Tech Table Thursday, March 13, 2014
March 13, 2014
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest. Well, hello, Justin. It’s Thursday.
Justin: You know, it is Thursday. I’m happy you reminded me because I actually didn’t know.
Diana: Did you forget what day it was?
Justin: You know, I forget as I get older and busier. It seems like I’m not… I was always busy but now that I’m older and busy I tend to forget what day it is.
Diana: Oh, we need to get you a personal calendar. Or you could just check your phone.
Justin: I have a thing called a wife and she keeps me on track.
Diana: Usually.
Justin: Usually. Absolutely. So today what are we talking about, Diana?
Diana: Let’s see. We are talking about simple ways to email for the senior community.
Justin: All right, like grandparents?
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: And great-grandparents even?
Diana: Sure.
Justin: Yeah, absolutely. Now, as time goes on…
Diana: It’s parents age for a lot of us too.
Justin: Yeah, but they’re pretty hip. As time goes on those generations are going to be more hip.
Diana: Your mom just got an iPhone.
Justin: I know. She’s all about it. She loves it.
Diana: Pretty awesome.
Justin: Yep, absolutely. So, the other day someone asked us how they could send email to their grandparents. The grandparents are in their 90s. They haven’t had a computer and don’t want to learn how to use a computer and they do want to get the letters and pictures though from their family which makes sense. So the question is how can you make it easy to communicate for both the sender and the receiver.
Diana: Right. Yeah, the point being there how is it easy. How do we make it easy for both parties.
Justin: So you came up with some solutions, Diana.
Diana: Yeah, yeah. So one thing you can go email to “snail” mail. The simplest way to send an email to someone who doesn’t have a computer is to use an email to snail mail service. There are several companies that exist. They will do this: They will receive your email, they will print it, they will put in an in envelope, and drop it in the mail.
Justin: That’s amazing. That’s amazing.
Diana: So basically if you just yourself don’t have time to print it yourself, put it in an envelope yourself, but you do have time to email it with the information that it takes to actually then mail it, then this is the option for you.
Justin: That’s really something. There’s a company for everything.
Diana: That’s true.
Justin: Someone has figured out how to make money off of anything. That’s really something to me. Isn’t it though? Someone will actually get your email, print it, put it in an envelope, and drop it in the mail for you. Incredible. Incredible.
Diana: So here’s some of those websites. We’ve got postalmethods.com.
Justin: I’ve heard of them.
Diana: It will send your one page letter for about a dollar and that includes postage. Additional pages are extra. That’s pretty good.
Justin: That’s not bad. Yeah.
Diana: Mailaletter.com. That’s mailaletter.com. Pricing starts around $1.52 per letter but it does have the option to use ivory linen paper.
Justin: Oh my. That’s something we don’t see anymore.
Diana: Another one is click2mail.com. Single letter pricing starts at $2.50 but buying in bulk can get your price down to about $.75 per letter.
Justin: That’s really interesting.
Diana: Maybe you have a mass mailing you want to do for your business.
Justin: There’s got to be an easier way. I mean, really?
Diana: Do you want to stuff all the envelopes yourself?
Justin: Well is it going to cost less to like hire a high schooler and have them stuff them?
Diana: I don’t know. Does it?
Justin: It depends on how many you’re sending and how fast they do it.
Diana: You’ve got the cost of the paper, of the stamp, of the ink that you’re writing on the envelope, and the person.
Justin: Fascinating. Okay. What else you got?
Diana: There’s a cool project that is active in one week in November and it’s called snailmailmyemail.org. Again, that’s snailmailmyemail.org. They gather volunteers to hand write and send letters received by email.
Justin: That’s nice.
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: That’s more charming. I’m a little old fashioned. I think sometimes it’s nice to hand write a letter so yeah I would suggest you hand write a letter, especially to people who are in their 90s. But if you don’t want to do that and have someone else go to the work of receiving your email, printing it, putting it in an envelope, and dropping it in the mail, go for it.
Diana: Go for it.
Justin: Until next time…
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa, and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at askmpa.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com.
Justin: And thanks for listening.
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