Delicious Library 2 Review

One of my long-time favorite Mac applications is Delicious Library. It's one of those programs that not only makes jaws drop when people see what it can do, but it's extremely useful. One our old site, we had a review of the first version, but the newer version has added so many features that it deserves a revisit.

First of all, Delicious Library is a media asset database. In plain terms, this means that it's a program for keeping track of the media you have - books, CDs, DVDs, video games... and new to this version, additional categories such as gadgets, software, and tools, as well as iTunes integration. You can scan in items by using the webcam built into most newer Macs on the item's barcode, and it will automatically fill in all of the details for you on the item (it pulls these details from Amazon). If the items doesn't have a barcode, you can still manually enter in the item and have it search for it as well. It will 'pour' your item in and display it on a shelf. The scanning works well in practice, although there are always a few pesky items whose barcodes don't read well.

But simply keeping a database of these items isn't the only thing it does. Delicious Library integrates with Address Book and iCal - so if you lend someone an item, you can check it out to them and set up a reminder for when you should be getting it back. It can help automate selling your items on Amazon, and it can integrate with your Mobile Me account to publish any or all of your items on the Web. This is extremely useful if you want to try to sell off a few items or share all of the games that you have, for example. My main beef with the previous version was that it lacked the Web export option, so this is a welcome update.

Delicious Library is really a must-have application for any Mac user, period. It becomes far too easy to let our media assets go untracked and lose items that we forgot we'd lent out, or not have the proper data for insurance purposes. There's also a mobile iPhone application that goes with it, so you can check and see if you already own a particular item before buying it again. It's a downright steal at over $40 (which will probably pay for itself the first time you get a loaned item returned). Get it here: http://delicious-monster.com/