Card Scanner


kbSU89

kbSU89

New Member
Do any one of you have an idea on how those key cards from Grocery stores works. You know like the Kroger plus card.

I want something like that for my database so that info can be entered when the card is scanned.

If anyone has somewhat of an idea on this Let's discuss it. This is a long term goal, but I want to get some info.

Thanks
 
From my understanding all of this information is being taken to determine purchasing trends. It could very well mean that the company is looking to see the percentage of sale price vs. regular price items you buy. It has many ramifications. I don't like the idea of it, but I realize that the only way to save is to use these cards. Who say you have to provide legit information on the forms? I hate to be tracked. What I eat is my business!
 

Were you talkin about technicaly how do they work or as Dirty answered how they are used business wise.

If you were speaking technicaly I believe you can buy those scanners and encoders for the cards. I'm sure they have some that can be used as a pc periphial. There is probably software to help you decode the info from the card or at least some software modules of some sort that you can incorporate into your own software so that you can make use of the data any way you want.

I'll try to research it for you. I'm willing to bet alot of the software can be found in the open source community. It would just be a matter of getting a card reader and an encoder which Im sure you can find on the internet.
 
Oh wait...doesn't that Kroger card use bar code? If it does its the same as what I said above...it just uses bar code instead of magnetic strip.
 
BLAQUE PRINCE said:
Were you talkin about technicaly how do they work or as Dirty answered how they are used business wise.

If you were speaking technicaly I believe you can buy those scanners and encoders for the cards. I'm sure they have some that can be used as a pc periphial. There is probably software to help you decode the info from the card or at least some software modules of some sort that you can incorporate into your own software so that you can make use of the data any way you want.

I'll try to research it for you. I'm willing to bet alot of the software can be found in the open source community. It would just be a matter of getting a card reader and an encoder which Im sure you can find on the internet.
Click to expand...


Thanks

You are on point of what I am thinking. I have create a database that denotes the presence of students. I was thinking that a card could be scanned and it automatically denotes that the student is present. As it stands now we have to pick a unique identifier from a drop down list and then click in a check box that denotes they are present.

Long term I thought of having something like a card scanner for them and then in populates in the database that they are present.
 
A barcode system shouldn't be hard to implement, since the technology is kinda old and you only need a decent inkjet printer or a laser to make the codes. I don't know of any grocery cards that use the magnetic strip. Magnetic strips are used more for gift certificates and store cards.
 
If I understand you correctly, libraries have the same technology. Doesn't look like they use any special PCs, so maybe it's just plugging in a hand scanner and having the proper software.
 
Now I know for a fact if you want to go the barcode route that the scanners and software to produce the codes can be found on the internet.

It would just be a matter of researching the scanner software to see how it can interface with your DB.

I know I have seen classes to create barcodes for PHP so I know they must exist for other languages.....free of charge.

Sounds like a nice project to undertake. I really don't think it would take that long to set something up like that.
 
Barcodes are nothing but a different type of font. I developed an application that had a barcode associated with a survey. My users would scan the barcode on the survey and then enter the results from what the person put on the survey into my app.

Take for example a Can of Soup. Each can of Campell's Chicken Noodle soup has the same barcode. When the barcode is scanned, the identifier may look like this "ABCD1234". Once, scanned, "ABCD1234" is looked up in a database and associated with Campell's Chicken Noodle soup. If you have the barcode font loaded on your PC, you can actually type in a string of characters (in MS WORD) in one font and highlight it and change it to BARCODE font and it would appear just as it does on the can of soup.

Make a long story short, barcodes are simply fonts. You can buy the hardware to scan the barcode over the internet. We used the handheld scanners.
 
You're right Sperm but those magnetic card readers are a different beast all together. You can get a READER for as cheap as $80. That will read anything with an encoded magnetic strip, like that of a credit card. Since she said "students", I'll just make the assumption that she's teaching on a college level and those students already have ID cards with encoded magnetic strips on the back. I'm not sure what info they have encoded so i can't tell you what will be read off of the card by the reader.

If you wanted to actually buy a machine to ENCODE a card, those are hella expensive as I havent been able to find one for cheap.
 
Oh, dang the magnetic ones. Haven't been there, haven't done that. I will however inquire, I'm sure out of the 130,000 technical people at my company, somebody may know something.
 
Venom Skywalker said:
You're right Sperm but those magnetic card readers are a different beast all together. You can get a READER for as cheap as $80. That will read anything with an encoded magnetic strip, like that of a credit card. Since she said "students", I'll just make the assumption that she's teaching on a college level and those students already have ID cards with encoded magnetic strips on the back. I'm not sure what info they have encoded so i can't tell you what will be read off of the card by the reader.

If you wanted to actually buy a machine to ENCODE a card, those are hella expensive as I havent been able to find one for cheap.
Click to expand...

I am still in the planning stage, but I would bascially like something like the kroger plus card so that it can be scanned and it would mark that student as being present. I am working on this for the children that come to church on Sunday's and they are separated by their class grade.

The database I have now has all the children loaded and it keys off a unique identifer. If a household has more than one child they still use that same unique identifer but they are separated by the childID (A, B, C) with the unique identifer being (i.e., 1000). When they come in a check box marked present is there and if that child is present a check mark goes in the check box so a label can be printed just for the present child.

I wanted a bar code of such that would automatically mark that child as being present just by scanning the card.
 
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Venom Skywalker said:
You're right Sperm but those magnetic card readers are a different beast all together. You can get a READER for as cheap as $80. That will read anything with an encoded magnetic strip, like that of a credit card. Since she said "students", I'll just make the assumption that she's teaching on a college level and those students already have ID cards with encoded magnetic strips on the back. I'm not sure what info they have encoded so i can't tell you what will be read off of the card by the reader.

If you wanted to actually buy a machine to ENCODE a card, those are hella expensive as I havent been able to find one for cheap.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't a magnetic strip be under the same technology as a magnetic tape or a floppy? Kinda work the same way as well?
Just enough information to read some simple information. For example, Credit card number, expiration date, type of card, and maybe phone number. That should be simple enough if we all agree on the data format and what arguments come in what order. Example {int Card Number, int expiration, char *card holder, int cardholder_phone} I.E. A magnetic strip standard or protocol.

So, as you swip the card, the reader would read. As long as the card holder agrees to the format, the rest is how to get the information on the card. That should be a magnetic writer.

Simple in theory.... :D
 
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