3 Sep
2003
3 Sep
'03
12:23 p.m.
Mail List wrote:
Hi Mike,
What you want is called a keyboard wedge. Percon, Symbol, etc. sell them.
Depending on which one you get, you can attach pens, hand-held lasers, card
readers, etc.
If the companies had not been such putzii in
restricting use to JUST
what they
wanted me to do with it, most likely I would have
kept it handy and
used it for
both mine and their objectives. As it is now I
don't use them for
anything.
I know what you mean. Another similar consumer data collection thing
is going
on with the grocery stores and the Harris Teeter VIC card and the Food
Lion MVP
card. You get some special buys if you have their card with you when
you check
out and they scan it, but when you let them scan your card, they know
who you are
and what you are buying. I don't know if you have those grocery stores
in your area
or not. It's never really been any inconvenience with it though. But
last year when
my mom was in the hospital for the first time, for something very
serious that is,
Harris Teeter's database must have recognized that she hadn't been
shopping there
for a significant amount of time, and they sent some coupons in the
mail as an incentive
to get her to come back and start shopping there again. I guess the
important thing
is just don't give them your email address too, or only give them the
email address
that you don't mind receiving the junk mail at.
My favorite is the CS1504 key fob sized unit with
memory for a few
hundred barcodes
that WuliWeb sent to me, but seems like the
CueCat has lots more
software for it (I also
have a few of those). I plan to get something
going like Thokbook
and isbn/barcode book
collection database thingy, but its still on the
list of stuff to do.
Some years ago when I was working as a tech for a small local computer
company,
they had me build and set up a couple of systems for a local retailer
that were to be
networked together, and one was to operate a cash drawer, and both
were to have
bar code scanners for scanning the UPCs on their merchandise. It's
been so long
now that I don't remember exactly what I had to do to make it all
work, but I'm not sure
I remember the scanners they were using needing a device driver. They
did plug in
inline with the keyboard. If I found one that just worked, with no
device driver requirement,
just as though you had typed the characters on the keyboard, that
would be great. If it were pen sized and shaped, so super small and compact,
that would be
even better.
The pen scanners have more problems scanning items than the laser scanners.
You also have to control your swiping speed with the pens. The laser
scanners
work MUCH more reliably.
If you are using the scanners in a dirty enviornment, look into infrared
versions
instead of the visible ones, as they can scan through crud better.
Does such a scanner exist? I'm getting kind of
tired of devices that
only work with some
operating systems and not with others, or get left orphaned when a new
major release of
an operating system comes out.
Which is one reason to use a keyboard wedge. They are usually programmed
by scanning barcodes from a manual. The computer doesn't have to know they
are there for them to work. Only time you would need to change them, is if
the keyboard connector changed.