A Perl script catalogs books and CDs with the help of barcodes

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Article from Issue 97/2008
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Barcodes efficiently speed us through supermarket checkout lines, but the technology is also useful for totally different applications. An inexpensive barcode scanner can help you organize your private library, CD, or DVD collection.

Dealextreme.com, a company from Hong Kong, offers all kinds of inexpensive goodies. Customers can pay with PayPal, and shipping is free. Interested in a laser pointer for less than two dollars or a SATA/IDE adapter for just eight dollars? If you don't mind waiting up to two weeks for delivery, you're guaranteed to find a bargain with Dealextreme.

For quite a while I had my eye on the CCD-based barcode scanner for US$ 42 dollars (see Figure 1) (one of Dealextreme's most expensive products [2]) before I finally pressed the Buy button.

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