A few days ago I was conversing with Ryan, our resident full-time custodian and occasional comedian. I'm not sure how the topic arose, but at some point the word "scanner" was used. "You know what's funny about 'scanner?'" I said.
"No, what's that?"
"Well, I know about four different ways which that word can be used." And with that, I proceeded to describe the various scanners with which I was acquainted. In no particular order, the first one is the barcode scanner. These devices are ubiquitous- at stores, information kiosks... most smartphones have a QR and/or barcode app that can be utilize the phone's camera as a scanner. Here in the United States, the Post Office uses these scanners to scan the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB) which is found on most mail. While barcodes found on merchandise usually has a code that is attached to a single item and doesn't vary from one identical item to the next, IMBs are serialized- that is, within a mailing (say, for example, a monthly advertising piece), each IMB has a unique serial code. Some of these scanners can also read 2D barcodes. The 2D barcodes are the ones which look like square mazes or puzzles; they are capable of carrying all sorts of information. In contrast to an IMB, which has numeric information such as the postal data, a serial number and the ZIP code, a 2D encodes alphanumeric information; the addressee's full name, street address, city, state, ZIP code, and (depending on the size of the 2D), additional information.
Next is another type of optical scanner- the computer scanner (and the closely related photocopier, and fax). They all do pretty much the same thing: take a picture of something and make a paper copy of it. The duties of these machines have blurred quite a bit, with copiers able to fax or copy to file, faxes able to copy, and multifunction printers can even output photographs from file, hardcopy, or even old photonegatives or slides.
Next is the RF, or radio scanner. This is the classic "police radio" that is often talked about in older movies, where the whiz-kids hear a dispatch on their radio and end up nabbing the crooks before the cops can get there, or more recently, when Mr. Incredible and Frozone hang out on "bowling night" waiting for a police dispatch so that they can be super heroes again in a world where super heroes are outlawed. I used to sell these, so I'm a little familiar with their use.
Lastly, the CSRs where I work use scanners. These are a mystery to me... I'm not sure even if they're made out of paper or acetate, or what their purpose is. And while I realize that's pretty lame, its still another legitimate use of the word.
I had another data epiphany a few days ago, and this one solved an issue I had raised one or two blogs back- that being how do I know when a title has a corresponding entry (or entries) in the main Media table? I tested out adding a "check" column to the Media_Title table, but almost immediately discovered its Achilles' Heel: I could tell if the title was in use, but I could not tell exactly how, or for that matter, how many times. The new method uses the same table that the main Media table uses to categorize a piece of media- CD, DVD, etc., but allows for multiple entries. This is a god thing, as titles tend to repeat.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,
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