Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Getback on June 12, 2009, 12:14:56 PM
-
Been thinking about getting a fax modem so that I can receive and send faxes. I'm a little out of date on this stuff so any advice would be welcome.
-
Really? Do they still even make those things?
As long as you have a scanner that you can get printed documents into your computer, then it should work OK.
-
if your getting a separate phone line for it
this is cheaper
http://www.efax.com/products/internet-fax?tab=pricing&VID=37954&%3bCMP=KNC-954Rates
-
Been thinking about getting a fax modem so that I can receive and send faxes. I'm a little out of date on this stuff so any advice would be welcome.
Do you actually have a dial-up account?
-
Do you actually have a dial-up account?
Why does that matter?
-
Why does that matter?
Well, most people dial a number to send a fax. How's he going to receive it? I suppose if he had VOIP that would work.
-
Amazingly, my first job after graduation from UCSD in 1992 was doing tech support for Quick Link II Fax, which is the software that came with pretty much all fax/modems in the 90's. I eventually went on to write the User's Guide for this terrible software, both for DOS (which used TSR's to fax from any printing software) and for Windows 3.1.
Anyway, fax/modems are still out there, but they are terribly annoying in many ways. They made sense when a real fax machine was $500 and a fax/modem was just $100 and you were going to buy a modem anyway to get online to your BBS or CompuServe, but not anymore.
To receive a fax with a fax modem, your computer must always be turned on (and not asleep) and the fax software must always be running in the background. It is very helpful for the fax modem to have a dedicated phone line. To send a fax, you either need to print to a fax driver in windows (but then you might as well just print to a PDF maker in windows and send an email), or scan something with a scanner and then send it out. Very annoying.
Better options:
1. Get a printer/scanner/fax device. My favorite is the Epson Artisan 800, even though it drinks ink like it was water. It prints, scans, copies, faxes, prints on CDs, and supports wired ethernet and wireless network printing. You'll probably still want a dedicated phone line for lots of faxing.
2. Efax or similar internet faxing service. You'd still need to scan handwritten things to fax, but at least you don't need a phone line for it.
3. Buy a cheap fax machine. Office Depot has one or two models under $70.
-Llama
-
Here...This is free...
You can fax scanned documents, photographed documents.. Check it out...
http://www.qipit.com/pub/fax (http://www.qipit.com/pub/fax)
-
Well I've actually changed my mind on the fax. I'm dropping my phone line. No I don't use dial up. I use AT&T dsl pro or something like that. I'm getting rid of my phone line because I never use it. I call it the beggars hot line. Only ones that use it want money. All my friends and family call my cell.
-
Well, most people dial a number to send a fax. How's he going to receive it? I suppose if he had VOIP that would work.
He would need just a working land line (a 2nd one would solve a lot of headaches). It would work just like a phone or regular fax machine. They don't need internet access to send faxes.