Copyright 2006Michael Bartonpalrich@gmail.com2010-09-07T13:59:30ZWeirdLooking.comhttp://www.weirdlooking.com/images/feed.pnghttp://www.weirdlooking.com/Michael Bartonhttp://www.weirdlooking.com/blog/barcode-scanning2006-12-06T09:11:07Z2006-12-06T09:11:07Z<div style="float: right; margin: 2px; padding: 2px; border: solid 1px #555555;"><img src="http://www.weirdlooking.com/blog/81/scanner.png" alt="some image" /></div>You may remember I was playing around with writing a Flash/webcam <a href="http://www.weirdlooking.com/blog/62" style="position: relative; padding-left: 8px; zoom: 1;"><span style="position: absolute; top: -5px; left: 0px; width: 16px; height: 16px; background: URL(http://www.weirdlooking.com/exticon?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weirdlooking.com%2Fblog%2F62) no-repeat center center; -moz-opacity: 0.3; opacity: 0.3; filter:alpha(opacity=30);"></span>barcode scanner</a> a while back.&nbsp; Since nothing has ever come of that project, I decided I&rsquo;d go ahead and stick it somewhere for a while with a <a href="http://www.weirdlooking.com/BarcodeScanner/" style="position: relative; padding-left: 8px; zoom: 1;"><span style="position: absolute; top: -5px; left: 0px; width: 16px; height: 16px; background: URL(http://www.weirdlooking.com/exticon?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weirdlooking.com%2FBarcodeScanner%2F) no-repeat center center; -moz-opacity: 0.3; opacity: 0.3; filter:alpha(opacity=30);"></span>quick and dirty application</a> I wrote in about a half hour (and it shows!).<br /><br />What happens is you scan a barcode, and it hits up Amazon for some information about the item via their <a href="http://www.amazon.com/E-Commerce-Service-AWS-home-page/b/ref=sc_fe_l_2/105-7006971-8144447?ie=UTF8&amp;node=12738641&amp;no=3435361&amp;me=A36L942TSJ2AJA" style="position: relative; padding-left: 8px; zoom: 1;"><span style="position: absolute; top: -5px; left: 0px; width: 16px; height: 16px; background: URL(http://www.weirdlooking.com/exticon?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FE-Commerce-Service-AWS-home-page%2Fb%2Fref%3Dsc_fe_l_2%2F105-7006971-8144447%3Fie%3DUTF8%26amp%3Bnode%3D12738641%26amp%3Bno%3D3435361%26amp%3Bme%3DA36L942TSJ2AJA) no-repeat center center; -moz-opacity: 0.3; opacity: 0.3; filter:alpha(opacity=30);"></span>ECS</a> webservice and displays it.&nbsp; Their service returns a different XML format for each category, and I haven&rsquo;t bothered to account for them all.&nbsp; You&rsquo;ll probably have the best luck scanning books and CDs.http://www.weirdlooking.com/atom/comments/810