1. An article of manufacture for obtaining automatic actions through a network using processing circuitry for connecting to the network and detection circuitry for providing input signals to the processing circuitry, the automatic actions being provided by action devices connected to the network; the article comprising: an area of a marking medium; and machine-readable markings within the area of the marking medium that encode an action/medium identifier; the machine-readable markings being decodable to obtain the action/medium identifier by the processing circuitry using input signals from the detection circuitry, the input signals including information defining the machine-readable markings; the action/medium identifier identifying an action and being usable by the processing circuitry to obtain an action identifier that the processing circuitry can provide through the network to an action device to produce the action; the action device providing the action automatically in response to the action identifier; the action/medium identifier further identifying the marking medium.