|
| | Music Cataloguing System
(MusCatWeb)
MusCatWeb is a browser-based music cataloguing
system of interest to people who own large collections of recorded music,
sheet music and/or books. MusCatWeb is a freeware web application designed
in such a way that it can be used without your computer actually being
connected to the Internet. All you need to know is how to use a browser
program, such as Internet Explorer.
What's required on the computer?
 | MusCatWeb requires an Internet Browser to be available on
your PC, such as Internet
Explorer or Netscape. |
| MusCatWeb also requires a Web Server program to be
available on your PC, such as Microsoft's
Personal Web Server (PWS) or Internet Information Server (IIS). |
| If you are
using Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME or Windows NT, you will need to
have PWS installed on your PC. The MusCatWeb documentation tells you how to
achieve this. |
| If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows XP
Professional, you will need to have IIS installed on your PC. The MusCatWeb documentation tells you how to
achieve this. |
| If you are using Windows XP Home Edition,
you are out of luck, because Windows XP Home was not designed to support
IIS. The MusCatWeb documentation contains further comments on this,
including a possible workaround. |
| MusCatWeb keeps its data in a database stored locally on
your PC. In an effort to reduce the amount of data entry required on your
part, the database has been
pre-loaded with a significant amount of data about composers, works and
performers. |
How much work will it require?
Short of time? Well, I know the feeling. Depending on your level of ambition and the amount of time you
are prepared to spend on entering and maintaining data in the MusCat database, you can
use MusCatWeb at essentially three levels, without necessarily spending much
time at all.
Here are some examples of what you can produce at your
preferred level of involvement:
| Minimum Level. At this level, data entry is absolutely
minimal, just enough for producing basic media labels (it should take you
less than 3 minutes per CD), but on your shelves you may now have
this kind of CD library with nice and
readable spine text for each CD. |
| Medium Level. To get more out
of MusCatWeb, you may choose to add a small amount of other data (often by selecting from
already pre-loaded data) about your recordings. This will most likely take you 5-10
minutes per CD, but it will allow you to produce more informative media
labels, ready for cutting out and insertion into jewel cases. You will
also be able to produce a basic music
catalog (picture shows small extract only), so your friends can choose which piece of music they would like
to listen to (and, what's more, you will be able to find it in no time). |
| Maximum Level.
Moving on from the Medium Level, in order to tap into the full potential of MusCatWeb, you
have the option of entering more data about you recordings, such as track
durations, performers, etc. That may take another 5-10 minutes per CD, but
your comprehensive labels now tell you at
least as much as the small commercial printing usually found on the back of
a CD jewel case. In addition, your
comprehensive
music catalog (picture shows small extract only) will now be truly impressive and useful. |
MusCatWeb can be downloaded here
free of charge:
Step 1:
Print this Page for Reference
| In
order to make it easier for you to perform Steps 2, 3 and 4 exactly as listed
below, I recommend that you print this page first. |
| Press
the print button on your Browser toolbar and collect the hardcopy before you
continue. |
Step 2:
Download the MusCatWeb Software and Documentation to Your PC (approx. 4 Mb)
| Click
here to download
the self-extracting muscatweb.exe file. During the download you will be
asked to specify the name of a folder in which to save the file (e.g. C:\Windows\Temp).
|
| After
the download has completed, open (double-click) the folder in which you
saved the muscatweb.exe file. |
| Then
double-click the muscatweb.exe file to extract (unzip) all the files that
make up MusCatWeb. Unless you change the specified default download
location, the files will automatically be placed in a folder
named c:\inetpub\wwwroot\muscatweb (if this folder does not already exist,
it will be created for you as part of the file extraction process). |
| When
the file extraction has completed, close the muscatweb.exe extraction
window. |
| Send me email
if you experienced any problems
during the download and extraction, so I can try to fix it. I would also like
to know if any of my instructions were not quite clear.
|
Step 3:
Read About MusCatWeb
| Before
you try to execute MusCatWeb you
might like to read a bit about it in the MusCatWeb User Guide, which can be found in a file named
"c:\inetpub\wwwroot\muscatweb\User Guide.pdf". |
| This
document is stored in Portable Data Format (PDF) and can be viewed
on screen or, better still, printed into hardcopy using the Adobe
Acrobat Reader program. If you do not have this program on your
PC, click the link to download it for free (you only need to do this once). |
| At this stage just read the Introduction chapter and then
go on. |
Step 4:
Execute MusCatWeb on your PC
| If you
already have
either the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) or Personal Web Server (PWS) installed on your PC,
you are ready to try out MusCatWeb straight away. |
| If you do not
yet have either IIS or PWS installed, please consult the MusCatWeb User Guide to find out how you can install
PWS or IIS. |
| With
IIS or PWS available and running on your PC, start
your browser and browse to the MusCatWeb home page at the following location
on your computer: "http://localhost/muscatweb/Default.asp".
This should display the MusCatWeb home page. If it doesn't, you'll need to consult the User
Guide. |
| On
the MusCatWeb home page select
the "Use My MusCat Training Database" option and press the “Click
here to display the MusCatWeb Main Menu” button. You will then be logged into
your MusCat Training database, on which you can do some
testing and experimentation to find out if MusCatWeb is for you. |
| On
the MusCatWeb Main Menu, click the “Maintain Composers” hyperlink to load the
“Maintaining Composers” page. |
| Enter your name in the
field labelled “Enter New Composer/Creator” and press the “Add”
button.
|
| If this is successful,
voila, you will have added yourself to the drop-down list of
composers.
|
| Did
it work? If it did, you might like to delete yourself again, unless of
course you are
in fact a composer. |
|
Send
me email about any problems
with MusCatWeb, so I can try to fix it.
|
| Print
the small MusCatWeb
Case Study from the file named "c:\inetpub\wwwroot\muscatweb\Case
Study.pdf", |
| Use
the Case Study to learn enough about MusCatWeb so you can
decide whether or not you wish to use MusCatWeb for cataloguing your
musical recordings, your sheet music and/or your books. |
I
hope you will have success with downloading and executing MusCatWeb, and
I hope you find MusCatWeb enjoyable and useful.
Sven
Eriksen
|
