It seems like I have covered up most of the unique numbers that get assigned to different things around us.
Is there anything I have left out? Anything else that organizes things around us uniquely world wide?
Well, it seems natural to me that I came across ISSN as I looked around to know more about ISBN and UPC.
There is nothing much, to state about ISSN, other than the fact that it is International Standard Serial Number.
ISSN is given to a periodical, or a magazine. It does not matter if it is print media or online media. It just has to be a periodical publication.
ISSN is a nine digit number, written as two four digit number separated by a hyphen, and the last digit being a checksum digit like with the other international numbers. Each periodical will be having a unique nine digit ISSN number that can be registered using the national based ISSN centers.
Note that ISSN is given to the entire periodical, and specific issue or volume cannot be specified using ISSN.
Considering that ISSN is for periodicals, be it print or online, are blogs (weblogs) entitled to get a ISSN. There seems to be quite a bit of argument going on for the case and also, there seems to be no consistency in the way, ISSN registrars of different countries act towards blogs. (See link).
Cost of Open Source software? Are they not free?
Not actually. Yes, they are free in the sense that they do not cost the licensing fee like the proprietary software out there. They actually cost money, but not in the traditional way. But the Open Source softwares are free - anyone is free to do what they choose with it. They are free to change the code and redistribute it. They are free to use it for their own purposes. For the use and the change of the code, no one is asked to pay anyone anything.
For the past one week, along with my usual write ups here at Splat, KalaaLog and Udantak, I have been also working along with someone to start a community website. As I had worked earlier with Drupal, for WiseTome, it was a natural choice for me to think of using it as a solution. Druapl is an Open Source, Content Management System. Since it is Open Source, I can download it, customize it, and may be code some more custom features, and after that I can use it for the website. I am not required to pay anyone anything. It is free.
Or is it?
I was involved recently in a startup website along with a friend. (I will give updates on this a little later). And when we were discussing on domain names, I explained how a domain name works - at least - how much I understood of it.
How is the visitor directed to a webhost where the website is installed with just typing the domain name in the browsers’ address bars?
Here is my understanding of how it all works.
Uniersal Product Code or UPC is a unique number that can be assigned to a particular product.
I happened to research this a bit for two reasons. One, it was in line with the posts I did about ISBN, ISAN and ISMN. Two, when I was checking out how I can get the mail in rebate for the optical mouse I bought, I stubled across the term UPC.
The UPC is a barcode that encodes a 12 digit decimal number (currently) that uniquely identifies a product produced by any company. If a ‘0′ is prefixed to the 12 digit UPC, it becomes a EAN complaint code.
EAN - or the European Article Number is a superset of the 12 digit UPC, the 10 digit ISBN and ISSN (we will talk about ISSN in another post).
The first six digits in the UPC are given by the Universal Code Council. The manufacture applies for the UPC code, and a particular sequence is assigned for them. The next five digits are chosen by the manufacturer for each of the product that is manufactured. The last digit is the check digit. It is a kind of redundancy check to ensure that the barcode reader has read it correctly - quite similar to the other numbers like ISBN, ISAN, ISMN or ISSN.
Each different type of packaging gets its own UPC manufactured by a company. It does not have the price coded in it - thus it allows for change of pricing, and deals that a retailer provides. The UPC barcode is read at the point of sale (POS) and then cross referenced with the price in a database, and they price is added to the bill. If the price needs to be changed, it can easily be done at the database. This is an advantage, as a change in price does not require a new UPC to be associated for the same product in the same package.
Now you know what those cryptic barcodes are in each package that is passed over the barcode reader in supermarkets.
Here is something that I explored a bit more after I did lookups on ISBN. As I mentioned earlier, the ISBN is to identify any book, its different editions and versions, from a commercial purpose. There are two other standards that identify video and music.
ISAN - International Standard Audio Visual Number
As the name suggests, the ISAN is a voluntary numbering system to uniquely identify audio visual works. The ISAN is given for audio visual works and not the broadcast or publication of these works. You may notice that this is a bit different than the ISBN other than the point that ISAN is given for videos. Also, different formats are given a same ISAN number - that is, a particular audio visual work will have same ISAN for its VHS, DVD or any other format version.
ISMN - International Standard Music Number
As ISAN is for audio visual works, ISMN is for music works. It identifies all music works in which ever form they may be in.
The ISMN is designed to rationalize the processing and handling of printed music and the respective bibliographical data for publishing houses, the music trade and libraries.
Like a ISBN, ISMN is a 10 digit number, and it begins with a M. It allows for about a billion different numbers that can be associated uniquely for a music work.
These numbers along with other identification like ISBN lets us consistently refer to a particular item with out any sort of ambiguity. It is quite natural that we have come up with such systems. Having technology that can easily read these barcodes/numbers, and also process them, allows us to keep the myriad of things in order.