6B | Monday, June 30, 2008 | St.
Petersburg Times ****
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Work
week
THIS LONG-TERM
FORECAST LIKELY
NOT AS ROSY
Sean Snaith, economist
at the University of Central
Florida in Orlando is slated
to release his second long-
term forecast of Florida’s
economy
on Monday.
The 30-year
outlook is
intended to
give guidance
to people in
Snaith sectors like
transportation and
education as they prepare
for 2038. Snaith published
his first long-term forecast
a year ago, when there was
hope Florida would survive,
rather than be crushed
by, the housing bust. Look
for his adjusted forecast
on the Web site of UCF’s
Institute for Economic
Competitiveness (http://
bus.ucf.edu/hitec).
You can pack a
lunch, and a gun
A state law goes into effect
Tuesday that allows about
500,000 Floridians who
have concealed weapons
permits to take a gun to
work as long as it is locked
in their car and the vehicle is
parked on their employer’s
premises. The law Gov.
Charlie Crist signed in April
does not allow businesses
to ask an employee if they
have a gun in their car.
The Florida Chamber of
Commerce, arguing that
the law violates property
owners’ rights, has asked for
an injunction in federal court
in Tallahassee.
Just how bad
are car sales?
Toyota Motor Corp. may
be cheering Tuesday
when it reports June
sales figures, along with
other automakers, and
it’s expected to overtake
General Motors Corp.
in monthly sales for
the first time. But the
celebration may be a bit
muted in showrooms. The
combination of a weak
economy and soaring
gas prices has put a huge
dent in auto sales, with
some analysts predicting
a double-digit dip in the
numbers. Hardest hit is no
surprise: big vehicles.
Fuel rate increase
on the agenda
The Florida Public Service
Commission will consider
fuel rate increases this week
for Progress Energy, Florida
Power & Light and the
Florida Public Utilities Co.
The commission will hold a
public meeting at 9:30 a.m.
Tuesday in Tallahassee.
Markets take
a breather
At least there will be one
day this week where the
Dow can’t possibly fall 300
points. All stock markets will
be closed Friday — along
with many businesses and
government offices — for
the Fourth of July holiday.
. tampabay.com
All about
money
Times personal finance
editor Helen Huntley talks
about money topics and
answers your finance
questions at blogs.
tampabay.com/money.
You can
run old
favorites
in Vista
I am 76 years young. I quilt
and embroider for my enjoy-
ment and hopefully my fami-
ly’s, but many of the programs
that I purchased over the
years to help with the quilting
and embroi-
dery are not
Vista com-
patible. Most
of these ven-
dors are no
longer even
around. If
they are, JOHN
they want me TORRO
to purchase Solutions
a new and
much more expensive pro-
gram I can’t afford. So here I
am with my lovely new com-
KERI WIGINTON | Times puter but I have lost much of
Chrissy Sanborn organizes coupons to mail at The Coupon Clippers. Its Web site offers a wide selection of coupons. my ability to design my own
In tough times,
quilts and do my embroidery.
Is there some way to over-
come this?
Maybe. Vista has a feature
called the Program Compatibility
Wizard that allows you to fool an
application into thinking it is still
coupons sell
running on a previous Windows
version. Try this: Open the Pro-
gram Compatibility Wizard by
clicking the Start button, Control
Panel, Programs, and then click,
“Use an older program with this
version of Windows.” You need
to find the executable file for
one of your embroidery applica-
A Dade City woman says the bad economy spurs demand. tions. The wizard provides a few
options for helping you locate it,
such as which version of Win-
dows you want to try. You may
BY ANDREW DUNN
Times Staff Writer
How coupons work need to try a few combinations.
This can also be accomplished
I
Coupons are by right-clicking the application
n just a few years, Dade City resident Rachael Woodard issued by manu- executable from within Windows
facturers, like File Explorer and selecting Prop-
turned her small coupon mailing list into a profitable online Procter & Gam- erties, Compatibility. However,
presence with tens of thousands of customers. ble, as a way to the Wizard is the way to go for
Sales at The Coupon Clippers, Woodard’s Internet enter- advertise their most users not as familiar with
brand and to lure the compatibility options.
prise, have jumped about 25 percent in the past year. new buyers.
“The bad economy is good for us,” she said. “It seems to be a I am using Windows XP.
