Monday the 30th of August is a Bank Holiday in the UK. There are no postal collections or deliveries on this day. All letters sent after close of business (5pm) on Friday the 27th of August will be sent on the next available working day Tuesday the 31st of August.

London Underground workers are to stage a series of strikes over planned job losses. Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association will walk out for 24 hours from 5pm on the 6th of September. More strike action is also planned for the 3rd of October, 2nd of November and 28th of November. The move comes in protest over plans to cuts 800 jobs among station staff. They are likely to cause widespread disruption and could cost the economy millions of pounds.

We are aware that the PC2Paper website experienced some downtime between 2am and 5am UK time on the 19th of August due to problems with our servers. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. The website should now be working normally.

Unfortunately it has been necessary to suspend our US based printing station due to technical issues. We would like to assure customers that all letters sent via the US printing station to date have already be sent and remain unaffected by this problem. We are working to solve this issue and hope to have the US based printing station back as an option as soon as possible. In the meantime all US based letters will be sent from the UK.

If you are heading into London in the next week then you might want to check out this giant maze in Trafalgar Square. It has been organised by the West End Partnership and is free to those who want to explore it. Parts of the maze have been named after areas of the West End so that visitors can learn about those places as they find their way around the maze. It will feature a different piece of entertainment from around the West End every day for five days. If you do want to visit it you need to be quick as its only available until the 6th of August.

We do believe that the issue with some PayPal payments not registering in users accounts has now been resolved.

We are currently experiencing some delays with PayPal's servers contacting our own causing a delay to some PayPal top ups. We are currently working with PayPal to resolve this issue and hope it will be resolved shortly. Any customers who experience this issue in the meantime should contact us at the following link.

A 48 hour tube strike will go ahead at 7pm tonight after an effort to get a court injunction to stop it failed. The High Court today refused to grant an injunction to prevent the stoppage. The planned walkout is due to a dispute over pay, jobs and conditions. The strike is likely to affect the Northern Piccadilly and Jubilee lines. Despite the strike London Underground hopes to run a full service in London.

Due to Monday the 31st of May being a Bank Holiday in the UK there are no Royal Mail deliveries or collections on this day. Any mail received after our cut off time of 4pm on Friday the 28th of May will be sent on the next available working day which is Tuesday the 1st of June. This applies to all mail including mail sent using Special Next Day Delivery.

Royal Mail have launched some new stamps to celebrate the war effort of 1940's Britain. The stamps called Britain Alone are dedicated to all the people that came together to do their bit for the war effort. The first class stamp features Sir Winston Churchill, the 67p stamps features air raid wardens. The Home Guard are celebrated on the 60p stamp. Land Girls, women in factories, the fire service, the Royal broadcast and evacuees make up the rest of the set. The stamps were released on the 13th of May.

Due to Monday the 3rd of May being a Bank Holiday in the UK there are no business collections or Royal Mail deliveries on this day. Any letters received through the PC2Paper website after our 4pm cut off time on Friday the 30th of April will be sent on the next available working day Tuesday the 4th of May. All mail received after our cut off time on the Friday will remain queued in our system until the 4th of May. This includes any Special Delivery and Recorded Delivery items.

Customers should be aware that mail to the Liverpool area may be subject to delays. This is due to unofficial strike action. Around 100 staff at Liverpool's main delivery centre have walked out in a dispute over the withdrawal of redundancy offers and working conditions. Mail to the Liverpool 1 and Liverpool 3 postcode districts are likely to be subject to delays during this time.

As of the 6th of April PC2Paper has increased it's postage prices to take into account the increase in Royal Mail Prices. A 1 page letter sent via our services with standard printing option will now cost 65p sent via 1st class mail and 56p sent via 2nd class mail. Prices for overseas mail sent from the UK have also gone up to take into account the Royal Mail price increases.

Friday the 2nd of April and Monday the 5th of April are public holidays within the UK. There are no postal deliveries or collection on these days. All letters sent after 4pm on Thursday the 1st of April will be processed and posted on the next available working day which is Tuesday the 6th of April. Any letters sent during this time will remain in your "waiting to be sent" queue until Tuesday the 6th of April. In addition to this customers should be aware that any letters sent using the Special Next Day Delivery service after close of business (5pm UK time) on Wednesday the 31st of March will arrive on the next working day which is Tuesday the 6th of April.

PC2Paper are pleased to announce that we have reduced the cost of our colour laser printing. The cost per page has recently reduced from 60p a page to just 30p a page on our standard 80 gsm paper. We have also recently added a new 100 gsm paper option for those prints when you want a slightly better quality paper.

