10:24 – I knew that USPS was increasing prices as of today, but I didn’t realize that they were making other changes that in total would more than double our shipping costs.
Until yesterday, I was using their Click-N-Ship website, which provided Commercial Base Pricing. Shipping a Large Flat Rate Box cost me $15.80, a discount of a couple bucks off Retail Pricing at the counter. As of today, that discount goes away and Retail Pricing also increases. Shipping a Large FR box will now cost me $18.75, an increase of almost 19%.
But that’s the least of the problem. As of today, Click-N-Ship no longer offers Regional Rate Box postage. About 80% of our shipments go by RR Box, which is no longer offered. The net result is that our postage costs will more than double if I continue using the USPS Click-N-Ship website to generate postage labels.
The alternative is to sign up with Stamps.com, Endicia.com, or one of the other third-party providers. Those cost $15 or $20 per month, which isn’t a big deal. The problem is that none of them as far as I can see support Linux. They’re all Windows/Mac-only. But they do offer Commercial Base Pricing and Regional Rate Box postage, which Click-N-Ship no longer does, so I have no real choice but to use one of them.
The only non-Linux box in the house is currently Barbara’s notebook, which means I’ll need to run postage labels there.
11:36 – So, I just ordered a new notebook from Costco.com and got signed up with Stamps.com.
I need to do something about our appliances. When the former owners built this house in 2006, they installed all Frigidaire appliances. I despise Frigidaire. The dishwasher sucks. Its racks are almost unusable and it simply doesn’t clean dishes. The built-in microwave is failing. The 1-4-7 column on the keypad is dead, so we’ve been heating things for times that don’t have a 1, 4, or 7 in them. Instead of one minute, we’ve been punching in 59 seconds, and so on. Then, last night when Barbara was heating a bowl of soup, the microwave started making very strange noises and actually arced. So we hauled up one of our three microwaves from downstairs and put it on the counter. That’ll be fine indefinitely, but we need to replace the dishwasher sooner rather than later. At least Barbara actually likes the oven, but it’s coming up on 10 years old so it may eventually need to be replaced as well.
I wonder if that will affect ebay selling too. Currently they use pitneybowes and I’ve just made the decision to start stocking regional rate boxes. I get a nice discount currently off retail, and I’ll have to change a bunch of listings that have flat rate shipping if the costs change much.
UPS changed their rate structure too.
The breakeven seems to be around four pounds. Less than that, USPS Priority is cheaper, more than 5, UPS. Unless it fits in flat rate, but even then UPS is often cheaper. I rarely looked at regional rate, but I’ve shipped a bunch of the same items lately so I had a good base for comparison. I could have saved a buck or 2 on several sales. My local post office doesn’t stock the regional boxes so I have to order them. One more hassle.
With the seriously reduced fuel costs, I don’t see why shippers are increasing rates.
The whole ebay/etsy/amazon/online wholesale economy will go away if they start taxing the sales, and raise shipping costs. And that would be bad on a personal level and on a worldwide economic level.
nick
USPS basically just made Click-N-Ship entirely useless for most eBay sellers, unless their volume is so low that the $15/month cost of a third-party postage provider is an issue.
I just ordered a Lenovo Windows 10 notebook from Costco, which’ll be my postage label computer, with Barbara’s notebook as a backup. I really, really hate what USPS just did to Click-N-Ship.
This one, incidentally.
http://www.costco.com/Lenovo-Ideapad-300-Laptop-|-Intel-Core-i7.product.100235067.html
What about a Windows virtual machine, Bob? Most software runs well enough that way now, and it’d save you having to use Barbara’s notebook.
Edit: never mind, see you bought a Lenovo. I’ll be interested to hear how good it is — I’ve heard they’ve decreased quality in the past few years, but it’s still miles ahead of most laptops.
I tried that when I got a stamps.com account a few years ago when USPS Click-N-Ship had become unusable. They got it fixed, and I dropped my stamps.com account a year or 18 months later.
So today I say goodbye to USPS Click-N-Ship. Continuing to use it would cost me literally thousands of dollars per year in extra postage costs.
What’s the pecking order on laptops nowadays? I’ve always got Dell in the past.
