Free 2011 Calendar Download

SEATTLE-Once again, Azalea Software has release a series of four free calendars. The 2011 calendars are in PDF format and feature photographs with food visual puns. These free calendars can be downloaded from Azalea Software's website [ http://www.azalea.com/calendarhttp://www.azalea.com/calendar/ ] and printed on any inkjet or laser printer.

For almost 10 years, Azalea Software's founder and owner, Jerry Whiting, has designed calendars from family, friends, and business partners. All except the first year's have featured Whiting's photography. Every year's calendar has a distinct theme. Past calendars have highlighted graffiti, neon, orchids, and humorous signs.

"I've tried to quit making calendars a couple of times and my Mother and her friends insist otherwise. I'm not about to piss of my Mom and her friends." says Whiting. "Last year we stopped printing physical calendars due to rising costs. Instead we gave the calendars away online. Not only did we save money, we were able to share them with countless people around the world. The response was overwhelming!"

The 2011 calendars are one page, feature all the major holidays as well as the Azalea staff's birthdays, and offer humorous images throughout the year.

The calendars' names hint at their punchlines: key lime pi, nuts & bolts, diversity fish, and hot duck.

Download one or download them all. Link to them on your Facebook page. Give them away to strangers. Make your own if you think ours stink.

Azalea Software [Seattle WA], founded in 1992, sells barcode fonts and barcode software. They maintain The Barcode FAQ and have been known to mouth off in their blog, BarcodeNerds.blogspot.com

Lasers, Waffles and QR Codes

These are a few of my favorite things.

New York superdorks NYC Resistor organized an edible QR code competition and waffle batter got the laser treatment. Other foodstuffs included crackers, Chiclets and jello.

Amazing video here.

story via

Business FINALLY Discovering the Beauty of QR

Art galleries in Augusta, Georgia get into the QR act with window decals.

Italian cheeses- always delicious, and now smart phone-traceable!

Wine snobbery goes to a whole 'nother level with QRs on labels.


Seattle's Herbfarm restaurant QRs their menus.

Middle Tennessee Medical Center's new print ad is QR-tastic.

A New Jersey sign maker brilliantly hops on the QR wagon.

Beckley, West Virginia tourism gets a QR boost.

Nintendo's Japanese 3DS Will Include QR Codes

Mii Studio characters can be converted into a QR code that users can print or post on a website to share their Mii's. Friends then scan the QR with their 3DS camera to retrieve the Mii.



via IGN
image via Duck Fluff

Online Retailer Gets QR Codes Really Right

Fashion retailer Bluefly and Bravo have teamed up to create a commercial QR experience that's both useful and savvy.



45-second commercials running on the cable network feature QR codes along the bottom of the screen that when scanned with a cellphone bring up online extras, full-length video and special Bluefly discounts.



This is how QR should be done!

via the New York Times

Excel Spreadsheets & Barcodes

There's a way to put barcodes in Excel spreadsheets. Use Azalea's fonts and free Excel spreadsheets with macros.

Japanese Town Utilizes 2D Barcodes in Worst Way Ever

Sad, awful fourth-sign-of-the-apocalyse dating simulation game LovePlus+ and the resort town of Atami, Japan have joined forces to create the ne plus ultra creeptastic "romantic holiday" for terrible male humans.

2D barcodes are scattered at locations throughout the town where the men can have CGI-type pictures taken with their "virtual girlfriend".

At a dozen romantic locations in and around the town are three-dimensional barcodes which can be read by an iPhone. The barcode allows the love-struck visitors to have a computer generated photograph taken with their beloved through augmented reality technology. In the hotel, some beds have barcodes, so that photographing it reveals the virtual girlfriend lying there seductively.

The end is nigh, friends.

Print UPC & ISBN-13 Barcodes in Excel Spreadsheets (video)

A short video about printing UPC & ISBN-13 barcodes in your Excel spreadsheets using UPCTools. Use our free sample spreadsheets with macros that convert your data into a scannable UPC or ISBN-13 barcode.

www.azalea.com/UPC/Excel/

Creating Code 128 Barcodes in Excel Video

A short video about printing Code 128 barcodes in your Excel spreadsheets using C128Tools. Use our free sample spreadsheets with macros that convert your data into a scannable Code 128 barcode.



www.azalea.com/Code-128/Excel/

Hurricane Exhibit Utilizes QR Codes

The Louisiana State Museum's new exhibit Living With Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond incorporates QR barcodes to link visitors to in-depth information via their smartphones.

