Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

7/14/2008

USPS Barcodes in OpenOffice

Filed under: Fun Work,Geek Work,Red Herrings,The Network Geek at Home — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 5:56 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Gibbous

OpenOffice lacks one thing that I’ve always liked: barcodes.

Specifically, back when I was a WordPerfect user, I used to love the ability to address envelopes with the United States Postal Service ZIP Code barcodes. I know that it made letters less likely to get lost and more likely to get to their destination quickly. Also, I’ve known a few people who work for the US Postal Service and, from what I understand, letters with the barcodes are less likely to actually be touched by people. Their machines just suck the letters along and just about sort them into carrier’s bags.
Unfortunately, OpenOffice has not been able to indulge me in this minor joy. Until now.

Now, there are macros available, for free, to let you insert USPS-approved barcodes into your OpenOffice documents. The company who makes this available to you is IDAutomation.com and they have a webpage that describes the process for using the macros and has a link to the macros themselves.
Yea!

8/20/2004

Make Your Own Stamps

Filed under: Art,Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Fun,News and Current Events — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning or 7:12 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Crescent

No, really, you can make your own stamps.

And even use them to send mail. Real, regular, normal, “snail” mail. According to this article on Wired News, the U.S. Postal Service is testing out a personalized stamp program that will let you use your own digital photographs or logos to make stamps that have your own message on them. Hmm, I wonder what they’ll censor? And, I wonder how quickly someone will try to make something “naughty”? (Oh, get your mind out of the gutter! I meant something anti-American, you pervert!)

Anyway, it’s Friday, so go have fun with it. Clean fun!


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