What may be happening is that a routing break between your ISP and ours (UUNet) has developed. So essentially, you can't "see" our Internet addresses.
Thankfully, these types of situations are reasonably rare and short-lived.
If you continue to have problems, please Email me directly ([email protected]) and I'll get one of our CS folks to run through a bunch of checks with you. (
BTW, one technique is to create a DOS window and issue a command at a DOS prompt like this:
tracert www.endicia.com
This "trace route" command will report a list of the internet nodes which are encountered between your PC and www.endicia.com. If there's an interruption somewhere, this tool will often pinpoint where it is.
Update on the IE situation. The CD arrived today and it installed like a charm! I'm up and running, have bought postage and tore large chunks of hair out trying to figure out the labels! I think I've got it!
Now, another question:
Does Endicia recommend a particular type of scale? I couldn't find anything to indicate this on the site. I have a small digital but probably need something more robust. Do some of the AW'ers have suggestions? Caveats?
BTW, thanks so much, Harry, for going the extra mile to get me up and running. I really appreciate it.
I was pleasantly suprised to find that my old free Stamps.com scale works just great with Endicia as well.
It has a serial port connector. When you put an item on the scale, press the "weigh" button in the Endicia software and the postage is automatically set to the correct amount for that weight. It's a big time saver.
I just saw a new one of these on Ebay for sale for $9.99. (Do an Ebay search for "stamps.com" scale.) Might be worth a look.
posted on July 27, 2001 02:04:10 PM
I know this thread was titled "Postage", but if you regularly ship many items weighing more than 3 or 4 lbs., or valuable items, you might want to check on UPS Daily Pickup. Their rates are very competive, particulary if you value online tracking and insurance. DC and $100.00 worth of insurance cost $2.40 from the postoffice, and is FREE with UPS. (and only 35 cents a $100 for additional insurance).
Edited to add:
They have Killer Software that keeps track of all your shipments, you can enter up to 4 Ref. Numbers. per package. (ebay numbers fit with room to spare ) Lables are printed on a neat little printer UPS supplies, and I get a printed out report every day. The UPS software is probably the most "bug free, user freindly" software on my whole computer.
[ edited by Microbes on Jul 27, 2001 02:09 PM ]
If anyone else runs into a problem installing Internet Explorer on their PC via a Web download from MS, the solution is to get a CD version of the installation and just install via the CD.
Scales
In 1991, we had demo'ed our first version of a PC Postage program to the USPS. It was based the earliest DOS version of our mailing software package, which was already a USPS internal "corporate standard".
The issue of weighing came up in our discussions, so we looked into both electronic and manual scales. I remember going to the local stationery store and buying about 10 scales for everyone in our office so we could do a test of our early postage prototype.
What we found was fairly interesting. At least in our environment, we didn't find the scales to be very necessary. The reasons were:
1. 1 oz letter mail turned out to be pretty obvious to identify without a scale. After weighing a few 1 - 3 page letters, we found that they were all 1 oz or less. So we stopped using our scales for that kind of mail.
2. We shipped (and still do ship) our presort software packages using USPS Priority Mail. Our stuff always fit within the 2 lb Priority Mail standard -- it was always the same: a manual, CD, some sample labels, etc. So, our shipping room seldom, if ever, used the scale.
3. Both Express and Priority Mail have "flat rate" packages. The deal there is you can stuff whatever you can fit into that envelope and, regardless of weight, the rate is fixed -- flat rate! We use these frequently, and none of these flats needed to be weighed.
So, if you are selling and shipping the same type of goods to buyers, you'll only need to weigh one of your packages once.
On the other hand, if you constantly ship packages of varying weights and they don't fall into one of the flat rate or 2 lb rates, a scale will be useful.
Manual scales are fine. We also have interfaced with a number of commerical electronic scales over the past decade. I believe the current DAZzle version will operate with the Stamps.com scale and the Neopost scale.
Small scale serial interfaces are always pretty similar and quite simple to implement, so our policy has been to support electronic scale models in response to user requests.
I think I've got it!