When I sign on in the morn-
change in mind set.” ing I get an error as follows:
After nearly two decades of decline, the lowly coupon is back in “error loading nvcpl.dll, the
process cannot access file
style... with a twist. Tapping into the growing influence of online because it is being used by
networks, companies are finding new ways to squeeze a profit out another process.” I can X out
by clicking OK and continue
of the complicated coupon industry. without problems but would
Twenty-five cents here, 50 cents there — the savings are tangible Big box or grocery stores collect the like to get rid of this error.
for shoppers who invest the time to find them, especially when gas coupons and ship them to a processor. Nvcpl.dll loads the Nvidia Con-
trol Panel, which is part of your
prices can easily jump a nickel overnight. Americans used 2.6-bil- graphics card software suite. You
lion coupons in 2007, making it the first time in 16 years that coupon can try reinstalling the drivers by
downloading the latest version
redemption did not decline. from www.nvidia.com. Since
this is not a critical piece of soft-
Online booms, busts ware and is not necessary to run
Like most traditional businesses, the coupon industry has tried to take advan- your graphics card, you can also
tage of the Internet in the past few years, with limited success. The processor just eliminate it from starting
then sends
Visits to coupon Web sites increased 66 percent in May compared with May
them to the
as follows: Click Start, Run, type
2007, according to HitWise, an online-competition research group. Despite that, MSCONFIG and click OK. Click
online couponing remains a tiny industry. Only 0.2 per- manufacturer. the Startup tab and uncheck
cent of the 279-billion coupons issued last year were dis- the line: NvCplDaemon = RUN-
tributed online. DLL32.EXE c:\windows\SYS-
Invenda, the largest public online coupon company TEM\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup (or
and operator of E-centives.com, has never been profit- something similar to this).
able. As of Jan. 1, the company had racked up a deficit of
$162-million. Somehow Real Player has
But one sector of Internet couponing has found a taken over my music. All of
The store is then
niche: communities of coupon sharing and strategizing. reimbursed for my songs used to be played by
A cottage industry of coupon networks has become Media Player. I just clicked
each coupon, plus
profitable for people who wouldn’t recognize their cus- a few cents for a one and it played. At some
tomers if they passed in the grocery store. handling fee. The time Real Player converted
Woodard’s business The Coupon Clippers was one all the icons. I can right-click
KERI WIGINTON | Times of the first, moving online with a primitive Web site
processor also
and opt for Media Player,
receives a few
Rachael Woodard launched in 1998. Her site allows customers to special but otherwise it plays in Real
cents.
owns The Coupon order coupons to be mailed to them. Player. Real Player became
She now has 40,000 customers making about 1,500 such a nuisance that I deleted
Clippers.
orders weekly.
. BAY AREA
it. Now, I have to select Media
“We’ve only scratched the surface,” Woodard said. How these coupon Player every time I click on
She operates the Web site out of her home and hires independent contractors to the icon. How can I convert all
buy stacks of newspapers, clip and sort the coupons. Distribution center staff then
kings are adapting these songs back?
stuff and mail the envelopes to customers. Catalina Marketing Corp., Real Player is a real nuisance and
To make money, Woodard requires a minimum order of $3 and charges a 5- to St. Petersburg I keep it off my system for this very
10-cent handling fee per coupon. She declined to give income figures. Prints coupons at grocery store reason. You just need to change the
checkout lines targeted to a default association back to Win-
Social circles move customer’s purchases. The com- dows Media Player. Right-click
Woodard’s site has message boards to discuss new coupon deals, but another pany has expanded 35 percent in any of your media files and choose
new Web site has nearly cornered that market. recent years, into 23,000 stores. “Open With … .” Scroll down the
HotCouponWorld.com features perpetually active forums discussing deals at About 6 percent of its coupons Programs list and select Window
chains around the country, strategizing on how to squeeze out the best buys. are redeemed, compared with 0.5 Media Player. Make sure you
It also hosts a searchable coupon database. Users can type in the product they percent for newspaper inserts and click the “Always use the selected
want and print out a coupon. 2 percent for direct mail. program to open this type of file”
The site was founded by two women who have yet to meet, and who had no
ValPak, Largo
option and then click OK. If for
business experience between them. It launched in July 2006 with about 300 regu- some reason you do not see Win-
lar users, growing to 8,000 in one year. Mails packets of coupons directly to dows Media Player listed under
Now it boasts 44,000 members and about 800,000 unique visitors per month, consumers. The company recently Programs, you can browse for
said co-founder Julie Parrish, a 34-year-old from West Linn, Ore. constructed a $220-million produc- WMPLAYER.EXE under the C:\
“Frugal is now cool,’’’ she said. tion facility in St. Petersburg. Program Files\Windows Media
Though she would not divulge the site’s revenue numbers, Parrish said it now Shipped 20.7-billion coupons in Player\ folder.
makes money. The company will soon invest in an outside redesign. 2007, and plans to increase that to
“We’re growing faster than we know what to do with,” Parrish said. 50-billion over time.. Send questions to personaltech@
Andrew Dunn can be reached at (727) 893-8150 or adunn@sptimes.com. sptimes.com or Personal Tech, P.O. Box
1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731. Questions
are answered only in this column.