Adverse weather conditions are currently causing delays to mail sent within the USA. The conditions are local to our US based printing station and so will affect all mail sent to the USA from mid day on Friday the 5th of February. Mail will be sent to the postal service as soon as conditions return to normal but customers should expect delays.

Heavy snow across the UK is currently causing delays to mail in many areas. Customers should expect mail deliveries to take longer during the adverse weather conditions. Rural areas are particularly affected.

Royal Mail have recently launched a new series of stamps featuring famous album covers. The stamps should start appearing on mail within the next week and feature 10 different album covers. These include Pink Floyd's The Division Bell, Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head, Primal Scream's Screamadelica, Blur's Parklife, New Order's Power, Corruption and Lies, the Stones' Let It Bleed, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, Led Zeppelin's fourth (untitled) album, and Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.

Any mail sent after 4pm on Thursday the 24th of December will be sent on the available working day Tuesday the 29th of December. Christmas Day and Monday the 28th of December are public holidays and there is no postal service available on these days. Any mail sent after close of business will be queued in our system and processed on the next available working day. PC2Paper would like to take this opportunity to wish all our customers a happy Christmas and best wishes for the new year.

Please note the last christmas posting dates have already passed.

Because of adverse weather conditions in the UK we cannot confirm if any letters or cards sent now will arrive in time for Christmas

The postal strikes which were planned for Friday 6th and next Monday have now been called off. Although no details have yet been released it appears that a period of calm has been agreed upon in which no further industrial action will take place. Whilst this is only an interim deal it is hoped that further talks will be successful in resolving the long running dispute. A statement with more information is due to released later.

A further two postal strikes look likely to ahead causing further delays to mail sent within the UK. The strikes will go ahead on Friday the 6th and Monday the 9th of November. Rather than continuing the practice of rolling strikes where different staff strike on different days the next wave of strikes will see all workers walking out. If the strikes go ahead there will be no mail collections or deliveries on these days. This will mean that mail sent via PC2Paper after 4pm on Thursday the 5th of November will not enter the postal system until the service returns to normal on Tuesday the 10th of November. Customers should also expect delays to mail after this date as Royal Mail work to clear the backlog caused by the strikes action. Our other printing stations remain unaffected.

Unless talks between Royal Mail and the CWU are successful there will be further strike action later this week. If no agreement is reached three days of strike action are planned starting on Thursday. On Thursday 43,700 staff in mail centres, delivery units in mail centres, drivers and garage staff will begin strike action at 4am. On Friday 400 workers at three sites in Plymouth, Stockport and Stoke who read and enter mail addresses will walk out. On Saturday 77,000 delivery and collection staff across the UK will strike. During strike action customers should be aware that all mail deliveries sent from the UK will be subject to delays.

According to this article the recent postal strikes have delayed around 30 million letters that's about 40% of a normal days post. The situation could become worse as further strikes are planned for next week and will go ahead on Thursday, Friday and Saturday unless an agreement is reached. Although Royal Mail hopes to clear the backlog of letters and parcels before further strike action takes place, customers should expect further delays to mail and during this time we regret that we are unable to guarantee any delivery times.

We are currently experiencing nationwide postal strikes within the UK. This will mean that mail sent from our UK based station on Thursday the 22nd of October and Friday 23rd of October will not enter the postal system until Monday the 26th of October when the strikes end. Mail sent after these dates is also likely to be subject to delays as postal staff work to clear the backlog caused by strike action. Customers should be aware that all mail sent from the UK is likely to be subject to severe delays during this time. Mail sent from our other printing stations will remain unaffected.

The Communication Workers Union have confirmed that a nationwide strike will go ahead. There will be two 24 hours strikes starting on Thursday the 22nd of October. On the first day mail centre staff and drivers will strike and on the second delivery and collection staff will walk out. The union says that it has no choice but to go ahead with the strike action after Royal Mail rejected its latest set of proposals. Talks are still continuing and it is hoped that strike action could still be avoided. PC2Paper will continue to update customers on the latest news regarding any strike action. Customers should be aware that if action does ahead as planned it will cause delays to all post sent from our UK based printing station.

Royal Mail workers have voted for national strike action in a long running dispute over jobs and pay. Over 76 per cent of workers balloted voted for the action which will mean a series of national strikes. The move is likely to mean that millions of letters and parcels will not be delivered in the run up to Christmas. Strike dates have not yet been announced but the union is required to give seven days notice of any strike action. PC2Paper will continue to update our customers on the progress of the dispute, however, customers should be aware that during strike action there will be considerable delays to all mail sent from the UK printing station.