Also, I could *really* use some recomendations on the following:
1. noise cancelling headphones. Noisy people in restaurants drive me crazy.
2. a dashboard cam for the car
3. security cameras (inside and out) for the house.
I still use ShipStation (on a Mac). It’s more expensive ($25 for the basic plan), but allows me to print USPS, UPS and Fedex on my Dymo 4XL. That saves me a lot of time so makes it worth the $25. You can also print First Class postage on a 4×6 and slap it on an envelope.
@miles,
I use Sony NC-11 for years on airplanes, and before that NC-10. They are in ear.
Beware of “noise reduction” earbuds. They simply make a tight fit and act like ear plugs.
security cams are complicated. Do you want them available on the web? I recommend against NEST cameras. I checked them out, the signup is buggy, and their pictures are ONLY available on the net, thru their website, and there are security issues.
Any of the ‘system in a box’ cameras with DVR (analog) or NVR (IP cams) will be “OK” for a homeowner. I’m putting in all IP based full HD cameras for clients. That way I can mix and match domes, bullets, freestanding WiFi cams, etc with an NVR of my choice. You are not in the states so I can’t recommend specifics. A good NVR (small business class) is about $1000 US, cams run from $210- many thousands. I would get Full HD, WDR (wide dynamic range) , IP based cameras, and POE, with IR illuminators. Look at Specotech.com for examples. I’ve used them successfully on a couple of projects and they are better than the system in a box (Swann, Bunker Hill, chinese crap) but not Sony, Flir, Axis, etc. Camera location and lighting are critical to getting good images. Think about what you need to have the image do, and make sure that is covered. IE if you want to give the police pix of the home invaders, a standard def dome, right above the entry door is NOT gonna give usable pix, except of the bad guys hair. If you just want to be assured you closed the garage door, or that no one is in your swimming pool, the image quality is less important.
I’m looking at dash cams myself, and will probably just go with the $99 cobra one that is onsale at Costco this month. Again, full HD, auto turn on and off, gps built in, event pre-record, are all desirable features.
nikc
I’m looking at dash cams myself, and will probably just go with the $99 cobra one that is onsale at Costco this month.
I was looking at that one, but had a lot of one star reviews. Taking out operator error there were still more negative than positive reviews.
At the risk of sounding stupid, don’t Stamps.com and other such outfits simply front-end what the USPS offers? If USPS doesn’t offer a rate, won’t they have to drop it?
You don’t plan on buying a microwave, but I will mention anyway that I have been particularly pleased with our Panasonic with “Inverter” technology. Most ovens when run at a percentage of total power cycle full power on and off. These Panasonic models actually vary the amount of power and keep it on for the full time. I use ours at lower settings a lot, and it really does work better.
Good luck with the Lenovo. Since you are not a big fan of Windows I’ll offer my 2-cents:
I am a big fan of http://www.ninite.com for quickly downloading and installing my basic software suite. BTW, I recommend grabbing Classic Start (to get rid of the crazy Windows 10 Start Menu) and Revo to uninstall all the crapware. My basic beginning suite is Firefox, Revo, Classic Start, Thunderbird, Java 8, 7-Zip, Foxit Reader (get rid of the bloated Adobe Reader), LibreOffice, and Malwarebytes. The nice thing about Ninite is it installs everything without added toolbars and other such nonsense. The file you download also becomes your update tool. Just run it weekly and it will update anything that needs updating. Oh, and don’t forget Flash (https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/) and remember to uncheck the McAffe Virus box. Flash used to be on Ninite but Adobe would let them run it without installing the McAffee Virus (did I mention I loath McAffee).
