QR Codes?

Ponytails

Ponytails

Active member
I'm curious where you guys create your QR codes, if you use them. I tend to add a lot of videos via QR code to my weekly pages. I was using Unitag, which was free. Not long ago I got an email saying that they would be charging, blah blah blah... basically stating that unless I paid a subscription fee then my codes would be deactivated.

To say I was shocked was an understatement! I honestly thought that once a code was created, that was it! I didn't know it was even possible to deactivate them. I wrote back to the company expressing my displeasure (read: fury!) and they said I could have a free membership based on my usage. But now all my codes that I created before that date are gone.

I seriously want to cry just thinking about it! I have a ton of QR codes on various pages and in my weekly books that are all printed. I'm going to have to make little paper cut-outs with new codes on them and that just makes me want to cry all over again.

I did find QRCode Monkey, which is free but only gives me a jpeg version with the white background. I'll take it... but it got me wondering if there's something better out there?

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my novel! :D
 
I don't use them often enough to pay for a sub. I usually just use QRcode Monkey
 
This is actually why I’ve always been hesitant to use them - it seems websites and links are often shutting down or changing the terms. I love the idea but I worry about the permanence of content hosted online. If I were you, I’d be furious that they deactivated a bunch of your codes.
 
Ponytails said:
I tried them but now the site says that my free trial has expired. Do you pay a subscription fee there?
Click to expand...

Weird... I just have it bookmarked & never sign in. No clue about a trial... I just click on the url box, paste my url (usually from my Google photos) and then generate, then download the png.
 
I've used qrstuff.com for years. It used to just be free and easy. I think a couple of years ago they started saying there was a little amount of times you could scan the code and then it wouldn't work anymore. Sigh. Why can't things just stay easy and continue to work? I don't know if all the pages in my books still work or not, but even if they don't I suppose it'll at least indicate that there's a video out there in my YouTube that I could look up if I want to.

Now you can right click on an image inside of Chrome and it'll create a QR code that looks like it's host on flickr. I don't know how long those work either. It's such a cool feature to include on my pages, so I totally understand your frustration if you created a page using a QR code and now maybe it won't work.
 
Oh man! I have been using Unitag as well for my pages. Although, nothing so often as weekly. I maybe use only 2-4 QR codes a year on various layouts.
That they would deactivate what you have already created is ridiculous! It sounds like blackmail - pay us money or your codes die!
I guess that I need to go check into that now. I wish that I had a solution. It would have made more business sense on their end to leave the old codes as grandfathered in and any new ones need to be purchased. I know with some cheap printing sites you have to login in every so often or your old stuff gets purged. That at least would be understandable. But to just dump it?!?!
 
I had been using QR Code Monkey for a long time, and a few weeks ago, the Persnickety Prints email had a tutorial for creating one in Canva. I'm not sure if it's rational or not, but it seemed 'safer' to me, so the most recent QR code I did, I did there.
 
Oh, and I also started storing a copy of the actual videos labeled with the page name/date in my smugmug, so that way if the videos stop working, at least 10 years from now, I'll be able to say "oh, those funny symbols don't work anymore, but I know just what video to pull up"
 
So I went back to the blog post about adding QR codes to layouts, and found that unitag was the one mentioned in that post. So I opened up one of those layouts and my QR app to see if it would still be viewed. No problems watching my video. The blog post I read did have the videos uploaded as private to YouTube, so there are still there, and a QR code is still valid, even if there are issues with the site used to create it? I guess we shall see what happens the next time I go to create one using the site?
 
DawnMarch said:
This is actually why I’ve always been hesitant to use them - it seems websites and links are often shutting down or changing the terms. I love the idea but I worry about the permanence of content hosted online. If I were you, I’d be furious that they deactivated a bunch of your codes.
Click to expand...

I wrote back to them about it and they're back again now, and the links work again. But it'll be something I'm going to worry about now. I won't use that site again, at any rate.
 
AmieN1 said:
Weird... I just have it bookmarked & never sign in. No clue about a trial... I just click on the url box, paste my url (usually from my Google photos) and then generate, then download the png.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I may have to check them out again. Maybe I'd clicked on a trial subscription or something. I do like the idea of getting a PNG rather than a jpeg.
 
Karen_ said:
I've used qrstuff.com for years. It used to just be free and easy. I think a couple of years ago they started saying there was a little amount of times you could scan the code and then it wouldn't work anymore. Sigh. Why can't things just stay easy and continue to work? I don't know if all the pages in my books still work or not, but even if they don't I suppose it'll at least indicate that there's a video out there in my YouTube that I could look up if I want to.

Now you can right click on an image inside of Chrome and it'll create a QR code that looks like it's host on flickr. I don't know how long those work either. It's such a cool feature to include on my pages, so I totally understand your frustration if you created a page using a QR code and now maybe it won't work.
Click to expand...

A limited number of times??? What's the point? *sigh* The Chrome thing sounds cool too, but I'd probably worry about that one too, because you know they'll find a way to monitize it eventually.
 
meagan43 said:
Oh man! I have been using Unitag as well for my pages. Although, nothing so often as weekly. I maybe use only 2-4 QR codes a year on various layouts.
That they would deactivate what you have already created is ridiculous! It sounds like blackmail - pay us money or your codes die!
I guess that I need to go check into that now. I wish that I had a solution. It would have made more business sense on their end to leave the old codes as grandfathered in and any new ones need to be purchased. I know with some cheap printing sites you have to login in every so often or your old stuff gets purged. That at least would be understandable. But to just dump it?!?!
Click to expand...

Well, I did write them again and it's all back now, thankfully. I'm not sure why they disappeared in the first place, but they keep telling me I'm fine because I only use it for my own personal use. Still, I don't want to use them anymore because I'll never feel confident about those codes.
 
knittingbec said:
I had been using QR Code Monkey for a long time, and a few weeks ago, the Persnickety Prints email had a tutorial for creating one in Canva. I'm not sure if it's rational or not, but it seemed 'safer' to me, so the most recent QR code I did, I did there.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check that out. Thanks!
 
knittingbec said:
Oh, and I also started storing a copy of the actual videos labeled with the page name/date in my smugmug, so that way if the videos stop working, at least 10 years from now, I'll be able to say "oh, those funny symbols don't work anymore, but I know just what video to pull up"
Click to expand...

Yes, I do try to label the pages with enough information that I can find it in my youtube channel easily. And over there I make sure to title things properly and add all the details, so it's not forgotten.
 
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