I almost spent big bucks for a cordless scanner to go with my library software. I am so glad I got this instead!

A cordless scanner sounds GREAT, but once you enter your entire collection of books, movies, whatever, you don't NEED a scanner that will go all over the house. Any additional items you bring home will go to your computer to be checked in before being shelved. It was worth the many trips I made to haul the books to the CueCat to save the huge difference in cash.

My wife and I like movies, it's actually a bit of an obsession. Once we passed the 2k mark for the number of DVDs we own and needed to keep track of we decided it was time to invest in some kind of software based tracking tool. We ended up going with DVD Profiler which does a great job of helping us keep track of all our movies and has many options for reports, lending, etc. The issue we had was with entering all our movies. Doing so by title was out of the question. I started looking into barcode scanners and initially was leaning toward scanners in the $80-$100, thinking that you get what you pay for. Since I really didn't feel like paying that much for a limited use device and I saw the reviews of this one were pretty good I decided to take a chance.

It arrived, rather surprisingly, in a plain padded mailing envelope. Packaging could be improved but it was undamaged so I won't complain too much. I took it out, plugged it into my USB port and used their test sheet to make sure it was scanning OK. It worked perfectly the first time. Vista recognized it and loaded the correct drivers immediately.

I'm now entering movie after movie into our database without killing myself at the keyboard. If you need a simple and cheap scanner - look no further. Not terribly ergonomically friendly, but it does the job and it's dirt cheap.

The Cue Cat is beloved to many collectors as an aid to ingesting barcode data.

I think they vary in effectiveness from unit to unit. I know when you would get them free from radio Shack there were two different kinds. Internally different, with differences in the way the reader worked. This could account for the very different reports I have seen -- the 'love it' / 'hate it' mystery.

Either that or people vary in their patience with something that works, but not every time.

The Cue Cat has been a " glass half full" for those of us who learned to get along with it. And look at the price!

On the other hand, the Groqit is available now, which incorporates a barcode reader with complete portability -- not tethered to the computer to read barcodes, plus it takes lists along when you put it in your pocket. And the site does barcode translations. So the choice I made was to just spend the extra money ($95). I gave away my Cue Cat.

But no one can argue with it for value! It has a really interesting history. The Cue Cat was supposed be part of a major scheme involving advertising. Millions of the little guys were made, and given away. That's why they're so amazingly inexpensive.

I was looking for something to help me catalog books, this seemed to be the least expensive option by far. I was skeptical when I ordered it and wasn't expecting much of it, but to my surprise it was able to pick up the bar codes easily. Yesterday night I scanned in 500 books using this thing, it would have been painful if I had to type in the ISBN's manually. I used the CueCat with the [...] website and it works great.

My USB modified CueCat has worked flawlessly since I installed it by simply plugging it into a free USB port.

One plus, which I did not expect, is that the scanner automatically adds "enter" to whatever you have scanned, creating a new line in a file or prompting a search to begin if you are using it with Amazon.

A few tips will help you make better use of your scanner: If you are scanning a barcode that has a price code to the right of it, start in the middle and scan "backwards." The cuecat still scans properly, and you won't have to hand-delete the unwanted data.

The scanner does not work on every single pass, due to variations in hand speed. A very fast back-and-forth motion, repeated several times in a row, is more efficient than scanning once, checking to see if it entered, trying again, checking again, and trying again... it will not reenter the same number several times in a couple seconds, but you can do several passes, and increase your chance of actually reading the UPC. I do two to four passes, and that usually enters the information.

Also, if you are scanning UPCs to enter ISBNs on Amazon or similar look-up sites, you will only want to use your wand on UPC codes that begin with 9's. A UPC that begins with a zero will not return a usable code.

Lastly, your cuecat goes into sleep mode if not being used constantly. To wake it up, simply hold the wand over any barcode before starting to scan with the wand. When the red light stops blinking and is steady, it is ready to go to work. This will save a couple useless hand-waves and feeling silly or frustrated when starting a batch of scanning.