PC Mechanic, New Article

Another Reason To Go Paperless: USPS Cutting 7,500 Jobs

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 07:00 AM PDT

One of the last bastions of purity concerning job security was the US Postal Service. Working for the USPS was in a way like working for the state govt., federal govt. or the military in the respect that employees stayed there (usually happily) for decades. Well, you can scratch the USPS off the job security list as they’re cutting out 7,500 jobs, which includes the closure of seven district offices and 2,000 post offices.

It’s said the USPS is cutting costs due to competition from UPS and FedEx, but I think the real issue here is that more people are choosing to go paperless and simply don’t need the USPS as much as they used to.

The most common type of mail people receive are bills, and the most common type of mail sent is a payment for a bill. Given the fact that more people these days are receiving bills paperless in email, and using electronic payment to pay bills, it’s easy to understand why people are sending far less mail than they used to.

My experience with a paperless environment

I made the decision long ago that if any company who bills me has an electronic means of receiving bills/handling payments, I opt to use that. My apartment rent, cell phone, natural gas, electricity, vehicle registration renewal and everything else is handled online. The only things I actually need the USPS for are physical items, such as the registration sticker for the license tag on my car, AAA membership cards, car insurance cards and so on.

I use online means of billing so much that whenever I encounter a business that uses recurring billing and doesn’t offer online means of payment, they usually don’t get my business. One-time payments where online billing isn’t offered I can deal with, but for recurring, my thought is, "I have to mail a check? Every month? Are you serious?"

Where the USPS missed the boat (but may recover)

The USPS has been very, very slow to modernize, particularly with digital technology. They were last on the list with something even as simple as tracking numbers, and they’re not even that great ("Delivery Confirmation" only tells you if your letter/package got to the destination and doesn’t provide in-route information).

I’m also surprised the USPS never offered any kind of secure digital email service, because in all seriousness it would make total sense if they did; their business is mail, after all. At present nobody uses digitally signed email because it’s too much of an inconvenience to be useful. Digitally signed email via a postal carrier however would a good low-cost certified mail option however (ex: Login to usps.com site, pay small fee to deliver ‘certified digital mail’ to recipient of your choosing, recipient receives email stating to login to usps.com to retrieve message, on read of message @ usps.com site, you are sent receipt they read it).

Expect things to change with the USPS, and soon.

I’d also recommend that if you haven’t switched to online billing with your existing billers, you may want to consider it.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Another Reason To Go Paperless: USPS Cutting 7,500 Jobs

Fonts Look Terrible In IE9? Use Compatibility View

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 06:35 AM PDT

If the "hardware-accelerated" fonts in IE9 look terrible to your eyes:

…and you’d rather see your fonts like this:

This is the button you need to click in IE9:

(the small blue ‘broken paper’ icon in the address bar)

This button is used on a per-site level. For any web site you use where the fonts look blurry to your eyes, hit that button, and it will fix up the look. And yes, IE9 will remember the setting for each site where you set CV to ‘on’.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Fonts Look Terrible In IE9? Use Compatibility View