By Andrew Liszewski
If you’ve ever accidentally bought the same album, book or DVD twice because you forget you already had a copy at home, then to be honest, you have too many albums, books or DVDs. (Seriously, you don’t need to serve as a redundant backup for the Library of Congress.) But if you just can’t help yourself, and don’t want to carry long lists of what you already own, the Groqit will serve as your own personal librarian. It’s basically a pen-sized scanner that reads, stores and organizes barcodes from most consumer products. So the next time you’re at the store and aren’t sure if you already own a particular item, you can just scan the barcode and the Groqit will let you know if it’s already in your collection.
While it only has 128MB of storage on-board, that’s enough to keep track of more than a million barcodes, so there’s a good chance you’re not going to fill it up in your lifetime. One feature I particularly like is the company’s online service that will not only translate the barcode data into actual product info, but also allows you to share your lists with others. So the next time you’re trying to pick out a DVD for a friend’s birthday, you can avoid the embarrassment of choosing a title they already own. The Groqit pen is available on their site for $95, while the online service is $4.95 a month.
Actually, most of the online services can be used FREE by anyone, without buying a Groqit.
Even people who have a shelf or two of DVDs may want to use those free services.
You know what you’ve got in your collection — but does even your best friend know which movies you’ve already got? A kid who’s got a box full of video games (and wants more new ones of course) can try to keep Grandpa up to date on his growing stash, so he will get something he wants for his birthday — but the Groqit site makes it all easier and more civilized.
The Groqit site’s tools help you create lists of anything you want to, as many as you want — up to 100 items per list, free. The site’s data bases help fill in the details when you enter a Title or a barcode number.
You have your wishlist for books, you put up the list of romance novels you already have, or all those games. Then you invite your friends to be Groqit Buddies with you. (This is private and secure.) They can look at the lists you want them to see, and if they decide to, they can use the free services to create their own lists to share.
You have everything in one place, and its a lot less tacky than sending out a “gimme” list around birthday time.
Finally, for people who are serious collectors — and there are a lot of us — just the word INSURANCE should conjure up some thoughts. The services are free. They are very helpful for large collections, as the tools reduce the drudgery of data entry. We store the data on our servers, just in case.
We encourage people use to the free services; we know some will want the convenience and portability, and buy themselves a Groqit.
Greetings,
Having read this site’s mission statement, I understand you’re looking for creative ways to use whatever comes along, to the purpose of making living with disabilities easier.
The Groqit device is part of a whole system, the part that reads barcodes and makes lists portable; it makes its easy to scan things anywhere and to look up what’s in inventory anywhere. The translation databases on line are set up for Books, Movies, Games and Music. (Groceries are a lot harder to deal with, from a barcode-translation standpoint.)
But for those who have large libraries, the Groqit is a “cognitive assistant” galore. That is exactly what it was designed to do. I do not consider myself cognitively impaired, but I have brought home second copies of books by favorite authors — that looked different to me because they had new cover art. I have tried and failed to recall which Mozart or Vivaldi pieces I already had recordings of at home. Those with disabilities are just as likely as the rest of us to want entertainment, and to amass collections that at some point become hard to keep track of.
There are free tools to help people organize and cataloge their collections, online, using our site.
No one has to buy the device to use them.
Here’s the link for “What do I get FREE, without buyig a Groqit: http://www.groqit.com/faqs/free_at_groqit.php.
Here’s the link for “How to share your lists — FREE:
http://www.groqit.com/faqs/share_lists_free.php
Even a collection small enough that you don’t forget what’s in it can and should be cataloged on our site. We store the information securely in our data base in case of disaster, if that data is ever needed for insurance purposes. And sharing your lists with friends is a whole other good reason.
it might serve to know how to rebuy something you want, like a same color tone of makeup … their names always seem to fade away by the time you need to refuel 😛
it might serve to know how to rebuy something you want, like a same color tone of makeup … their names always seem to fade away by the time you need to refuel 😛
it might serve to know how to rebuy something you want, like a same color tone of makeup … their names always seem to fade away by the time you need to refuel 😛