You’ll probably get the McAffee Virus with that Lenovo, get rid of it first thing with the McAffee Removal Tool. Here is the page with the instructions and download link about 1/3 way down (gee that is a gawdawful long link): https://service.mcafee.com/webcenter/portal/cp/home/articleview;jsessionid=p2hR6YhUyV7z7-f3A0P1DAnSctbbY0Zht0oPOPyrOlIcUN7uhKdP!444130783!-2046159503?articleId=TS101331&_afrLoop=2158686505175187#!%40%40%3F_afrLoop%3D2158686505175187%26articleId%3DTS101331%26centerWidth%3D100%2525%26leftWidth%3D0%2525%26rightWidth%3D0%2525%26showFooter%3Dfalse%26showHeader%3Dfalse%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Dv6yjh7u72_4
Have fun with your new toy.
noise cancelling headphones
I have used Bose and have had good luck with them. Expensive. I had an older set of Bose over the ear headphone where the cushions went bad. Bose would allow you to trade in the old phones for a new set of phones for $100. I use them on the long flights to Germany so comfort was an issue more so than cost. They will not block speech but block the constant roar of the engines.
I also have some LG earbuds, the kind where the housing wraps around the back of your neck with earbuds connected to wires to the base unit. Bluetooth and wireless. They seem to also work well and are not as conspicuous as over the ear. I have not tried them on an airplane but will on my next flight. The same cost as the Bose replacement headphones so much cheaper than Bose.
All of the headphones I have tried get rid of repetitive noise such as jet roar, A/C noise, etc. and are no more effective than tight fitting earbuds at speech. Speech still can be heard although a little muffled. I would think that tight fitting, noise reduction, earbuds would be better for your purposes.
Actually, do forget Flash. They keep finding lots of security vulnerabilities in it, and you don’t need it for the vast majority of videos any more.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/06/a-month-without-adobe-flash-player/
I prefer Lenovo to Dell.
I prefer the ThinkPad to IdeaPad line. I support four or five hundred systems, a third laptops. The ThinkPad line has offered the best value for reliability and longevity. The Dells are utter crap, and most of the IdeaPads have been pretty underwhelming.
As with anything, YMMV (and I hope it does in this case!)
Actually, do forget Flash.
Removed that from all my systems. If a site requires flash to display a video, I just don’t watch the video. Flash has been shown to have multiple vulnerabilities on multiple occasions. Adobe cannot be trusted. I also got rid of Silverlight.
Re: Security cameras. I’ve had good luck with 2 low cost Swan systems from Walmart that I installed on my sons and my own home. Been running 3+ years without trouble. Easy to view from smartphone or tablets. And cameras are cheap. The high end IP based Geovision system that came with my new self storage business is a nightmare. Cameras cost $800 and up and if you want to use other vendors devices you have to buy expensive license. I had to get a consultant in to sort it out for a small fortune.
I’ll second Ninite. I use it on every new install. Awesome timesaver.
nick
I also got rid of Silverlight.
The online Nevada Tax System requires Silverlight to do a lot of online filing. When I do some NV State stuff, I still get an “IE only” warning. Geez.
I have to use Flash because my Credit Union thinks it makes its pages cute, and many credit card companies are the same as well as many top end online stores. Flash isn’t just for videos. All the talk about moving away from Flash has been going on for years and nothing has happened. The “vulnerabilities” should not be there but that just shows that Adobe employs the same pimple faced coders as nearly everyone else. I wonder how much of that Flash code is still legacy from it beginning days? In any case, Ad Block Plus has been working well and I have a paid version of Malwarebytes so I have full time real time protection. That doesn’t mean I am careless, I am very careful with any videos or pictures on all pages. BTW, run your mouse around a webpage sometime a see just how many clickable blank areas there are. On some sketching sites it is a real minefield, click in a blank area and nasty surprises await.
As @MrAtoz pointed out one example, it is amazing how many fed gooberment, state gooberment, and local gooberment sites ONLY work with IE and Silverlight.
I’m on Linux sys admin online courses and one specifies I gotta use Chrome for that and the exam at the end. Only place I’ve seen that does that so fah. I have that open on the first monitor and the second monitor has a VMware window running CentOS 7. The other machine in here is a RHEL 7 server.
I alternate between Chrome for that and a couple of utility bill sites, FF for checking on credit cards (with NoScript, Adblock+, etc.) and SeaMonkey for everything else; that’s just on this Winblows machine which I only keep as such for wife’s work purposes; just makes life easier for her, allegedly. Everything else is Linux or OpenBSD and all of it is behind a VPN and firewalls. So far so good.
