Well, the CD database is user generated*. But recordings are a lot easier, there's one.

With wine you have a new one every year theres all the appellations and I'd guess many many more brands and names every year than recordings.

*As is the CT database.

I'm not sure that the CD database is user generated. I'm sure some tracks are put in by users - but if you go to the iTunes sales site they have millions and millions of CDs in there that they sell, and they have the track names, artist names, record company names and everything for every item they sell. All of that came from them when they prepared all those songs for sale.

That's a very interesting question. How many new songs are released every year? How many new wines are released every year?

Well I have found that the iTunes system currently has over 10 million songs available for sale. So those are all songs they have cataloged, indexed and made available on their site.

According to a wine site I tracked down, there are just under 8,000 wineries in the world right now. If we assume each winery has about 10 wines each, that would be 80,000 new wines each year.

OK a RIAA report indicates that about 35,000 new albums are released each year in the US. So about 8 tracks per album, that is 280,000 new songs each year, in the US alone.

The advent of selling music online via downloads has changed the landscape regarding indexing music...

As yet, we can't download a glass of our favourite wine, and buying online is held back by a compination of restrictive laws in the largest potential market and the cost and awkwardness of delivery to the end consumer.

The CD database I was referring to is http://www.freedb.org/

I definitely agree 100% about the insane shipping laws!! I am more than happy to sign for every bottle I receive, but I should have that choice to receive any bottle I want. I will pay the taxes. I just want to be able to get them.

I will keep up my letter writing on the topic!

When we first started our wine cellar, I kept an Excel spreadsheet. That was quickly outdated and a nuisance to keep up. My husband thought he could write a program, but it would be prone to the same problem: entering each wine by hand. Scanning seems the perfect solution. Retail outlets obviously have the software, but I wonder if someone still has to enter their inventory by hand.

I'll check out the link provided. Thanks.

According to their site: One of the most valuable features of CellarTracker is the ability to print individual barcode labels for each bottle in your cellar. Using these barcodes, you can easily and accurately record consumed bottles as well as exercise the ability to batch update location and bin with the assistance of a barcode scanner. You can also add wine to your cellar by scanning an Existing UPC.

Right but again CellarTracker is an online system I want an off-line system, something that lives on my PC, not on an external server. So that's what I'm looking for.

I suppose I should at least test CellarTracker out at some point so I can compare it in my reviews to the other things I try.