According to this article the recent postal strikes are still causing several delays in some areas. London, in particular is one area that is suffering delays with some mail taking more than a month to arrive. It is estimated that 25 million pieces of mail are stuck in the system somewhere. Although most of the strikes have been fairly short they are none the least causing a huge backlog. PC2Paper are still sending letters as usual during this time but customers should be aware that mail is subject to severe delays especially in the London area and that we are unable to guarantee delivery times for any mail sent since the start of the strikes in August 2009.

The Communication Workers Union has announced that further postal strikes will be held next week. More than 15,000 workers are due to walk out over a dispute over jobs, pay and conditions. Postal workers will be go on strike for 24 hours. Areas of London, Cambridge, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Nottingham, Glasgow and Coventry will all be affected. During the strike PC2Paper will still continue to send mail as usual, however, customers should expect delays.

Customers should expect delays to post in the Cambridgeshire area after a 24 hour postal strike. Workers have been striking in a dispute with Royal Mail over national agreements. Staff at delivery office in Ely, Cambridge, Haddeham, Iselham and Soham have been on strike. Mail to these areas is likely to be subject to delays.

Postal workers are to be balloted on a full scale national strike in a dispute over pay and modernisation. There have already been several unofficial regional strikes across the country which have delayed an estimated 20 million letters. Royal Mail managers and unions have been holding talks to try and resolve these but with no solution in sight the Communication Workers Union has now announced an official strike ballot which will be held next Wednesday. The result of the ballot will be announced later this month.

Monday the 31st of May is a Bank Holiday in the UK meaning there are no deliveries or collections on this day. Any mail sent after close of business (5pm) on Friday 28th of August will be sent on the next available working day Tuesday 1st of September.

Royal Mail workers have started further strikes over a disagreement regarding job cuts. The strikes will run from the 17th to the 24th of August and have already began in Coventry, London, Leamington Spa, Nottingham and Stoke on Trent. We are expecting mail to the affected areas to be delayed and customers should be aware that mail delivery will take longer than usual. During this time PC2Paper collections are unaffected and we will still mail letters as normal, however, delivery times will be affected. The Strikes take place in London, Coventry, Leamington Spa, Nottingham, Stoke on Trent, Birmingham, Essex, Peterborough, Bristol, Leeds, Kings Lynn, Boston, Carrickfergus, Skegness and Huntington.

Further postal strikes are likely to cause delays to some UK mail. The strikes will take place between Friday 7th of August and Tuesday the 11th of August. Affected areas include The Midlands, East Anglia, the West Country, London and Edinburgh. During this time PC2Paper will continue to process and send all mail as usual. However, customers should be aware that mail to the affected areas and surrounding areas is likely to be subject to delays.

The postal strikes in London are continuing after 12,000 workers walked out in a dispute over pay and job cuts. The latest round of strikes began on Saturday and will end on Tuesday and is the second strike this month. During the strikes PC2Paper will be sending mail as normal, however, customers should expect delays and are advised to allow extra time for mail to arrive.

More than 12,000 postal workers are to walk out on Friday in action to protest against cuts at Royal Mail. The action is the latest in a series of strikes and threatens the worst destruction to deliveries in years according to this article. The Communication Workers Union has said that more than 12,000 of its members will walk out for 24 hours. The action is expected to affect deliveries in many areas including London, Edinburgh, Bristol and Plymouth although other areas may also be affected. During this time PC2Paper will still process and post mail as usual but customers should be aware that letters are likely to take longer to arrive than usual.

PC2Paper are currently relocating our UK office. We regret that during this busy time it has been necessary to remove the Recorded Delivery, Special Delivery and International Signed For options. All our services are still available as usual. We hope to have completed our office move by Monday the 21st of July and expect all services to be running normally again at this time. All mail sent from our other printing stations during this period will be unaffected.

Deliveries to London and parts of Scotland are likely to be affected by a two day strike action by postal workers in these areas. The Communications Workers Unions has said that thousands of its members in London and Edinburgh will walk out today in a dispute over jobs and services. In addition workers in parts of Scotland will strike on Saturdays. During the planned strikes PC2Paper will still send your mail as usual as usual, however, customers should be aware that delivery times in the affected areas will take longer and there are likely be delays of several days on normal delivery times.

