Program running in the Background

Dear All,

I trying to make a sign in / sign out system in my company. There is a magnetic reader device that will be connected to a computer. On the computer, there should be a program running in the background (not visible and and does not appear in the task bar) that waits for inputs from the machine. When an employee puts his card in the machine, the program should read that value and put it in text file, nothing more. How should I start with this mini program? Does it have to do anything with console applications? I am using VB.NET and Visual Studio 2005, but any ideas are highly welcomed.

Thank you very much.