Apodidae

How do I Scan with OS 6.0 (BB6)?

• Click the “Scan” button within Barcode Assistant or select “Scan Barcode” from the web browser, task app, address book, or calendar.
• The scanning window will open.
• Make sure you are at least 6″ away from the image being scanned.
• The red LED will blink while searching for the barcode.
• Slowly move the BlackBerry forward and back so the device can get a lock on the barcode.

The BlackBerry will attempt to recognize the shape on the screen. The LED blinks while it is doing its recognition. If the LED is not blinking, the most common problem is being too close to the barcode for it to recognize the shape.

How do I Scan with OS 5.0?

• Click the “Scan” button within Barcode Assistant or select “Scan Barcode” from the web browser, task app, address book, or calendar.
• The scanning window will open.
• Make sure you are at least 6″ away from the image being scanned.
• Click the trackpad, space bar, or enter key (Storms: click the screen).
• The camera will now attempt to focus on the image and take a picture.

Barcodes are not recognized automatically with 5.0. Instead, a photo is taken and the image is decoded afterward. If the image is out-of-focus, angled, skewed, or distorted, the decoder may give an error message.

Curves (85xx, 93xx) don’t have autofocus, so the distance might need to be a little further away to manually focus the image on screen.

The camera won’t scan (OS 5.0). What can I do?

This seems to be an issue with some devices running 5.0. The issue seems to be with using the smaller image capture (640×480).

Go into Settings and change the image size to 1024×768.  This setting makes the camera capture a larger image to decode, which seems to help with some devices.

One thing to remember, with the larger image size, the decoding process might be a little slower.

How to I use Quick-Create?

• Select the tab/button for the type of barcode you want to create (Web, Phone, Geo…).
• Enter the information to include in the barcode.
• Click the “Create” button.

Geo Location won’t locate me. What can I do?

Sometimes, the first attempt won’t lock on. Escape the screen and restart the location search.

By default, the application is looking to use unassisted GPS. This is more accurate, but can take longer to get a GPS lock. You can go into Settings and change the way GPS retrieves your location.

How do I create a Twitter barcode?

On the E-Mail/Twitter quick create tab (@), you can create e-mail address and Twitter codes.

• If the entry starts with an @ sign, it creates a twitter barcode.
• If the entry starts with anything else, it expects it to be an e-mail address.

Twitter barcodes will actually be web URL’s that point towards the twitter name.

Can I make Twitter barcodes open a Twitter app?

Currently, there isn’t a way to do this. Instead, the twitter feed is opened in the web browser. We are looking into a way to get twitter accounts to open inside twitter apps.

What is the best way to create a Contact barcode?

Barcode Assistant creates vCard formatted barcodes based on the information in the contact list. Select a contact and choose “Create Barcode” from the menu. You can also choose a contact from within the Barcode Assistant app.

One thing you may notice is how congested contact barcodes can get. Everything that is in the contact’s entry will be included in the barcode. This can make for some pretty large barcodes! Some may have so much information that they won’t be readable when displayed on the screen. They can still be saved and printed for scanning, though.

The best practice is to create a contact entry with just the information you want included. Maybe just include:

• • Name
  • Company
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • Website
  • PIN number

Barcodes made with less information will be easier to read by others.

How do I save barcodes?

• Display the barcode full-screen.
• Choose “Save Barcode” from the menu.

If you are looking at the data screen, which shows the smaller barcode image, you can choose “View Barcode” from the menu, or click on the small barcode itself to display it full-screen.