I recently had problems setting up an Intel Digital Movie Creator. The Intel tech support guy actually did research and called me back -- 3 times -- with more suggestions. Eventually, we got it going (I'm going to fly mine on top of a model rocket) and he called back AGAIN to get more system info for their infobase. Total time was about a week; we're talking about a support guy who would actually set up a phone appointment 3 days hence, and keep it. More than once.
This on a discontinued product with a $30 street price.
There's also ATI. I haven't had to call them in a while, but every time I have called the phone is answered by a tech who immediately gets to work on the case. No phone jail, not even an operator to put you in a queue for the next available tech. From dialing to fixed in 5 minutes. Only downside, and it's minor IMO, is that it's a non-free call to Canada.
I just picked up a Cuecat today. I got all into researching how to pick up drivers and so on so that I could fairly easily splice it into the POS at my store, when I had a sudden epiphany: I don't need no stinkin' drivers!
I just need to associate a unique string from the scanner with items in my inventory database; doesn't make any difference _what_ that string is, as long as it's unique and repeatable. And guess what? The gibberish spit raw from a Cuecat fits those requirements. No reverse engineering required.
The code changes to the POS software are almost insignificant: The system (written in-house) aready accepts a numeric shorthand, system part number, or manufacturer's part number so the framework is sitting there waiting. I'll add a new field in the database called "barcode" and just scan the Cuecat spew into that field for each item. Done.
Interesting thought -- howsabout if I hook the Cuecat to my iOpener and load the POS on that for the ultimate cheap-but-sexy POS terminal! Think I'd get sued if I called it "Slashdot/POS"?
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You can always try designing the Ideal Date...
...They don't read The Onion in Zimbabwe.
I recently had problems setting up an Intel Digital Movie Creator. The Intel tech support guy actually did research and called me back -- 3 times -- with more suggestions. Eventually, we got it going (I'm going to fly mine on top of a model rocket) and he called back AGAIN to get more system info for their infobase. Total time was about a week; we're talking about a support guy who would actually set up a phone appointment 3 days hence, and keep it. More than once.
This on a discontinued product with a $30 street price.
There's also ATI. I haven't had to call them in a while, but every time I have called the phone is answered by a tech who immediately gets to work on the case. No phone jail, not even an operator to put you in a queue for the next available tech. From dialing to fixed in 5 minutes. Only downside, and it's minor IMO, is that it's a non-free call to Canada.
Am I paranoid to imagine that this technology may someday be used in airports to keep cats from boarding flights while carrying small animals?
Everyone knows you can't have any carrion on commercial flights since 9/11...
Reference
I just picked up a Cuecat today. I got all into researching how to pick up drivers and so on so that I could fairly easily splice it into the POS at my store, when I had a sudden epiphany: I don't need no stinkin' drivers! I just need to associate a unique string from the scanner with items in my inventory database; doesn't make any difference _what_ that string is, as long as it's unique and repeatable. And guess what? The gibberish spit raw from a Cuecat fits those requirements. No reverse engineering required. The code changes to the POS software are almost insignificant: The system (written in-house) aready accepts a numeric shorthand, system part number, or manufacturer's part number so the framework is sitting there waiting. I'll add a new field in the database called "barcode" and just scan the Cuecat spew into that field for each item. Done. Interesting thought -- howsabout if I hook the Cuecat to my iOpener and load the POS on that for the ultimate cheap-but-sexy POS terminal! Think I'd get sued if I called it "Slashdot/POS"?