My Lenovo IdeaPad has Mint on it as a backup for wife’s Win7 laptop and my ThinkPad runs Kali Linux.
Told wife that the Dembat debate was on tonight to see if she wanted to watch it and zero interest, evidently; her and GG and cousin today were all buying into Sanders and Kasich and all that rubbish; I mentioned the possible pending indictments for Cankles and they hadn’t heard of it; they read the NYT and gush over David Brooks. Hopeless; I just keep my big yap shut mostly and laugh silently to myself. I let the tee-vee roll into the debate startup after watching Sean Penn defend his little chat with the chief narcotrafficante to painful-to-listen-to-and-watch Charlie Rose. One look at Cankles and said eff it; instead turned on my little Sangean shortwave to pipedreams.org for their usual Sunday evening pipe organ program, two hours of it. The Sangean has a surprisingly nice clear sound for listening to by one’s armchair.
What Sangean do you have, Mr. OFD.
I’m listening to pipedreams via streaming right now.
@Miles, Not sure if you frequent the whirlpool forums. Under “Gadgets” there is a healthy discussion on setting up HD security cameras.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2463279&p=35
Also for dash cams.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2350906&p=99
@Miles
dashboard cam–
My Nephew recommends this: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Box-X1S-Dash-Camera/dp/B010KNU880/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1453071157&sr=1-4&keywords=black+box+dash+cam
He has tried several and he is very happy with the Black Box.
“it works really well. Heat resistant (he has had others melt), wide angle lens. And it doesn’t record your speed and gps, which is good because that can be used….”
Ninite, wow – almost like a Linux package installer!
I love to hate Adobe. We use their Creative Suite for publications, so I have to keep it updated. The last update installed some wunnerful new download service, “akamai netsession” I think it was called, that ran continuously in the background. Why continuously, you ask? Why, because it sets up a peer-to-peer network and uses your bandwidth to provide other customers with software.
Classy, Adobe, real classy. If I wanted a hole in my firewall, I would put it there myself. Mind, I have nothing against Torrents and the like, but to install something like that without asking? Nasty… Uninstalled immediately, of course.
They have quite the customer list. I wonder who pays who to get that crap installed, and just what flows over the P2P network…
akamai is an edge aggregator. They put caches near the big endpoints and try to keep big, heavily in demand things from crossing the whole internet with every pageview.
But that is downright sneaky and vile.
nick
“What Sangean do you have, Mr. OFD.”
SG622. Nice sound, fits in a large shirt or pants pocket, decent little antenna.
http://www.sangean.com/products/product.asp?mid=77
Danke
Other platforms have done similar things. As I recall, Netflix tried that for a while. Turns out negative publicity can have a bad effect. I don’t believe they’re doing it anymore.
but really, torrents ARE the most efficient way to distribute files.
As an alternative/supplement to Ninite, I recently discovered Chocolatey (https://chocolatey.org/), which is the closest thing I’ve seen yet to a *nix style package manager for Windows. Command line interface or GUI (via “choco install ChocolateyGUI”).
Kevin the lurker
Thanks for the advice y’all. Disapointing about the noise cancelling headphones not cutting human voice.
WOW, Amazon has that Sangean SG-622 for only $33.98 “Ships from and sold by Amazon.com” so not some 3rd party scam
http://www.amazon.com/Sangean-America-SNGSG622-12-Band-Receiver/dp/B0000228GF/
@OFD, do you use any sort of antenna?
@miles, yeh, they specifically don’t block voice.
In a restaurant most of the folks I know, including myself, find the background noise -particularly the clatter of dishes and silverware- to be the real problem. I have a friend who can’t even stand to be in a bar or restaurant when it gets like that. My dad is close to there, and I find it painful for any length of time.
Who believed we really would ruin our hearing?
One downside of wearing the NC earbuds is that NO ONE believes you can actually hear them talking to you, never mind that you hear them better. Flight attendants are particularly bad at this and they should know better from experience.
I gave up, and now I remove one bud when talking to people.
nick
“@OFD, do you use any sort of antenna?”