Monday the 25th of May is a Bank Holiday in the UK. There are no postal deliveries or collections on this day. Any letters sent after 5pm on Friday 22nd of May will be posted on the next available working day which is Tuesday the 23rd of May.

Monday the 4th of May is a Bank Holiday in the UK meaning there are no collection or deliveries on this day. Any mail received after close of business (5pm) on Friday the 1st of May will be processed on the next available working day Tuesday the 5th of May.

Due to public holidays in the UK there are no mail deliveries or collections on Friday the 10th of April and Monday 14th of April. Any mail sent after close of business (5pm UK time) on Thursday the 9th of April will be processed on the next available working day Tuesday 15th of April. Any Recorded/Signed For and Special Delivery Mail received after 1pm on Thursday the 9th of April will also be processed on the next available working day Tuesday the 15th of April.

PC2Paper prices for UK and international mail sent from the UK will increase from the 6th of April. This is due to Royal Mail prices increases which come into effect on the same day and mean that we need to pass these increases onto our customers.

Our standard letters are sent in a DL envelope but you are not restricted to using this size. We do also offer C5 envelopes where your letter is folded in half instead of 3 and A4 envelopes for those documents that you want to send unfolded. You can select the various envelope sizes from the down menu after writing your letter. In addition to this any letters that are too large for the DL envelope are automatically placed into the next size of envelope.

Royal Mail are currently experiencing delays to deliveries in Staffordshire due to a rooftop protest at the sorting office in Burslem. Deliveries in the ST6 1 to ST6 8 areas are likely to experience delays and disruption to mail deliveries. During this time mail deliveries to this area is likely to take longer than usual.

How do I send Recorded Signed For mail from PC2Paper?
After writing your letter in the normal way you can select the Recorded Delivery option from the extras drop down menu.

How is my Recorded Signed For letter processed after I have sent it?
Your letter will then be printed and posted in the usual way and then passed to Royal Mail for delivery. PC2Paper then receive a tracking number.

When do I receive my tracking number?
Within 24 hours you should then receive an email from PC2Paper with your Royal Mail tracking number.

How do I track the progress of my Recorded Signed For letter
You can use your tracking number at www.royalmail.com to check when your letter has been delivered and to see a copy of any signature that has been obtained on delivery.

What happens if my letter cannot be delivered?
If Royal Mail are unable to deliver your Recorded Signed For item and it remains unclaimed from the local delivery office it will be returned to the return address within 7 days with a reason why it could not be delivered. For this to happen the return address needs to a valid UK based address. Where no return address has been specified the letter is destroyed by Royal Mail.

What happens if my return address is not in the UK?
If you want to send a Recorded Signed For item and add a return address that is outside of the UK then it is not possible for Royal Mail to return the item outside of the UK. In this case the letter is destroyed. If you are outside the UK and want to use this option we recommend signing up for a PC2Paper mailbox which gives you a UK based address and using this as your return address. The letter will then be returned to us and we will notify you by email.

What happens if my letter is lost?
Royal Mail does not consider mail to be lost until 15 working days after it has been posted. If after this time your Recorded Signed For item has not been delivered you should contact PC2Paper giving the letter ID. We will then raise a claim for the lost item and providing that the letter was addressed correctly and the claim is successful we will then reimburse you for the cost of the lost letter.

You can upload images in the rich text editor by clicking the insert image button, browsing to the image on your computer and clicking the upload button, we should then be able to print your document complete with the images. Alternatively you can insert your images into a Word Document or PDF document and upload this instead.

Due to heavy snow in the South East of England some areas are experiencing delivery delays. During this time we will continue to send all letters but customers should be aware that in many areas deliveries have been suspended and that letters will take longer to arrive. Affected areas include parts of Kent, Surrey, Suffolk, Berkshire and Bedfordshire.

We are currently experiencing some delays to US mail sent via our USA printing station due to adverse weather conditions in the area. During this time letters sent via the US printing station may experience some delay. In addition to this it may take slightly longer than the usual 24 hours period before customers receive tracking numbers for certified mail.

Royal Mail is to launch a campaign to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the postcode in the hope that it will stress the importance of using it. According to this article around a fifth of non business letters are sent without a full postcode. This is despite the fact that mail that includes a postcode is processed much more quickly as it can be sorted by machinery rather than by hand. At PC2Paper when we receive queries about undelivered letters we find that the majority of these have been incorrectly addressed or are missing a postcode so have not reached their destination. The message is clear, in order to help your letter reach the recipient use a full address and include a postcode.

