Routine Order

Earlier, I had written about how to use USPS’ online service to send regular snail mail from your computer.

Now a private enterprise is trying to make it even easier - the idea is, when you have to send someone a regular letter, you pay $0.99 and send an email. The service, Postful, prints the email out in color and sends it to the postal address. You just have to put the mailing address in the “Subject” of your email, and send it to a postful email address. Now if that isn’t neat, what is? There some neat advanced features that might come in handy, if, for example, you send letters to the same address over and over again - postful will remember the address in that case. You can even send photos - which will be printed in color, all for the low, low $0.99 price! Right now, you can’t send mail internationally, but that is coming in June 07.

I’m gonna try and use this to send some regular letters to old friends - letters have their own quaint way of showing you care - more than emails, or e-cards can.

Otto Frank—who survived the Holocaust by living out Auschwitz—was trying to save his wife Edith, his mother-in-law Rosa Hollander and his daughters Margot and Anne. The 80 letters how his effort to get out of Holland, and how he failed in doing that. These letters were just released and became common knowledge.

Had he got out, Anne Frank, his daughter, might not have written her diaries.

No one writes letters anymore - emails are always to the point and never substantial. The art of writing letters, and documenting one’s own life via letters, is almost dead. One could say blogs are a replacement, but really, who puts their private thoughts, feelings and fears on a blog. Most, like me, just write about what they find interesting, not whats going on in their own lives. Blogs have almost replaced collections of letters as a way to look into particular periods in history and their effect on individuals. I remember reading quite a few highly linked-to Iraqi blogs, and Israeli blogs.

via Time

Next year, I will definitely be using the NetPost service offered by USPS. It is a simple way to send a regular snail-mail letter from your computer/browser via USPS

There is the postage charge, and then an additional $2 per “run” or per letter. It makes sense if you are sending the same letter to everyone, like, say a wedding invitation.

For stuff like Greeting Cards for occassions, you can create your own from a picture, or choose one from their gallery. And yes, you can send Gift Cards from a whole variety of retailers.