SavageSteve.net

Dear United States Postal Service,

I tried to print a simple USPS Priority Mail label from your web site. The Click-N-Ship web application is one of the worst web applications I have ever seen. After spending over 30 minutes trying to print ONE label, I gave up.

Here's what's wrong with your application:

I could not print a label from Safari on OS X. I got all the way through the process and tried to print the label, but nothing happened (yes, I have Acrobat Reader installed). I clicked "retry", but nothing happened again. I went through the entire process a second time... nothing, nada. WRITING WEB APPLICATIONS FOR SPECIFIC BROWSERS AND PLATFORMS IS BAD BUSINESS, LOCKS OUT A PART OF YOUR POTENTIAL USER POPULATION, AND IS JUST PLAIN STUPID, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE IT'S SO EASY TO MAKE THEM COMPATIBLE.

I switched over to my Windows XP computer and tried Internet Explorer. I entered all the address information, clicked "continue", and was unexpectedly brought back to the Click-N-Ship start page. I tried this again... same thing. Then I realized that you are probably using cookies, so I enabled them and entered the address information a THIRD time, and was able to continue to the print page. IF YOU ARE GOING TO REQUIRE COOKIES, YOU NEED TO EXPLAIN THAT IN YOUR SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS, AS WELL AS AUTOMATICALLY DETECTING IF COOKIES ARE ENABLED BEFORE SOMEONE WASTES TIME TRYING TO USE YOUR APPLICATION WITHOUT COOKIES ENABLED.

I tried to print the label, but this time was unable to print because your web application is trying to do too much for me automatically. See, I don't have a printer installed on my Windows XP computer (it's not my main computer), but your web application wouldn't allow me to save the PDF or do anything other than try to print it automatically through Acrobat Reader. NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO PRINT THE LABEL IMMEDIATELY OR ON THE SAME COMPUTER THEY ARE FORCED TO USE TO GENERATE THE LABEL IN THE FIRST PLACE. A SIMPLE OPTION TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF WOULD HAVE SOLVED THIS PROBLEM AND WOULD BE EASY TO PROVIDE. OPTIONS ARE A GOOD THING! DON'T DUMB DOWN YOUR APPLICATION- -IT'S MAKE IT THAT MUCH HARDER TO USE FOR PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

I gave up at this point.

Thank you for another frustrating United States Postal Service experience, but I guess I set myself up by having a reasonable expectation that I could print a shipping label from your web site.

You must post if you get a response.

They won't answer... those guvmint types never do. Too many damn secrets!

This will likely end up in one of those "tech support" books somewhere, I'm sure.

Check your mailbox, you may begin getting all the junk mail again.

No answer so far. Perhaps my acerbic tone was too much. Anyway, the only response I've ever received from one of my complaint e-mails was from Apple, and they offered me free software. I declined, because I wasn't trying to get free software from them, just trying to vent my frustration over my experience with the release of OS X Tiger. I was pissed, but Apple responded, and made a peace offering. Apple rocks.

I've been using Safari for however long it's been on this machine to access our online banking site. Recently, a notice has starting coming up telling me that it does not support the version of the browser I use. It does support Safari 1.1 and 1.2, but we have 1.3.

Sounds like the problem you had with the Old Navy web site... just checked, and it appears to be working with Safari now. Not to worry... when Steve Jobs takes over the computing world, then *all* web sites will be compatible with Safari!