There are no postage collections on Wednesday the 31st of December and Thursday the 1st of January. Any mail sent after close of business on Tuesday 30th of December will be processed on the next available working day Friday 2nd of December.

Please note that we are closed on the 25th and 26th of December. Any mail received after 5pm on the 24th of December will be processed on the next available working day, Monday 29th of December. Customers should also note that delivery over the Christmas period can take longer than usual and allow more time when sending time sensitive documents.

We are unable to offer Special Delivery and Recorded Delivery after 5pm on the 22 December due to the fact that there are no postal collections until Monday the 29th of December. This option has been disabled during this period but will be available again as soon as postal collections resume.

The last guaranteed posting dates for Christmas have now passed for all destinations. All mail received will still be processed and sent as usual but is now likely to arrive after Christmas. No mail will be processed on the 25th and 26th of December and the 1st of January as there are no collections/deliveries on these days. PC2paper would like to wish all our customers a happy Christmas.

Postmen is Bridgwater have voted for strike action in a dispute over working hours. Staff voted to hold up to three one day strikes before Christmas in a dispute over part time working. The first strike will be held on the 20th of December with no further dates having been authorised as yet. The workers are in dispute over plans to replace full time jobs with part time roles. During the strikes there is likely to be delays to mail in the local area.

PC2Paper have released a new Letter Pricing API which enables you to do real time price queries on letters before they are sent from your own system. You may find this useful if you are reselling the PC2Paper service and would like to provide your customers with all the pricing options available such as special delivery, different printing options, envelope selections, printing station selection etc. Given all these options the PC2Paper Letter Pricing API will give you a price for your letter which you can then use to bill your user.

For more about Letter Pricing API, please visit the API section of our web site.

To make sure that your cards and letters get to their destination in time for Christmas you might want to check out the last recommended posting dates which have just been released by Royal Mail. The last recommended date for mail sent to South and Central America, the Middle East, New Zealand and Australia is fast approaching so if you are planning to send cards to these destinations you need to get them in the post by the 5th of December. The last posting date for Europe is the 12th of December. You have a little bit more time for mail sent within the UK, 2nd class mail should be sent by the 18th of December and 1st class should be posted by the 20th of December.

At PC2paper we will still post your mail after the last recommended posting dates but will not be able to guarantee Christmas delivery after these dates. All Christmas cards are printed and posted in the UK so make sure you leave enough time for them to get to their destination. Remember you can also use our US, Thai and European printing stations to get your mail there even faster. A full list of the last recommended posting dates for the UK is below.

Friday 5th December: South and Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Far East, New Zealand and Australia.

Wednesday 10th December: Japan, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe.

Friday 12th December: Western Europe.

Thursday 18th December: Second Class UK mail.

Saturday 20th December: First Class UK mail.

We have recently had some problems with customers not receiving email confirmation when their letter has been sent. The majority of the time this is caused by overzealous spam filters catching the automated emails that are sent from our system. If you do not receive a confirmation email to show that your letter has been sent then this might have been moved to your junk email folder by your spam filter. Customers can also check the status of letters by logging into their account. Any letters that have been sent will appear under the sent items tab once they have been passed to the postal service.

Monday the 25th of August is a Bank Holiday in the UK. This means that there is no postal collection or deliveries on this day. Any mail sent after 5pm (UK time) close of business on Friday 22nd of August will be processed on the next available working day, Tuesday the 26th of August. Any Special Delivery or Recorded Delivery items sent after 1pm (UK time) on Friday the 22nd of August will be processed on Tuesday the 26th of August. Customers should also be aware that delivery of mail during this time may take up to 2 days longer than normal.

PC2Paper have recently added a new message area to users accounts. For some time we have been having problems contacting customers by email, either due to us having an invalid address on file or the fact that many of our emails are picked up by our customers spam filters. We hope that the new message area  will allow us to contact customers more effectively without having to worry about whether our emails are getting through. If you receive a message from our the PC2Paper customer service team, this will be the first thing you will see when you log into your account. We will soon start using this area to alert customers to any problems related to letter sending and also to send any tracking numbers for recorded and special deliveries.

We are pleased to announce that problems with the US printing station have now been resolved and that it will shortly be operational. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers whilst we have been trying to resolve this issue.

There was an issue where some users were seeing an error 500 when uploading documents or trying to send letters. We have now resolved this issue, if you encounter any further issues please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are currently experiencing some delays to mail sent from our US based printing station. This is due to thunderstorms and tornadoes in the local area meaning that the local post offices are experiencing delays  due to networks being down. During this time mail is still being sent but customers should allow extra time for their letters to arrive.

