Why a database can help you
- Sometimes a project management tool, or a task manager is overkill. Sometimes all that you need is a good list, table, or simple database. So in today's video, I wanna show you an app which is going to allow you to customize anything that you want,
no matter if you're using it for business, or maybe even for personal use. I wanna introduce you to Memento Database. So, let's look at this on my mobile phone. Now, Memento is also available for desktop, but I think I have found it more convenient
using it on my mobile app, especially when I'm taking pictures of inventory, and other things that I wanna keep track of.
Overview of Memento Database
So let's launch Memento here, and right off the bat, you can see the libraries,
or otherwise known as databases here. And I've got a few different examples here that I'm gonna show you here today. The first one here is Office Inventory, because I'm setting up a new office, and I wanna keep track of my expenses, I wanna keep track of everything that I'm adding, and also maybe when it comes to things like maintenance, I wanna see how long I've had something as well.
So if I open up Office Inventory here you can see my simple list so far. A few different items, which I've purchased over the last few weeks. Now, the great thing about Memento is that you can add as many, or as few fields as you like.
And as your lists, or as your inventory grows, you can go grow with it, and you can add more complex features, you can add relationships between different tables or different libraries.
One of the things that I love the best here is that I can sum up certain fields as well. So, even before I dive into one of my entries here at the very bottom you can see I've got three entries,
and it's a total of $965 dollars. So for example, maybe I want to set a particular budget, and I don't wanna exceed that budget, I can always see that running total here.
Editing Fields in Memento
So let's take a look at an example here. I'm gonna open, put up my standing desk for example, and I can categorize it by furniture type, I can input the cost here. And what I really love is you can even take a photo of these things on the fly.
So let's say you are keeping track of inventory. Maybe you have a small warehouse, or maybe you have something else that you're wanting to keep track of, you can quickly and easily add that photo here as well.
But I can add other fields. I don't have to always be looking at them at the same time. If I hit the Edit button here, here you can see I can add a serial number, I can add a barcode so I can actually scan the barcode directly in here if I like, I can add other information that I want at any particular time.
Let's open up another one here on my list here. It's my mechanical keyboard. So again, similar to what we saw before, I've got a picture and some basic information, but let's say I wanna add the purchase date 'cause I wanna know when I purchased this item.
So I'm gonna open things up, and if I scroll down to the bottom, I've already added this earlier. It's a purchase date. So I'm gonna open up my calendar, and I purchased that last Tuesday, so I'm gonna hit Next. If I want to, I can select a particular time,
or you can just leave it at the default there, and then save that particular entry. Now, you'll notice that it actually didn't allow me to save that's because there's a required field on this page.
It's something that I added not too long ago, and that is the cost of that device. So again, every single aspect of Memento is customizable. I can go in and actually edit that and say, no, no, no, I don't need to make that a required field, but if I'm using this for budgeting purposes, yeah. I wanna make sure that I add the cost.
Creating a new database in Memento
So in this case, I think this keyboard was about $65. In this case, I'm gonna enter in 65 and hit Enter. So now that is added, if I go back to my entries, yeah, now I've just exceeded a little over a thousand dollars just on these three items.
Most of them were that standing desk. Okay, let's take a look at a few other examples here as well, and how quickly and easily we can create our own libraries from scratch. So Memento actually gives us a number of different templates so that we can get started off with them.
So here you can see they've been categorized in a few different places. I'm actually gonna click on Personal here for a second, and I'm gonna come down and I'm going to say, maybe I want to keep track of all the restaurants that either I've eaten at recently, or that I would like to start eating at.
So I'm gonna select Restaurants, I'm gonna select Next, and here I already have my table, or my library ready for me to enter. If I click on it, you can see that I have no entries yet, but because we're basing this off of a template, I'm going to assume it's got some great information there ready for me already.
I'm gonna hit the plus button. And let's just say, I ate at a place called, Macks the other night, what type of cuisine? Again, this is all pre-populated. So I can go in here, and edit this or change it as I like.
It was a cafe, I'm gonna give it a four star rating. I said it was last night. So I'm gonna say it was last night and average price. Now this is kind of interesting, you know, what was the price of my meal, for example? I also like this feature that when it comes to adding in certain numerical fields, you actually get a calculator, built right into the application.
