I'll be busy the next couple of days. BTW, does the refinery pay according to K? Or do they just melt everything together and weight the finished product to come out with the amount they are going to pay you? This part i haven't seen you guys talk to much about. Sorry very new to the idea of selling gold and very anxious to get started. Again thanks a lot for your help!!!


Ken

 

[HawaiiMDer]

I'd make the weight of the gold or silver column much more narrow. You only need about 5 character spaces to record that. I'd then increase the width of the location column because you might want to be more detailed about that and need more room.

The nice thing about the spreadsheet is it's highly manipulative. In two weeks if you want to make any column narrower or wider, add a column you forget, or delete one you don't like, it's easy to do. You can tell it to sum the values in a given column, like the weight, and you'll have the total weight of the recovered metal. You could even put in a formula that would calculate the weight in grams to penny weight, put in the price of spot gold for the day and it'll tell you how much gold (or silver) you have at the current gold price. You'd need to put in a formula for the various purities of the gold when doing the total value.

Betcha Erik would have a good way to do that. Jim

Grumpy,

I actually was thinking about that earlier today. I'm going to sum the weight column into troy ounces and somehow break the page when someone wants to send a group of jewelry to the refinery, that way they can have their own report for what they are turning into the refinery. Haven't work it all out yet, but i have some ideas. That's an awesome idea about keeping the most current gold prices updated at a touch of the key board. Lots to think about, thanks very much. I'll be busy the next couple of days. BTW, does the refinery pay according to K? Or do they just melt everything together and weight the finished product to come out with the amount they are going to pay you? This part i haven't seen you guys talk to much about. Sorry very new to the idea of selling gold and very anxious to get started. Again thanks a lot for your help!!!


Ken

 

[TN Girl]

http://www.rb59.com/md/meal.html


WARNING! My virus software identifies this software as having a virus in it.

The above address was given in a post here as free metal detecting software.

Offgridman...Thanks for letting us know that the software has a virus. As I said, it was listed in another post, but I haven't had a chance to look at it. I hope none of you have either! Next time I'll check something for myself before recommending it to others. Lesson learned. :blush:

 

[TN Girl]

I, too, am planning to create a customized spreadsheet. One thing I would suggest is to save it somewhere other than your computer in case of a crash. I learned this the hard way a few years ago.
An external hard drive is great, but can get lost or become corrupted. A better suggestion, and one that I use quite often, is to email it to yourself and save it in a folder. That way, it's accessible from any computer and much safer. Any additional suggestions?

 

[grumpyolman]

A media stick or portable media device is nice too. They makes some with lots of capacity fairly cheap. Just put your file on that. The other thing is to not store it near your computer. Read stories about people who were writing books and had a home burglary. The puke stole the computer and....2 years work went with it as the thief also took a handful of CDs laying next to the computer. The other horrible thing to think about what is you had a fire in your house? Computer, printer...and your saved files stored in the drawer near your computer are destroyed. Back it up and put tht back up in another location.
You could send it to a friend. There are back up services online that are fairly reasonable. If I was doing something like a book I'd definitely use the online back up service...Jim

 

[HawaiiMDer]

Actually I save all data on 2 external HD's and important data including boot config on 2 thumb drives. The computer at home also has to HD's that are mirrored for redundancy and backup. Lastly i have a server at home which the computer is network to and backs up as well and has 4 drives mirrored for redundancy. Thanks for your suggestions!!!!