Some consider it as something that is destined to happen while others won’t even give it a fighting chance.

As computers and technology evolve, more and more people are moving away from their television sets and spending their free time on computers. But, will the Internet ever be able to over-power cable and satellite television?

It all started with emails. When free email accounts were made available to the public, people could not get enough of it. To be honest, the majority of people are still engrossed with the email phenomenon, all the way to the point where they will stop watching television just to read or write an email.

Shortly after email came other Internet paradigms. Before you knew it, instant messaging programs, social networking websites, and an endless supply of online videos were reaching computers worldwide. With all of this entertainment at any online user’s fingertips, what else could the Internet provide that could rival traditional cable and satellite entertainment?

What about this: instead of finding alterative streams of entertainment aside from television stations, why not put those television stations right on the Internet? This is exactly what is currently going on and is slowly gaining in popularity. The question is whether or not it will be as popular as other Internet phenomenon’s?

As of now, people seem to like where Internet television is going. Take for example the online product at They offer to give you 3,000 different television and radio stations (including local, national and global channels) all for a one-time fee. No matter if you are into sports, news, movies, shopping, or anything else that you find visually entertaining, this company is willing to give it all to you without any recurring fees.

Many people have already jumped on the bandwagon to gain access to these Internet television stations through mediums like but is it enough to consider standard cable and satellite television a thing of the past? Most would probably say no, but others are pondering the impact online television stations will have. After all, it has been proven in numerous studies that people are spending a lot more time in front of their computers than they have in the past.

We hear the statement “disadvantages of barcode scanners” from time to time and as we probe the customers that believe this we find a common theme. Most customers that believe there are disadvantages of barcode scanners are customers that are not using them and keep a well managed manual system in place because it works for them.

Many manufacturers and distributors still manage inventory on log sheets and with index card systems. This was a tried and true method for years, but in todays world of speed and error free work, you should not rely on your employees always getting the number right. The advantage of the barcode scanner is that it reads what is there. There is no way the scanner can transpose numbers or recognize the number 0 as a letter o or a number 1 with a letter l. There are many human error elements that lead to duplicate work because of errors and the barcode scanner prevents the errors of transposing and mis-reading number and letter characters.

Now the disadvantages of barcode scanners are usually perceived as cost, change, and durability of the rough environment that customers may think, there is no way we can automate. Well, lets look at each disadvantage at a time.

The disadvantage of a barcode scanner because of cost is a real easy one to tackle. The costs have really come down on both inventory management software packages and barcode scanning hardware. The payback in time saved due to error free work and the speed in which cycle counts and inventories can be done can provide a return on the investment within 3-4 months. Not bad!

The disadvantage of barcode scanners when it comes to change is referencing change to the work place. Many organizations that have been in business for many years have really tweaked their processes and have many employees that have been trained and know the current way of doing things. Well, to keep up with the competitive nature of business, change must be a part of the plan. Adding barcode scanning capabilities is really not that big of a change. If you think about it, the scanner really only writes the data for the employee. So, it really does not change much, it just makes the process easier and employees usually embrace it. Really, who likes to hand right everything anyway?

Now we are down to the last issue of durability as a disadvantage of barcode scanners. Today, barcode scanners are designed for all kinds of environments from libraries to industrial steel plants. No Disadvantage of barcode scanner here. If durability is what you want, take a look at this workhorse that has been around for over 10 years. It is the Quick Scan 6000, now replaced by the QS3800. This scanner is known as the Hammer! Over the years it has been run over by forklifts, dropped from high ladders, covered in ash and it still keeps scanning. There are many newer models in the market today, but that is an example on durability in a barcode scanner.

So, now I ask, what are the disadvantages of barcode scanners? If you have any thoughts that were not covered here, let us know. We are extremely interested in hearing from you.