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A Barcode Driven Kitchen and Grocery List?
Crazy Brian asks: "I have envisioned, for some time now, having a 3Com Audrey with a barcode scanner in my kitchen, where I can scan in items as I put them away, then scan them again as I use them. Barcode information would be stored on my MySQL server, and an inventory would be updated. I could then generate a shopping list, or link it to a database of recipes, to find out what I can have for dinner tonight. The closest thing I have found is the ShopWizard from Symbol, which only runs under Windows. Is there anything out there for Linux? I hope it can use the upcdatabase to find unknown barcodes. Is there any group interest in creating something like this, assuming nothing already exists?" Icepick's Trashbin is a simple application built on this concept, but wouldn't knowing exactly what is in your cabinets and having a ready-made grocery list be a useful feature for any kitchen?
http://www.cedarnet.org/smartware/Hardware/PantryP od/
It even uses a :CueCat!
Nothing beats a cuecat for cheap barcode scanners. PS2 and USB are available, and no stupid driver funkiness.
Also consider a scanner tasked only to scan receipts. I've been considering something myself, perhaps a small business card scanner would work. As you're putting away the groceries, stick the receipt in there, and a custom script files, OCRs, whatevers it. Maybe also noting the day and time. It could automatically pop up a warning on day 8 that "If the half gallon of milk isn't finished today, it may be time to finish it off or toss it." or somesuch. Or even auto-generate the grocery list as it decides the items are gone, or spoiled.
And as much as I hate RFID, you gotta admit, for at least this one application, it would be cool.