Monday the 26th is a Bank Holiday in the UK meaning there is no mail collections or deliveries. Any mail sent after close of business (5pm) on Friday 23rd of May will be posted on the next working day Tuesday 27th of May.

PC2Paper are proud to present our latest offering, the PC2Paper Printer. It quite simply makes sending letters from your PC as easy as printing to your desktop printer. We have released the printer as a beta to allow customers to test the service and offer their feedback.

Once installed the PC2Paper Printer will appear on your PC as a normal printer.

If you want to send a real letter from the Internet, you can do so directly from your desktop PC. Open up your favourite word processing program, type a letter and select print to send your letter.

Selecting print will bring up the following dialogue box that will enable you to enter the receivers address and select your postage options.

To get started on the beta version of the PC2Paper Printer click here

PC2Paper now offer US certified mail from our US printing station. To use this service when sending a letter to the US, select the US printing station and then the option for certified mail.

When you send your mail certified we will email you a tracking id you can use to track the whereabouts of your letters from the US Postal services web site.

If you have any any more suggestions on services you would like to see from us, please do not hesitate to get in touch, we'd love to hear from you.

Its a new year and PC2Paper have just launched a range of new services. We have listened to our customers and added the services you have asked for. Sending a real letter from the Internet is still just as easy but now has lots of new options available.

Different Paper
We now offer different paper to print your letter on, from conqueror hi white premium laid paper to photo paper. You can choose how you want your letter printed from inkjet, black and white laser or colour laser printing.

Choose your envelope
You can now choose what envelope you send your letter in. If you don't want to fold your letter 3 times in a DL envelope then we now offer C5 envelopes (half of A4) for a single folded letter.

Special Delivery Options in the UK
We now offer Recorded Delivery and Special Next Day Delivery before 1pm in the UK.

International special delivery options and Certified Mail
We can now offer Airsure Signed for and International Signed For delivery for overseas mail sent from the UK. On sending your letter you will receive a tracking number so you can track the progress of your letter.
Certified mail is also available within the USA. This option also includes a tracking service so you can track the progress of your letter online.

Choose Your Printing Station
You can now choose which printing station you would like your mail to be sent from.

Union leaders have recommended that their members accept a deal on pay and flexible working that could end the long running postal dispute. Royal mail has offered its staff a pay rise of 5.4%. However, the deal does not address concerns over working hours which could still mean daily deliveries are shifted to the afternoon. The proposed deal will now be subject to a ballot of individual members.

PC2Paper's Internet letter sending service now offers colour laser printing from its UK printing station.

Royal Mail has announced it will introduce free postage for parcels sent to British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. A further announcement with details about when the free service will be introduced in expected shortly.

We have now launched a Developer section on www.pc2paper.co.uk to help developers create new applications and integrate their existing back end systems with PC2Paper's API interface, enabling easier sending of real letters from the Internet using our service.

The area consists of a chat section for developers to raise questions with us and other developers and an API documentation section. All these features will also be backed up with updates from our blog site www.pc2paper.org.

There are no sign up fees to use our API interface, it is enabled on all PC2Paper accounts as standard. If you are a business or just a novice programmer who would like to integrate with our service please visit our Developer section.

Airlines have been ordered to display the full price of plane tickets on their websites after it has emerged they were covering up the total cost. The problem is that many airlines advertise a low price to draw the customer in and only show the total price including the taxes and other additional charges later in the booking process. Some airlines add as much as £25 in extra charges on top of the advertised price.

PC2Paper.co.uk has been named by The Times as one of the top 100 travel websites. The Times lists us under the Travel Essentials category which includes insurance, money, health and communications. Here at PC2Paper we are always happy when we receive good feedback on the service we provide, we are certainly pleased we made it onto the list.

The latest postal strike has been suspended as Royal Mail agree to meet the Union for talks. The talks will be held at the TUC and both sides are committed to reaching an agreement by the 4th of September. No further strike action will be held whilst the talks are being held, meaning its service as normal, here at PC2Paper.

Postal workers are to stage a further strike as part of the ongoing dispute over pay and conditions. The strike will start tonight with mail centres and airports going on strike from 7pm tonight until 7pm tomorrow. Delivery staff will strike from 7pm on Friday 10th to 7pm on Saturday 11th. During this time any mail sent within the UK will be delayed. US and European mail sent via PC2Paper will remain unaffected.

