I am considering pulling the plug on my fax machine and using one of the internet fax services.
Can anyone report on the use of one of these?
I am considering pulling the plug on my fax machine and using one of the internet fax services.
Can anyone report on the use of one of these?
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Replies
Gene,
Check out JLC, there was a thread in the past week or so about this issue.
Jon Blakemore
RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
I use efax for incoming , landline fax machine for outgoing . as others mentioned most items can be emailed in , some need a signature out though . Ive never experienced a delay in .
try http://www.maxemail.com - same as Efax, but costs less
You can have faxes emailed in PDF format, and you can send PDFs as faxes.
I've used the maxemail.com service since 2002 and I'm happy with it. All of our faxes are sent directly from the computer using a modem, and we only use the fax service for incoming pages. The big advantage of this is there isn't a pile of paper from junk faxes and we have electronic records of all the pages.One poster mentioned a delay of several hours in receiving faxes. I have never seen a delay of more than 15 minutes from the time the sender faxes us a page to when the converted email shows up at our end.
Tj, I was the poster that mentioned several hours delay but my memory could be off considerably.
For some people, a 15 minute delay would be problematic. I don't think I'd mind 15 minutes but sometimes it would be inconvenient. I can live with most inconveniences.
blue
I had efax a couple years ago. I didn't like the time delay.
I'm considering using it again because I don't have a hard line in this residence and don't want to order one.
blue
What was the time delay?
Let's say you deal with a supplier, as I do, where there are maybe ten different desk jockey people that all share one fax machine. That means that to actually get a fax to your intended recipient, you need to rely on either the recipient making regular trips to the "outbox" area near the fax machine, or you rely on someone at the receiving location playing a good mailperson role, getting faxes distributed to the various desks in a timely manner.
And you also have to count on reliability at the other end, in other words, "Joe" always gets the faxes addressed to him, and they aren't being given to "Joanne" by mistake.
With a hardwired fax machine, I have always operated on this timetable: I make a phone call within a few minutes of the fax transmission ending, and ask the person nearest the receiving fax machine to verbally verify that my fax was received there in the number of pages sent by me. I then ask that the fax be delivered to the desk of the intended recipient. If I strike out, I re-send.
If I start doing some kind of e-faxing, I'll change my routine by maybe waiting 30 or 50 minutes before the phone call, but I'll still make it.
Since going email and .pdf docs with as many suppliers and contractors as possible, I have reduced fax usage way way down, but I still gotta do it to stay in touch with the dinosaurs. Yuk.
Gene, if I remember, the faxes might take hours to arrive.
I might have a faulty memory. I'm certain that I didn't really care for the system after I discovered that. I did like having all the faxes saved as emails though.
blue
Gene,I use Efax, you can PM me and we can do some time tests if you want. I would be curious to know what type of lag there is.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
No kidding. I consider it my personal mission to dog out anyone who is taking my money AND asks me to send or receive a fax.Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
Also a CRX fanatic!
We use Maxemail and love it! I also use it to send items "in-house" as a scan. From the time I fax it to myself to the time it arrives in my inbox has always been less than 5 minutes.
We have never received a hardcopy fax and probably never will.
You can use most cellphones to fax from your computer. Just need the data cable and drivers installed (I got mine from eBay). Either scan your info and "print" via the cell phone as modem line, or "print" your WORD or pdf document to the cell phone as modem line.
Do you need a special cell phone?
blue
Nope.
Like I said, you need the data cable that goes with your phone (plugs into a USB port on computer), and the drivers to install on the computer. Then the phone looks like a modem to be used by the fax software. The fax software shows up as a printer choice.
For example, if you have a WORD doc you want to fax. You select PRINT and then choose the printer to use. You select FAX. Within the FAX application you select your cellphone combo as the modem to use. And away the fax goes.
If you have something to fax that is not already a computer document or something you need to sign, the you have to scan it on a scanner. Various software can IMPORT from the scanner. "Imaging for Windows" is a freebie from Micro$oft but no longer included with Windoze XP so you'll have to download the version that shipped with Win 98. Or use Windoze Viewer, kinda clumsy but does work. Scan the documents, appending to the same document. Select FAX as the printer, select the cell phone as modem and fax away.
I am a Realtor and use http://www.trustfax.com/ . I spoke with a client the other day and the document he faxed came through during our cell phone conversation. So the speed of this service is fairly good. The quality,however, is not quite as good as my fax machine because it does not seem to save a fax in the higher resolutions. These faxes are still acceptable for almost all of my transactions. Most of my contracts are scanned and emailed in the Adobe pdf form. I use this as backup since fax machines are far more accessable than scanners so the approximately $40 dollars I spend on this service to send an infrequent fax:It is worth it to me. The number I have is toll free so there is no charge to my out of town clients and I no longer have to put up with the junk faxes I was receiving at my home office. My "fax machine" is now any where I have internet service. If I linked it to my cell phone, I could also look at the contracts on the tiny screen of my pocket pc.
I have heard about efax a lot in the past. But before using this one I would like to know how to send and receive unlimited faxes. I need some kind of guidelines before start using fax.
We call it email these days. No one uses Fax so it''ll be a tough sale.
Yeah, I know lots of people are using email service right now. But only a few old companies still using fax services. Do you know? So I need a fax guide website. So that I can send seamless faxes to other people. I found Google fax services here's a great place to get started with this https://googlefaxfree.com/. I will surely give a try googlefaxfree service. If you have any other queries please let me know.
Faxing is still important these days, I work in an industry where faxing remains the saest way to share documents (it gives you an actual confirmation the person on the other end has received it). I personally use RingCentral Fax and it has been good so far, found a recommendation in a tutorial site, I think it was https://googleonlinefax.com or the one mentioned above, but have also used HelloFax for a while and seemd to get the job done. The important thing is that it has a mobile app and a good price. In my case I was also looking for third-party integration with other tools. Hope it helps!