35th Anniversary of the Barcode
June 26, 2009
Yeah I’m basically reposting a gizmodo post, but if it weren’t for the barcode, I wouldn’t have such a kickass job that I get to blog about barcodes. And barcode scanners.
Space: The Final Barcode Scanner Frontier
March 19, 2009
A couple weeks ago I got an email from a buddy at Motorola/Symbol about how fantastic their warranties are. So fantastic that the scanners are in use 300 years in the future.

At first I thought it was photoshopped. Why would the Enterprise have two Motorola M2000 Cyclones on the helm? And if you look to the left, it looks like there’s another one there. And yet a couple more at the top of the image.


And what’s this? A Metrologic Voyager just hangin out? Seriously? It sort of makes the Enterprise look like they raided a museum of old stuff to get the right aesthetic. I’m hoping when they go into red alert the auto-sense modes kick in. Get some sort of crazy laser party goin on in there.
It’s pretty interesting to see products get used as set dressing, especially when it’s not their intended use. Though who knows, maybe they scan barcodes to start the ship or something.
Oh and here are a couple more shots, with some brooding and drama!


Google Interest-Based Advertising
March 11, 2009
This is absolutely fantastic, and I’m hoping it increases our conversion rate in the long term. Interest-based Advertising, so if I’m reading this right, and I’d like to think I am, you search Google and its affiliates, reading up on say “president nixon”, “blue people”, and “alternate universe”, and you’ll see ads for like Watchmen stuff. Look at me, being quasi-relevant in a post about ad relevance.
Our business is really focused on a specific market anyway, but having ads reinforced based on users’ interests as opposed to one-time searches should help drive quality visitors to our site. And that’s a pretty solid thing in my mind.
Security Cameras Without Breaking the Bank
February 17, 2009
That’s one hell of a title up there, for a pretty solid and low cost way to get a surveillance system going at your business. The Astak CM-818DVR4V has been kickin around on our site for a few weeks now, and should have a video review once we get footage from the DVR and into our movie editing software.
I got to play with this rig for a couple days, and the toughest part of setup is running cables to the cameras. Everything is plug-and-play, and the DVR can either be plugged into the network or straight into a TV/Monitor. It does require an ActiveX control to properly use the network access control, which is a little rough for those of us without IE, so it’s usually a solid plan to have a standalone monitor for general access.
For those times that you’re not around to check on the system, the video receiver has a 250GB hard drive and can store video data there. There’s also a USB port in case you want to store footage on external devices, or grab the clip of the guy dancing to the store muzak to upload to YouTube.
But for the price, you get a great and easy way to keep an eye on your business, and with the way things currently are, anything that can prevent loss and keep your accounts accurate is well worth the investment.