Thanks to an assignment that I have been working away on lately, I have taken on a whole new appreciation for barcode scanners. Oh sure, we take them for granted these days. But having one in the home would be a kick, would it not? The :CueCat for instance, is by far not the fanciest model of barcode scanner out there. It does, however, provide for quick and easy data input when time is of the essence. So really, whether you are working to keep tabs on a large CD collection or just get a large set of books in some semblance of order, being able to scan them quickly can be a real lifesaver. Speaking for myself, I don’t really have any sort of large collection of any one thing specifically. However, if I was an online bookseller, I could see how the :CueCat might help to speed things right along.

So, what can you really do with this sort of input device? I mean, besides translating ISBNs into data for cataloging software, isn’t there anything ‘fun’ that we might be able to use one of these things for? Well it turns out that there is something decidedly strange you can do with this particular scanner. Thanks to some software called CueJack, you can actually do some virtual digging on the item being scanned as it is bounced off of alternative data sources. In other words, it would be like doing a data mining search on ABC Inc in an effort to dig up complaints, etc.

So what the heck! You can pick up one of these cheesy scanners for like $10 US. And the CueJack software is free, so you might as well make an evening out of it. Perhaps someone ought to make a board game out of this? Scan random items just to see what it comes up with? Who knows, it could be fun to see what all we turn up with these devices!

[tags]scanner,cuecat,cuejack,barcode,catalog[/tags]