Anyone play with these things (and associated Perl/php tools)? I just got 4 of 'em from a local Radio Shack for free. My coworkers and I are about to attempt to setup a backup tape tracking system with them. I was wondering if anyone had any comments on them. -Adam "lingua machinationis creo, ergo sum" _____________________________________________ Adam Keck The Mathworks 508-647-7298 Natick, Ma www.mathworks.com FreeNIX/Backup/Unix Administrator _____________________________________________
They make great xmas tree ornaments... Mike
On Mon, Jan 28, 2002 at 03:07:41PM -0500, Adam Keck wrote:
Anyone play with these things (and associated Perl/php tools)? I just got 4 of 'em from a local Radio Shack for free. My coworkers and I are about to attempt to setup a backup tape tracking system with them. I was wondering if anyone had any comments on them.
All I've heard so far is that the quality is pretty crappy, ie: someone scanned the same bar code 5 times and didn't get the same value twice. YMMV. -- Randomly Generated Tagline: But the Perl default must be to preserve information, to be failsoft, and to try to make the best of a bad situation. If this makes other computer programs look bad, well that's their problem. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199909150039.RAA21137@kiev.wall.org>
They make great xmas tree ornaments...
Heh ;-) So... in case these things aren't viable: are there any ps/2 or usb barcode readers with linux drivers? Specially ones that just dump to the keyboard buffer? I've googling and haven't seen much. BTW the cue cats are doing ok in preliminary tests: they just don't like really small barcodes (3mm high) so far. -Adam p.s. Maybe its me, but the general shape of 'em says Cue Rat more than Cue Cat to me... end ___________________________________________________ Adam S. Keck | | | "Got BSD?" ---------------------------------------------------
On Monday 28 January 2002 03:07 pm, you wrote:
Anyone play with these things (and associated Perl/php tools)? I just got 4 of 'em from a local Radio Shack for free. My coworkers and I are about to attempt to setup a backup tape tracking system with them. I was wondering if anyone had any comments on them.
-Adam
I played with mine briefly. It seemed to be OK considering that it was free. If I recall correctly, there is a GNU program for creating your own barcodes, and several of those were readable by the cue cat. I found physically larger bar codes easier for the cue cat to read, but again, your mileage may vary. Mine did seem a little sensitive to the speed of swiping the barcode. I suspect that if the cue cats were hung too low on the christmas tree, that the real cats would bat them around with their paws and break them. :-) Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org
On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Adam Keck wrote: AK>Anyone play with these things (and associated Perl/php tools)? I just got AK>4 of 'em from a local Radio Shack for free. My coworkers and I are about AK>to attempt to setup a backup tape tracking system with them. I was AK>wondering if anyone had any comments on them. i've played with them. there were a few articles on Slashdot (slashdot.org) that led me to several "tools"... i have a couple Perl scripts that take the code and rip out the real information. (if you want them, they are free for the taking, as far as i know. drop me a line.) I also found a website where the scan would be decrypted online... all-told, it's worth what you pay for it. unless you feel like writing something that takes the output from something like those Perl scripts and does something useful with it, the CueCat is "just a toy"... Digital Convergence didn't have any plans for putting out anything for the Linux crowd last i checked. -- William Smith wsmith@chezsmith.com Fall River, MA http://www.chezsmith.com My resume is online at http://www.chezsmith.com/resume.html
Adam> Anyone play with these things (and associated Perl/php tools)? Adam> I just got 4 of 'em from a local Radio Shack for free. My Adam> coworkers and I are about to attempt to setup a backup tape Adam> tracking system with them. I was wondering if anyone had any Adam> comments on them. I've got one at home. Works fine for scanning, though it's a bit picky. I've got the start of some software to scan in ISBN numbers from books and fill in the details for you, so you can scan you book collection. The big problem is that limited length, and that the damm light it on all the time.
On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 05:15:09PM -0500, John Stoffel wrote:
I've got one at home. Works fine for scanning, though it's a bit picky. I've got the start of some software to scan in ISBN numbers from books and fill in the details for you, so you can scan you book collection.
FYI: http://freshmeat.net/projects/cat_a_log/ :) -- Randomly Generated Tagline: "Sometimes women just don't understand a guy's need to vegetate." - Timex
Theo> FYI: http://freshmeat.net/projects/cat_a_log/ :) I've looked at this, and it's a neat trick, but it doesn't offer what I really want, which is the DB structure behind all this. And if you've done any looking at the Z39.50 format, it's a really interesting task. Trust me, I'm married to a librarian. :]
participants (7)
-
Adam ＠ Oak -
Adam Keck -
Andy Stewart -
John Stoffel -
Mike Peckar -
Theo Van Dinter -
William Smith