Just the one that came with it; so far, so good, in a very touchy area and house, brick walls, flat lake effect (whatever that is), pile of scrap metal at the highway department a couple of hundred yards from our front door, etc. It seems to work better than our big-ass Grundig and the regular AM-FM radio we have here. But I have yet to fully utilize and exploit various possible antenna configs here.
“Who believed we really would ruin our hearing?”
I would. After decades of rock concerts, firearms and explosives. Diagnosed tinnitus in both ears, which are also permanently frostbitten, along with my fingertips and toes, thanks to toting a rifle for Uncle in central Maine in the dead of winter.
The first thing my first helicopter instructor taught me was: wear earplugs under your helmet protection. I did that my entire career and probably saved my hearing doing so.
No one believes it when they’re young. You just turn up the jams, move down toward the stage, and party on. Adults always say that rock music would deafen you, but they said a lot of stuff we didn’t believe.
I’ve got the tinnitus in both ears, with constant ringing. Have to have white noise (like a fan) in the room to sleep at night. Frequency response is spiky as hell with different notches in each ear. Can make hearing where some sounds are coming from VERY difficult. Kids are training to look at me when talking. Spouse already does, when she remembers. Otherwise, I can hear she’s talking but the intelligibility is gone. Got a nifty chart from the Doc showing what speech sounds I have trouble distinguishing for male and female speakers. Spouse still doesn’t fully believe I’m not just ignoring her.
The scariest is when it will drop out dramatically for no reason, and only slowly return.
In my late teens, I worked in a steel mill for a few months, scoffing at the idea a small foam plug would make much difference. After a couple of months, I decided to wear one, and see if I could tell the diff. At the end of the day, I took that one out, and suddenly it seemed like I had a plug in the other. So, damage done. Although I was much more careful after that, I still worked as a carpenter (with saws running – or ‘high speed motors’ as the doc put it) using nailguns, and in the music business. I was checked by a music industry doc, and had the losses plotted so I wouldn’t let my own deficits cause me to overcorrect the sound when I was working. I’ve been religious about saving what is left since then.
Young children and babies are hell on your ears, especially if you already have losses and are sensitized. Crying baby on your shoulder is very painful. I can feel the further losses since I had the kids. Doc told me I could lose a lot more, suddenly and with no warning, depending on exposure. Don’t think that isn’t front and center in the old bean when the kids are shrieking like only a 4 yo girl can…
It’s funny what you can still hear. I can hear the thud when the 4yo’s heel hits the floor in the hallway, when I’m in bed. I’d swear it was a sub audible thump, but I hear it so by definition, audible. I can hear when the neighbor rolls his trash can down the driveway, thru a brick wall, fiberglas insulation, and sound absorbing drywall. Certain frequencies are still there, and better than ever. The rest, not so much.
My advice to the kids these days, save what you’ve got, no matter how much or little. The ringing will drive you mad, the painful clatter will keep you out of restaurants and bars, and the lack of intelligibility will socially isolate you. I see it in my dad and his friends from industry and the army, I see it in my music industry friends from rock and roll, and I see it in myself.
It never comes back, and it only gets worse.
nick
Background noise is not really the problem, noisy people, actually noisy WIMMINZ, are the problem, with noisy kids comming in second. Sometimes it’s just an annoying voice, sometimes they’re talking about stuff you don’t want to hear about, unless you’re an obgyn or similar.
nick wrote:
” Spouse still doesn’t fully believe I’m not just ignoring her.”
Had the same problem with my mum. She’d have to repeat things all the time. I think I was just subconciously filtering stuff out that I didn’t want to hear.
I allegedly have hearing aids enroute to me via the VA; gotta double-check on that since it’s been a couple of months since I had the testing done. Also gotta re-up on the inhaler prescription; occasional bouts of bronchial asthma symptoms thanks to exposure to Agent Orange sites back in the day with Uncle’s capers in SEA. Was just notified that I’ll be meeting with the state’s VA service rep next week at the local Legion post regarding my disability filing; let’s see if I can get an approval before MrAtoz can close on his new gigs; any bets?
lol I just had to submit two more documents for the VA loan. We’re at the point I can see the VA “funding fee” of about $10K. Do they actually do anything to get $10K.
Don’t forget, fuck the Vet!