Postage on the Mac

T'aint stamps, but if you mail out a package, you can use the US Post Office's website to print out the label and postage for your packages. Or, you use to before they changed their JavaScript printing service to an Adobe Acrobat plugin for your browser. They claim Mac compatibility, but I couldn't get it to work. UPS offers the same service, and it works for the Mac. US Post Office: https://sss-web.usps.com/cns/landing.do UPS:  https://www.ups.com/uis/create?loc=en_US Both services require you to sign up, but both are free. ======================================= Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd  ======================================= David Weintraub davidweintraubworld.net davidweintraub.name

On Jan 17, 2006, at 22:53, Adam C. Engst wrote:
> It's worth noting that if you use PayPal on eBay you can already
> print media mail and priority mail postage directly online and it
> costs nothing (works better on a PC than a Mac unfortunately, though
> I got it to work with Firefox).

At least with Priority, you can also go straight to the USPS site.
There are some issues, though. It used to be that a Java applet
generated and printed the postage label, and it worked very well, but
then they switched over to a Java-free system that generates PDFs,
probably so Windows users could figure it out. Well, some bad code in
the new system breaks it in Safari. You can still get to the label by
looking in Safari's network activity window and double-clicking the
PDF file that you'll see there, but this is hardly a good solution
(and useless with my preferred browser, OmniWeb, although I do think
Firefox is able to deal with it). I e-mailed support about it, and
got a rather useless response telling me that I needed to use (Mac)
IE. I replied back with a link to MS's death announcement and told
them to fix what is likely a minor problem rather than try to force
people to use an antiquated, soon-to-be-unavailable browser rather
than a browser that is modern and installed by default.

As for the eBay/PayPal option, it sounds like they've fixed this,
which is good and big surprise to me. When I last checked it out at
least a year ago, it was completely unusable on the Mac and eBay's
attitude seemed to be that it was going to stay that way. But then, I
also just recently got some pretty decent phone support from PayPal,
which was also quite a shock. (Then again, though, I got this support
after a miserable e-mail exchange wherein the CSR completely failed
to read my message, and thus failed to identify an obvious problem on
their end that required a 15 second fix.)

-Bob

(re-sent with subject line intact)

At 10:40 PM -0800 1/18/06, David Weintraub wrote:
>T'aint stamps, but if you mail out a package, you can use the US Post Office's
>website to print out the label and postage for your packages. Or, you use to
>before they changed their JavaScript printing service to an Adobe Acrobat
>plugin for your browser. They claim Mac compatibility, but I couldn't get it
>to work. UPS offers the same service, and it works for the Mac. US Post Office: <https://sss-web.usps.com/cns/landing.do>
>UPS: <https://www.ups.com/uis/create?loc=en_US>
>Both services require you to sign up, but both are free

David/Group,

I use Safari to print postage labels directly from the USPS site
multiple times per week. It's a little bit of a PITA, but not too bad.
There was a discussion a while back on Macintouch after the USPS
changed their system, and someone posted this solution.

First, you need to have the Acrobat plug-in installed on your system. Go
through all of the steps to print postage, but once the page that asks
if your label(s) printed correctly stops loading, go to the Window menu
and select Activity. You should see a URL that ends in PDF listed at the
top of the Activity window. Double-click this URL, and another Safari
window will open up along with a print dialog box. You can either print
your label at that time, or press cancel to display the label in Safari,
where it can be saved or printed after you ensure that it's correct.
Once you've done that, go back to the primary window in Safari and
click the yes button to say that your page printed correctly. They have
test labels available for both domestic and international shipping, so I
recommend trying those out before spending any money.

I ship quite a few small items using the video size Priority boxes from
the Post Office. Printing the postage label at 80% works perfectly for
these, and the data and bar codes are still perfectly legible. One plus
to printing labels out online is free delivery confirmation.

Regards,

Jim

In article
<20060119075936.b6b4c3d8f69e836161a83c3277bf2611.db15fd7eb8.wbeemail.se
cureserver.net>,
 Jim Curran <jimtuckeroo.net> wrote:

> I use Safari to print postage labels directly from the USPS site
> multiple times per week. It's a little bit of a PITA, but not too bad.
> There was a discussion a while back on Macintouch after the USPS
> changed their system, and someone posted this solution.
>
> First, you need to have the Acrobat plug-in installed on your system.

Another solution is to remove AdobePDFViewer.plugin from
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins and disable Safari's default handling of PDF
files by issuing the following command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

Once you perform these steps, Safari will just download PDFs to the
desktop and open them in Preview, including those generated by USPS's
site.

One thing that users depending upon eBay/PayPal and/or USPS neglect to mention is that once they get the printout to work, they have a nice label on ungummed paper.

Endicia may be relatively pricey, but do not overlook the blessing of printing postage and address labels on gummed labels. A simple peel of the backing and slap it on the package.

John

>First, you need to have the Acrobat plug-in installed on your system.