PC2Paper now allows you to upload your contacts as a spreadsheet file.

1. After you have logged into your PC2Paper account click on My Address Book 
   
    
   you will find a new option here called Add a new address list, click on it.
   
   
2. You will now be asked to give your address list a name.
   
   
   Give your address list a name and then save it.
   
   
3. On the next step select Upload an address list.
   
   
   
   
4. On this step you will be given the option to upload your address book
   
    
   
   You will need to follow the instruction carefully on this page on how to format your spreadsheet a sample spreadsheet is available for you to download in MS Excel format to see how its done. Once you have formatted your data correctly in your favourite spreadsheet program you will need to save it as a TAB delimited file.  When representing different countries in your spreadsheet you will need to use the PC2Paper country code a copy of which is available for download here the default for the UK is 1.
   
   
5. Save an MS Excel spreadsheet as a TAB delimited file from Excel by click File > Save As and then selecting Text (Tab delimited)(*.txt) in the Save as type: dialogue that appears below.
   
   

Staff at Sighthill sorting office in Edinburgh are staging an unofficial strike today after four worker were suspended. Deliveries to the surrounding area are likely to be affected with mail being delayed.

Due to a national postal strike, there will be no deliveries or collections on Thursday 2nd August. During this time all mail sent via PC2Paper will be posted as usual but customers are advised to expect delays. Mail is likely to be delayed for several days after this latest strike. PC2Paper are unable to guarantee any delivery times during the strike. Mail sent via are US and European printing station is unaffected.

Barclays has just launched a pre-pay travel card called “Travel Money” Customers load the card with between £100 and £2,500 in either Sterling, Dollars or Euros. The card is free to obtain, so you just pay for the loading the currency. There are, however, a few charges to consider. They charge a 2% fee when you use the card at a cash machine. The card also has a minimum payment of £1.50 and there is a currency conversion charge of 2.75%. These kinds of cards can be useful if you don’t want to take your regular cash cards abroad for security reasons. Other companies who already offer a similar type of card are Travelex and the Post Office, both of which charge a fee to load money onto the card.

Counter staff in Northern Ireland are due to strike today. The strike will start at 14.30 and will affect Newtownards, Bangor, Antrim, Coleraine, Londonderry, Lisburn and Belfast.

Postal staff in Scotland have joined the strike already happening in the Britain. They walked out at 19.00 on Wednesday night. This will cause delays to any mail posted today.

The next two weeks will see more disruption to postal services as strike action escalates. On Wednesday 25th to Thursday 26th of July mail centres and cash handling staff will strike. On Thursday 26th of July to Friday 27th July MDECs (data entry staff) will strike. From Friday 27th July to Saturday 28th International/HWDC staff will strike as well as delivery and collection staff. The strike action will repeated the following week. During this time PC2Paper will continue to send all letters we receive but regret we are unable to guarantee any delivery times within the UK. Mail will take longer to arrive than usual.

Westminster City Council are holding talks with Post Office bosses about taking over local Post Offices and perhaps running them within local authority buildings. It will be interesting to see whether this gets the go ahead and it’s certainly good to see the council appreciates how important the Post Office is to the local community.

You will soon be able spend your Euros in Malta and Cyprus. They are due to adopt the Euro on the 1st of January 2008 pending the final approval by EU ministers. Other recent countries to adopt the Euro as their currencies include Slovenia who started are using it at the beginning of 2007. Lithuania and Slovakia are also hoping to follow suit pending approval from the EU.

An unofficial strike is likely to cause disruption in Oxfordshire next Monday (23rd of July). During this time PC2Paper cannot guarantee delivery times of mail to the affected area. Other services remain unaffected.

The second national postal strike starts today at 19.00. All PC2Paper mail will be processed as usual; however customers should be advised there are no collections or deliveries on Friday 13th of July. Any mail received on this day will be sent on the following working day. Delays are expected for several days after the strike, as Royal Mail staff work to clear the backlog. During this time PC2Paper cannot guarantee delivery times of mail. Mail sent via our USA, Canadian and European printing stations is unaffected.

The Communication Workers Union have announced today that further strike action is planned for 12th July. The strike will begin at 19:00 on the 12th July and will end 24 hours later. The strike will mean that no mail will be sorted on the night of the 12 July and there will be no collections or deliveries on the 13th July.

The Communications Workers Union met yesterday and agreed they would make an announcement on Thursday 5th July as to whether there will be further strike action. Watch this space for details.

