The Ages of Fax
Fax technology comes in 3 flavors: ancient, outdated and high tech modern.
Prehistoric faxing is still going on. Whoever is using a fax machine with a dedicated telephone line is running a dinosaur. The beast must be fed with paper and toner and it must be pampered to stay in shape. It is slow, can only do one fax at a time, expensive, insecure and more failure prone than the other types of faxing. This is the ancient model whose time has come and gone.
There is a more up to date method of faxing. The outdated method is using the fax modem in your computer to send faxes. Most modern computers don't have fax modems anymore but if you have one, you can set up a fax printer and send a single fax on it. I've found these faxes to be even slower than a dedicated fax machine. If you want to receive faxes on the modem into the computer, you will need specialized software. This method is still limiting in that it is slow, it can only do one ingoing or outbound fax at a time, inbound requires special software and it ties up a phone line.
The high tech modern method of faxing is to fax via PC using an Internet fax service. This method has 5 advantages.
1. Flexibility - You can do your faxing anywhere, anytime and all you need is machine that can connect to the web. Since online fax is based on email, you determine who gets a fax. You don't have to load your knapsack with a fax machine and stuff your attache case with fax paper.
2. Economy - You don't pay for a fax machine, dedicated phone line, paper, toner and don't have to worry about paper storage.
3. Green Machine - You help the environment when you only print the faxes you need. You also don't have to discard toner cartridges in special places. You use less energy since you don't run the fax machinery.
4. Reliability - Internet fax is provided by companies with safe and secure computer systems and equipment so that if any piece goes down, another substitute immediately takes over. You don't depend on your local equipment. If your computer is off or even not working, faxes will still reach your email and you can send your fax email from anything that can reach a website.
5. Time saving- No more waiting on fax lines. You can send and receive multiple faxes simultaneously.
The Need for Fax by PC
The truth is that there really should be no need for fax in modern times because everything can really be done by email and other means. Steve Sagan of PC Magazine indicated that Ethna Piazza, a tech-focused lawyer and partner at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, told him that e-signatures of various sorts are perfectly legal. Every time you click "buy" on an online shopping site, for example, you're executing an e-signature, she said.
However, some people and organizations still have a fear of over dependence on electronic transactions and record keeping. After working in a major bank in the IT department, I can understand that someone would be more comfortable with having their life savings recorded on a piece of paper rather than represented a some blip on a large computer that might disappear with the next bolt of static electricity. (This fear is really irrational these days with all the safeguards and multiple copies of everything in place.) Standard faxing somehow seems more safe to them. I doesn't seem that faxing will stop being a crucial business communication method any time soon.
Putting a signature on documents faxed electronically used to be a problem but it isn't anymore. The online fax services provide software that lets you record your signature and put it onto any type of electronic or office type of document.
The Bottom Line
Faxing is going to be around for quite a while and with all the advantages and savings of Fax by PC using Internet fax, it's time to stop riding the brontosaurus and hop into your futuristic souped up fax system.
Fax PC - Why Your PC is the Best Fax System
David Freitag
The Computer Doc
To learn more about the advantages of computer fax, see this computer fax article. To see how you can send faxes of any kind without a fax machine, visit the send fax through the computer article
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