So, the story started with my recent moving. Like most of people, I’m not really enjoy the whole moving thing… but this time, I thought I could add a little bit of fun to it. The problem I found was once everything is packed, it would be impossible to find them again. My mom’s method is to take a piece of paper and a pen, record everything packed inside, and assign a number to each box. So later on, by looking the “packing list” you “should” find what you are looking for.

I don’t like write down things, and I don’t like to carry a notepad, a pen all the time (I know I will drop them somewhere, and I will never find them again… yes! I am a really organized guy ). So my way is using the QR Code. I’m not gonna spend a lot of time here to explain what QR Code is. Basically, it is a two-dimensional bar code. Something looks like this:

qr code sample

it has been used for manufacturing tracking, product promotions, labeling… etc. It was so popular in Asian, specially in Japan. For folks in North America, you may see similar 2D barcodes on some of packages, or UPS, FedEx labels. Compare to the traditional barcode, it contains more information than just a serial number. So I thought I could using the QR Code as my “packing list”.

First, how to generate the QR code? There are a lot of free generators online. A really good one will be http://qrcode.kaywa.com/. Or, if you are familiar with Google Chart API, you could create your own generator:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function genCode(){
var url = "http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=320x320&cht=qr&chl="+encodeURIComponent(document.getElementById('_text').value)+"&choe=UTF-8";
document.getElementById('_result').innerHTML ="<img width='320px' height='320px' src='"+url+"' alt='code' />";
return false;
}
-->
</script>

<form>
<textarea id="_text"></textarea>
<input type="button" value="Generate" onclick="genCode()" />
</form>
<div id="_result"></div>

If you have more time, you could even go one step more, create a DB to recode everything . Alright, just enter the box contents, generate the code, print it out, attach it to the box, done!

Then the fun part, how to read the QR Code. I am assume you don’t have a QR Code scanner, so you have to use your cell phone. Kaywa reader is a mobile applicaiton that supports many mobile devices, you could find the supported devices list here. Or, if you own a iPhone, you could find a lot of QR Coder reader apps from the app store. The one I used is “Barcodes“. Just aim your phone to the QR Code, take a picture, the app will decode it for you:

So next time when you move (I hope not…) you may try this out!