Due to a national postal strike there are currently no deliveries or collections within the UK. All mail received by PC2Paper during this time will be processed as normal but will be delayed during this period. Normal service will resume on Monday 2nd July, although delivery delays are still likely whilst Royal Mail work to clear the backlog. Mail to the USA, Canada and Europe remains will be delivered as normal.

Please note that because of severe flooding in the above mentioned areas there will be possible delays in mail delivery.

The postal union confirmed today that a national strike will take place on the Friday 29th June. The strike will last 24 hours and will be the first national strike since 1996. During the strike all mail will be processed by PC2Paper and posted within our usual guidelines. However, customer should expect delivery delays during this period.

Mail to the US has been delayed by a day due to heavy storms in the area. Normal service has now been restored.

Mail will be delayed in the Luton area due to a 24-hour strike which started this morning. Around 150,000 letters a day are handled by the Luton office.

Mail to parts of Derbyshire will be delayed following a localised postal strike. The strike will last for four days from Wednesday 30th of May to Saturday 2nd June when normal service will be resumed. The strike is as part of a protest at the closure of Heanor sorting office.

Monday 28th of May is a bank holiday in the UK. This means that there is no postal collections. Any mail sent after 11am on Saturday 26th of May will be processed and posted on Tuesday 29th of May.

Apologies for the PC2Paper website being down yesterday. This was caused by road works cutting the power cables that ran into the building our server is hosted in. This will cause a short delay in mail delivery.

We are now trying to put measures in place to prevent this happening again.   

The Communications Workers Union is to ballot its 13,000 members in Royal Mail on possible strike action, the results are to be announced on 7 June 2007. The strike is over a 2.5% pay rise linked to efficiency gains the union fears may lead to jobs cuts.

Strike action could lead to a delay in all UK mail over this period including mail PC2Paper sends via Royal Mail. We will keep you updated on any changes in this situation.

More news can be found here

Don't forget fathers day on Sunday 17 June 2007. Why not send a Fathers day card?

I had a chat with one of our technical guys Rob Forber yesterday about PC2Papers API interfaces and how he had just finished helping one our customers with a Delphi interface into PC2Paper. Now I'm not a technical person and all I know is that Delphi is another programming language and that he was excited by the accomplishment.

My interest is that we have helped another of our customers to interface their back office systems with our service.

For those who don't know PC2Paper API or Application Interface enables our customers to integrate their own back office systems (systems they use to run their businesses) and websites so that they can automatically send letters via our service. Over the coming months I will be getting Rob to write a few articles about how you can write your own interfaces into PC2Paper.

If you would like to know before then, please contact us

It always amazes me how so many people still fall for online scams. I suppose the Internet being so vast and with thousands of new users everyday there is bound to be fresh meat for the scammers. 

Sometimes I wish when people are first introduced to the Internet that they are made aware of scams. One of the most popular of these scams is the Nigerian 419 Pen Scams or better known as an Advanced fee fraud scam . These scams have been going on for a long time and basically work on the basis of getting you to pay some money up front to help them get some money stuck in a back account in some third world country to be released and you guessed it there is always a corrupt official that needs to be bribed with your money. Now there is a group of people who bait these type of scammers and they have one of the most hilarious web sites I have ever seen 419 Eater.

Some golden rules to remember when working out if something is a scam

1. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is
2. If you have been offered a work from home opportunity be wary of web sites that ask for money up front.
3. If you are on a web site that claims not to be like any of the other get rich quick scheme web sites they probably are.
4. If you are on a web site that claims to have the secret to getting rich quickly with hardly doing anything in most cases they will have a very long what I call "Sales Piece" about how this secret changed their life until they eventually ask for money or ask for your contact details.
5. In most cases their secret to getting rich which they will divulge to you is actually a web site just like theirs, you pay them $50 (or what ever the amount is) and you get a site just like them to lure in someone else and it starts all over again. This is in fact a pyramid scheme  which effectively is a non sustainable business model and in most countries this is illegal . It relies on people bringing more and more people into the scam to keep it going. These kind of schemes have been responsible in the past for destroying small economies.
6. How long has the site been around? You can often check this by looking at the WayBackMachine, who else has talked about this site? Google the site and see what others have said about it.
7. If the scheme is genuine the person running it won't mind you asking them many questions. After all you are the investor you have something they want - your money.

Put the following note with your credit card

"WAIT! Is this an Internet SCAM?"

The more people we can stop being scammed the less people there are for the scammers