So let's say, I do have to figure out either the tax, or I need to break it out of a receipt
or something like that, I can do that. I can say, well, the, you know, the total bill was $67, but then I have to subtract the other person's entrée. And then we shared an appetizer, for example. So let's take out another $8 there. And so, okay, it's 36, and it inputs it right there in that numerical field. So I'm gonna hit Enter there.
Adding new fields to Memento Database
There's my first entry there. But let's say I wanna change things up a little bit. Let's say that there, that was a little limiting the number of fields that we added there, maybe I want to say quality of service, not just the food.
Maybe I wanna break out the difference between the food and the service. So in the top right-hand corner, I can go in here and edit my library. So here you can see the number of fields, you see the about the five different fields that we already have in there, but let's add a new field ourselves.
So I'm gonna hit that plus button here, I'm gonna select Field, and now, here are all of the different field types that I have to choose from. And we've got everything from color, to a map,
a barcode, hyperlinks, a variety of different things here that we can add to this particular entry. I like that star rating. So I'm gonna choose a star rating in this case.
And when it comes to service, maybe I want more than five stars. Maybe I wanna go all the way up to 10 stars. It's also gonna help me maybe differentiate between the food and the service when I go to rate it, I can select default stars. I can say required.
There's that required field. I'm gonna leave it off in this case, but everything from my display options, to the font size, all of these great things here. Now, before I create this, remember I've got to give it a field name.
So, I'm gonna say, Service. I'm just gonna call this one Service just alone. So you can rename any of these fields, customize them the way that you like. I'm gonna hit Enter on this case.
And the last thing that I'm gonna do here, is that I wanna move it up, right? Because here it's gonna be the last one here. I think I'm gonna put it under Ratings. I'm gonna drag this up here to under Rating, and then I'm gonna hit that check mark again. So this time when I go into Macks, you can see there's that service rating, but now, I need to go in,
and actually give us a service rating. So I can say, you know what? It was a, it was pretty good, I've had better. So I'm gonna give it about seven stars out of 10 there.
Now what I can do going forward, like you saw in my office inventory, is I can calculate that data. So if I want to average out the quality of the service, or that my food rating amongst these different items I can do so as well. Memento is going to give me that power, it's going to give me that ability.
Viewing relationships between database tables
Let me show you how you can create relationships between these different tables as well. So for example, you'll see here that I've got a library called Team, and maybe where, this is where I've kept a collection of all of my team members.
I want to keep their either addresses, or maybe I wanna know what inventory they have, at their home office as well. If I'm a business owner, I wanna keep tabs on who has a laptop?
Who has other pieces of equipment, as a part of working remotely, for example?
So here, if I click on my own name, for example, you'll see, I've got my role as the owner. I've got my photo and down below, you can see that I have my Yeti microphone, and the dollar amount as well. Now, where did we see that before?
We saw that in the office inventory. So if I select that, it's actually gonna open up
that entry and now you can see I'm actually in that inventory library at the moment
down below, you can see that I'm the owner. So, I can and make these custom relationships between these tables within these databases.
Pulling in data from the web into your database
Again, another great feature, you can make it as complex or as simple as you like. Now, the last thing that I wanna show you here within Memento database is how you can actually pull in information directly from the web, if you like.
And this is particularly useful if you're wanting to use things such as product information, or maybe if you are collecting a personal list of data or a personal collection.
So for example, here for example, I've got a list of movies to see, for example, and I've put a few different things here on this list. Now I didn't go in and grab the year that the movie was released. I didn't go in and grab that screenshot of the poster. No, I let Memento do the work for me. It's pulling in that information all at the same time.
So for example, if I hit the plus button here, let's say I'm gonna add a new movie
that I would like to watch. So in this case, I'm just gonna start in typing in the name of that movie. And in this case, I'm gonna type in "Vertigo", for example, and when I typed that in immediately, it's bringing up the one that I want, the Hitchcock classic "Vertigo".
So as you can see now here, it's not only brought in the poster, it's brought in a link, to some ratings, it's given me a tagline, it's told me the genre, it's given me a description where it was made, the duration.
All of that information is just brought in directly. In fact, if I go to the cast, it's gonna show me the cast as well. I'm just gonna hit Enter here. Here you can see that it's been added to my list, but now I've got all of that information at my fingertips.
So I can go and use this whenever I like, I can keep track of things and give my own personal rating as a part of my list. So, if you're looking for a quick, easy, and customizable way to keep track of your inventory, or your own personal list, I would encourage you to check out Memento Database.
You can find out more information in the description below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video. Be sure to subscribe and give this video a like, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
