Scanning on a Shoestring

I know some of you have looked into getting Wireless Access Control for Patron Edge, and then reconsidered after seeing how much a quality wireless scanner costs these days. The Symbol MC55 is about $1000 a piece, and lower-end scanners tend to be less reliable in scanning successfully.

One of our clients recently became fed up with their scanners' lack of reliability and network connection problems. Instead of giving up on scanning, they found a clever solution that allows them to scan tickets for less than half the cost of a high-end scanner. How did they do it? They purchased cheap netbooks with Windows XP Pro, installed Patron Edge, and attached wired scanners. To scan, they launch ScanningValidation.exe so that it doesn't require a Patron Edge user license.

While this solution may not work for everyone, it's an easy way to do entry-level scanning. You can use it to figure out if moving to wireless scanning and purchasing high-end scanners makes sense for your organization. Laptops have legs though; I recommend either having very trustworthy volunteers to handle access control, or locking the laptop to some kind of permanent fixture.

How has your organization managed to meet your technical needs on the cheap? Share some advice in the comments.