Send real letters from the Internet to anywhere in the world.
# Monday, 21 May 2007

This was my first trip to Ireland and although most of our time was spent at a friends wedding, I left with the intention of going back again for a longer stay. It definitely wasn’t the weather that made my stay enjoyable, it basically rained on and off all weekend. I did however find it refreshing to be surrounded by beautiful countryside instead of feeling rather crammed in as we tend to be back in London. One thing that immediately struck me was that every person we came across whilst in Ireland greeted you with a cheery good morning or a friendly wave. Back in London, things are slightly different, if you even so much as glance at another person on the bus or train, you are met with a blank, unfriendly look.

During this visit we hired a self catering cottage from Dream Ireland. The cottage is located in the grounds of the Mount Wolseley Hilton Hotel. It included a double room with en-suite bathroom, two rooms with twin beds and a third room with a single bed. It also had another bathroom and toilet as well as kitchen and large living/dining area. In fact it was much bigger than our house and cost 420 Euros, that’s about £287. I was very impressed with the accommodation offered for the price and you also had the option to use the hotels pool, spa and gym. The cottage also had the advantage of being located within an easy five minutes from the main hotel which has several restaurants serving food for most of the day and several bars which were open until very late.

The atmosphere in the hotels bar was a welcome change from a smoky pub; smoking having already been banned in public places in Ireland. On the night we arrived, at nearly midnight, we were surprised to find the hotel’s main bar still open and the locals enjoying a good singsong well into the early hours of the morning. In fact they were still singing when we left at three in the morning. In all it was an enjoyable few days and I will definitely be going back.

posted on Monday, 21 May 2007 21:16:05 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback

I and my husband are heading off to Ireland this weekend for a friends wedding. It always occurs to me when going away how much easier it is for men to pack. They simply pack a pair of jeans and a pair of trousers and a couple of tops. My packing dilemma goes something like this. We are going away for 4 days. The first day we are at the wedding, so I have my dress and shoes, but what if it is cold, I might need a jacket. The next day I will need something casual to wear during the day, so I pack jeans and trainers, but wait I am going out in the evening, will I need something smart? So I pack a skirt and top, but what if it’s too cold for a skirt… I pack trousers. The thing is trousers require different shoes to a skirt so I pack my smart boots as well as my strappy shoes. Ok, the bag is starting to get heavier at this point and thats before I think about day three. Men have it easy. 

posted on Monday, 21 May 2007 21:15:05 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Sunday, 20 May 2007

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.   

posted on Sunday, 20 May 2007 21:17:12 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Wednesday, 16 May 2007

The Greek island of Zante or better known by the locals as Zakynthos has long been a favourite of mine. 

zante.jpg

Depending on the time of year you go Zante is either a furnace or incredibly hot, I have never encountered a single cold day when visiting Zante. And you soon understand why the locals do most of their socialising in the evening and leave the hot day for sleeping.

When visiting Zante I would suggest wearing shorts and getting yourself a pair of sandals, your feet will only roast in trainers and socks. Zante is full of nice beaches and its very easy to get badly sunburned, another word of warning is when you go down to the beaches take a large bottle of tap water with you to rinse off the sea water before you tan yourself. The sea water is so full of salt that mixed with the strong sun can easily chap your skin and lead to painful sunburn. Talking about the water its important to only drink bottled water and not tap water, while the locals will drink the tap water its far to high in minerals for people who have not been put onto it gradually and could make you sick. The local "towns" or "resorts" are geared towards tourists you will find many of the local restaurants on the so called high streets will have Australian, English, Chinese themes in addition to Greek restaurants. I often found the best place to eat good Greek food Zante style, is in the little unkown taverners you will sometimes find on the outskirts or down little country lanes. You know they serve good Greek food when even the locals eat there and keep coming back. When staying at a hotel ask the guy behind the bar what he suggests.

I always find the locals welcoming and friendly and when I am there I always stock up on the locally produced olive oil which the super markets here in the UK can't even begin to compete with on taste. The localy produced honey is also out of this world and is essentially honey made from Thyme pollen. Another thing I became hooked on was 5 star Metaxa a drink not unlike brandy but much better. Three star Metaxa rivals brandy and can be drunk with coke hover 5 star should always be drunk by its self.

posted on Wednesday, 16 May 2007 23:22:06 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Monday, 14 May 2007

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

posted on Monday, 14 May 2007 23:06:07 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Sunday, 13 May 2007

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

posted on Sunday, 13 May 2007 10:33:21 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Wednesday, 09 May 2007

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

posted on Wednesday, 09 May 2007 16:10:03 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Tuesday, 01 May 2007

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

posted on Tuesday, 01 May 2007 18:42:27 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback
# Sunday, 29 April 2007

PC2Paper has finally caught the blogging bug and over the years we will be blogging about

  • Travel
  • Methods of keeping touch with loved ones
  • Reviews of some travel gem websites we have found out there
  • Warnings and reviews by our customers of places they have been and what to look out for.
  • Penpal social websites
  • Scams we and our customers have detected and believe you should avoid 

If you would like to contribute please let us know.

posted on Sunday, 29 April 2007 18:41:25 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Trackback