Barcode Scanners For Your Business


by Dane Masters - Date: 2008-10-06 - Word Count: 323 Share This!

Chances are if you've been to the grocery store, the library, the video rental store, or even the hospital in the last few days, you've seen barcode scanners used to ring up purchases or manage inventory. Barcode scanners can help almost any business run more efficiently.
Barcode scanners are specially designed units that can identify and interpret a barcode. Barcodes are special tags comprising of bars and spaces. What these codes essentially do is supply a typical reference number when they are scanned. This number has all the information tagged with it in the main computer database.
A barcode scanner is composed of four parts: a light source, a lens, a photoconductor, and a decoder. The data the barcode scanner picks up are fed into a computer. When beamed at the barcode, the light source is absorbed by the bars, which are dark, and reflected by the spaces, which are white. The photoconductor then changes this information to an electrical signal. The decoder takes this signal and translates it into a format the computer can understand.
There are two types of barcode scanners: CCD scanners and Laser scanners. Both have different unique features and their own merits and demerits. A typical CCD scanner has no movable parts and so the issue of maintenance and wear and tear is not involved most of the time, unlike the laser scanners. The laser scanners have the ability to read data over a greater distance, compared to CCD scanners and hence they are perfect in places like warehouses, where one has to move all around the place tagging products.
Barcode scanners cost anywhere from just over a hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, depending on their individual features. Several different online sites offer price comparisons and reviews of different barcode scanners. Even if you're "just" a small business owner, it's worth considering incorporating barcode technology into your business. You'll be pleased with the increased efficiency and easier management of data.

Related Tags: technology, computer, laser, video, hospital, light, bars, barcode, grocery, lens, inventory, scanner, library, spaces

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