Audrey, Betsy, Camille, Rita, KATRINA - names that evoke memories of fear, loss, destruction. Unheeded warnings that Louisiana is washing away. A city under water. The desperation of people on rooftops unable to escape rapidly rising flood waters. Ordinary heroes. Failed levees. Failed leadership. A city struggling to survive. The kindness of strangers. Resilience. Recovery. Hope.

These are the stories of Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond, a 6,700 square-foot interactive multimedia exhibition scheduled to open on the ground floor of the Presbytere in the fall of 2010. Living with Hurricanes will be the world's definitive hurricane exhibition. Combining authentic contemporary accounts, historical contexts, immersive environments, and in-depth scientific exploration, Living with Hurricanes will enable visitors to understand Katrina's impact on Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, and the nation.

via National Geographic Blog

App That Combats Texting While Driving

We all know how dangerous it is, and we all know someone who does it (occasionally that someone is us). Texting while you drive leaves you twenty-three times more likely to be involved in an accident. TWENTY-THREE TIMES.

Seattle developer Erik Wood has introduced OTTER (One Touch Text Response), a brilliant little phone app that offers auto-reply, car mode, and parental password controls. May it save a life. Or ten.

MSR Water Filter Field Cleaning

QR Codes On Tombstones

It takes some real creativity to surprise us with a new use for QR but this is simply brilliant.

QR Code Protects the Eyes of Innocents

Calvin Klein Jeans has found an ingenious way to deliver sexxay™ video in the very public square, without offending anyone's sensibilities.



(Right then and there, I mean. The video encoded in the QR is of negative artistic value and makes me barfy, feminism-wise, but what advertising doesn't do that?)

Barcode Beasties on Your Cellphone

The cutest new mobile phone battle game is proudly sponsored by the super awesome and very good looking folks at Azalea Software (okay, that's us).

Why? Because it's barcodes. Duh.



Visit barcodebeasties.com from your phone, or download directly here.

Microsoft Really Really Really Wants You to Use Their Tags. Really.

And they're partnering up all over the place to help you do just that.

What you really need is a (proprietary Microsoft) tag that's reliant on (proprietary Microsoft) servers to deliver you content (that's been logged by Microsoft but they probably most likely won't use for anything like intrusive marketing right because why?). And hey, pretty colors!

Never mind QR codes- you know, the free open-source barcode that's already in global use. Who needs open source? Piffle.

QRdvark 1.0 now available in Android Market

Download and install QRdvark from the Android Market.

QRdvark is a free QR scanning app. It scans QR symbols and reacts appropriately. QRdvark recognizes all common QR formats including URLs, contacts, SMS, email, and location, as well as standard barcode formats and GS1 identification keys.

"See it. Scan it. See what happens."

Google and the QR Barcode

Because we are Google's BFF (and huge G1 phone nerds) we love to see the big G dabble in the barcode arts.

Offering a new sort of checkout to Google merchants/Android users, a QR barcode is generated live at online ordering, the buyer scans with their Android phone and completes the payment that way.

A little convoluted for my taste (okay, a lot convoluted for my taste), and really nowhere near utilyzing the practically-magick potential of the QR, but everyone's got to start somewhere.

The iPad meets the CueCat

It had to happen sooner or later. Yes, someone somewhere plugged a CueCat into an iPad.

And it worked!

Cardboard G1 Cell Phone Stand

Hacking via Barcodes

Just when you thought it was safe to scan any and all barcodes, someone comes up with an attack using barcodes.

If you do use this technique, please buy your barcodes from Azalea Software. It's the least you can do.

Trader Joe's Double Barcodes

EAN-8's to begin with. Not one but TWO on the package (hire better staff and/or train them more). And that second one. Dude, what's going on here???

QR Barcode From Your Android Phone

Barcode Tattoo Photos Gallery

Azalea.com now sports a barcode tattoo photo gallery.

And while both of us are inked, none are of bar codes.

Think RFID is the answer? Read this!

Call me paranoid and yes I *do* own a tinfoil hat thankyouverymuch. I've always envisioned some badguy/badgal sitting outside a DC subway stop scanning all the federal ID badges that popped up above ground. CLONE!

Now comes word of this RFID emulator thingie.

Hand me my hat...