An acquired taste, apparently

[prog]

Do any of y'all use Delicious Library with an iSight? I (foolishly) bought a copy on-sight a few months ago, and then discovered that I can't get the key feature, iSight barcode scanning, to work, because the application seems to lock the camera's focal plane about two feet from the lens -- about 1.75 feet beyond where it should be to make scanning feasible. Nothing I do seems to convince the camera to refocus, as long as Library is running. Surely there's some way to make it work? It's the app's killer feature!

After filing three bug reports and never hearing back from them, I've asked them for a refund, but I'm not really expecting a reply. It's too bad that a happy (and relatively expensive) Mac product with such a bright and shiny façade has such crappy customer support.

UpdateHey, I got a reply to that latest email, and it's what I'd expect from a real business. This is more like it. To hear from anyone there makes me less upset with my purchase, and I'm telling them as much. Updates to follow, in separate posts.

Comments

[keimel.livejournal.com]

Why do you need another barcode reader? You still have my cue-cat, IIRC. :)

[prog.livejournal.com]

The app is mainly a personal media organizer, but the super-cool part of it is a built-in barcode reader that uses the iSight. It's still usable if you punch in UPC codes by hand, but I wouldn't have bought it if I had to do that with all the media I own. (Which I do have to do, since the iSight feature doesn't seem to work.)

[daerr.livejournal.com]

This feels like a dumb question: You know that Delicious Library can use cue-cats to scan bar codes, right? I only ask because your reply doesn't seem to have anything to do with John's post...

[prog.livejournal.com]

Well, only sorta, unless I missed something. They only work with "hacked" cuecats that output non-encrypted strings, yes?

I have used DL with another, stand-alone iSight barcode reader application, but it's a pain in the butt, requiring manual window-swapping ahoy. What I want is the power to tear through my bookshelves, zap zap zap, like at the supermarket checkout, and let the computer do all the work. That's how DL is supposed to work.

[daerr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but hacking the cuecat is easy (they tell you how). You only have to bend one pin.

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

I looked at the Apple page about iSight and the tech specs say it's autofocus range is 50mm to infinity -- this would imply the camera itself is incapable of focusing at closer distances without some sort of corrective lens. The whole 'bar code scanning' thing would have to imply that the bar codes are pretty huge.