FWIW, I far prefer the PDF Browser Plugin to Adobe's, or
Tiger/Safari's new one.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16527


--
Andrew Laurence atlaurenes.nacs.uci.edu
Network & Academic Computing Svcs. http://www.nacs.uci.edu/~atlauren/
UC Irvine

On Jan 22, 2006, at 1:23 AM, John Miller wrote:

> One thing that users depending upon eBay/PayPal and/or USPS neglect
> to mention is that once they get the printout to work, they have a
> nice label on ungummed paper.
>
> Endicia may be relatively pricey, but do not overlook the blessing
> of printing postage and address labels on gummed labels. A simple
> peel of the backing and slap it on the package.

The US Post Office sells gummed labels that can be put through a
laser or inkjet printer and works with there site. Me, I prefer to
simply tape over the labels with packing tape anyway. Prevents the
ink from running when it gets wet.

--
David Weintraub
davidweintraubworld.net
davidweintraub.name

At 10:23 PM 01/21/2006 -0800, John Miller wrote:
>One thing that users depending upon eBay/PayPal and/or USPS neglect to
>mention is that once they get the printout to work, they have a nice label
>on ungummed paper.

So print on full-sheet label stock, available from your local office supply
megalith in Avery or house brand Avery 5165 or equivalent. Or is something
preventing you from doing this? This is how I use the USPS web site, albeit
I've only done it under Windows.

Edward
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

My local post office has a machine (wow!) that prints most kinds of
postage 24/7. It has a scale and a way to pay with an ATM card. But
oddly, you cannot purchase media mail postage on it -- guess the post
office still wants to interrogate you every time you send something
media mail. ("Does your package contain any personal correspondence?")

Martin

You seem to be neglecting another fun way to buy postage - PhotoStamps. They even have a Mac application that is integrated with iPhoto that will take any of your personal pictures and turn them into valid USPS postage. It will print 24˘, 39˘, 52˘, 63˘, 87˘ and $1.11 First Class stamps, as well as $4.05 priority mail stamps. This doesn't let you print out your stamps locally - they'll send 'em to you. But what a great way to make stamps that reflect your personality or business! Check 'em out at www.photostamps.com. http://www.photostamps.com/

Steve

Steve Sande
Highlands Ranch, Colorado
Author - Take Control of Your iPod: Beyond the Music
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Podcast Host - podbus.com

--On 1/25/2006 8:47 AM -0800 stevensande wrote:

> You seem to be neglecting another fun way to buy postage - PhotoStamps.
> They even have a Mac application that is integrated with iPhoto that will
> take any of your personal pictures and turn them into valid USPS postage.
> It will print 24˘, 39˘, 52˘, 63˘, 87˘ and $1.11 First Class stamps, as
> well as $4.05 priority mail stamps. This doesn't let you print out your
> stamps locally - they'll send 'em to you. But what a great way to make
> stamps that reflect your personality or business! Check 'em out at
> www.photostamps.com.

I would just point out that PhotoStamps is an extraordinarily expensive
service; you might use it for VERY special occasions (putting the baby's
first photo on a birth announcement) but I can't see wanting to use it
regularly.

Even at the largest listed quantity discount (for 100-500 sheets of 20,
2000 to 10,000 stamps) you're still paying $0.65 for each 39-cent stamp.
For 2-9 sheets (up to 180 stamps) it's $0.80 per stamp--more than double
the face value.

Maybe fun, but very very pricey.

Dave

At 11:51 AM 01/23/2006 -0800, David Weintraub wrote:
>Me, I prefer to simply tape over the labels with packing tape anyway.
>Prevents the ink from running when it gets wet.

Just remember not to tape over the bar code. It might work sometimes, but
the instructions say to be careful not to tape over it. I don't know what
happens if the bar code reader can't read it -- probably just a delay for
manual processing, but possibly it would get returned to you.

Good reason to use a laser printer ...

Edward
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

Hello all... very interesting reading.

Yes, not only is Endicia the only real postage solution for the Mac, but it also happens to ROCK as an application. I use it on both Mac & PC platforms, and while the PC side is a bit more robust, with more features, they are both rock solid, straightforward, and their support is as good as I've ever seen. It talks seamlessly to other apps via XML, now they just need to provide the (Filemaker?) shipping database to work with it.

But what I really came here for, is to ask a question: Can anyone out there tell me if there exists a USB postage scale that works with the Mac??? Endicia reports there is none that interfaces with thier system on the Mac side; are there any scales that work at all?

Thanks..

Mark Dennis markamirasbelly.com

Mark Dennis said:

>Can anyone out there tell me if there exists a USB postage scale that
>works with the Mac??? Endicia reports there is none that interfaces with
>thier system on the Mac side; are there any scales that work at all?


Check out:

<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=50954&item=95277668
24>





Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

MACINTOSH OS X ROUTINE MAINTENANCE
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html