Or we may want to receive that fax from our landlord so we can move into that apartment tomorrow.

Having a fax machine in your home could save you time in completing such tasks as getting a new job. Now what if you can fax documents without having to cough up big bucks to purchase a fax machine.

If you have a computer with Windows XP, Internet access, and a printer, you already have a fax machine. One of the optional components in your WinXP software package is the Fax Services Component. This package allows you to send and receive faxes through your computer using regular dial-up internet access.

To use this Fax Service you will need 3.7megabytes of free hard drive space, a dial-up modem and your WinXP Install CD. Since the transmission is sent through your phone line, a cable modem will not work.

The first thing you must do to use the Fax Service is to install it on your PC. This service is not installed when Windows XP was first installed. Perform the following steps to install this software.

Insert your installation CD in your CD or DVD drive and the welcome to Microsoft Windows XP will open .If it doesn’t open, open My Computer and double-click the CD or DVD drive. Click install Optional Windows Components.

A menu will open that lists all optional Windows XP components. Now click the box in front of Fax Services and then click next. Watch the installation status bar and once its installed click the finish button and exit. You will need to restart your PC to finish the process.

You can now configure the Fax Console by adding your contact information, the modem you will use, and where you want the system to save a copy of each fax.

To open the application, click on Start, choose All Programs, Accessories, Communications, Fax, the Fax Console, and click next once it opens. You can now type in the Sender information.

The next step in setting up the Console is to enter your TSD or Transmitting Subscriber Identification data. This allows the recipient’s computer to identify your computer as the sender of the Fax. The TSD contains your Fax number or your fax number and name.

You’re getting closer to finishing the Console. The CSID is next to be added. Your CSID is your Called Subscriber Identification and it can be the same data that’s in the TSD. When you receive a Fax, your CSID will appear on the sender’s confirmation page.

Now you must choose the routing options for the Faxes you receive. You may want the Faxes saved and printed, or just save. You now choose the printer you want the Fax to be printed on and this will be your default printer.

Click next to reach the last Console Configuration step. Here you verify the data you entered. A Configuration summary will appear for you to verify. Once you are satisfied that all information is correct, click finish.

After setting up the Fax Console and completed the Configuration setup, you’re computer is now ready to send and receive Faxes just as any Fax Machine would. The Console pops open automatically and looks similar to the Outlook Express Console.

Now select the device to sending and receiving Faxes. The modem will appear in the drop-down menu. All you need to do is highlight it and check both send and receive. Here is how you receive Faxes using Windows XP.

There are two options to receiving a Fax, Manual and auto answer. Checking the auto mode allows the computer to answer the phone when a Fax is received. To receive a Fax automatically, leave the modem and the computer on and the PC will save received Faxes in the inbox of the Fax Console.

If you have one phone line to use for your fax and voice calls, its good to receive your Faxes manually. You will need to be at your computer to receive a fax. When the phone rings, you will not know if its a voice or fax call until you answer it.

A way around this is to call the sender of the fax and ask them to call ahead to inform you the fax is on its way. Then you can hang up, connect your modem to the phone line and wait. When the call comes through, a dialog box appears and will allow you to receive the Fax.

To send a fax you can use the print option to Fax documents from any Windows application. Open the document from any Windows program such as MSWord ,select the printer, and click okay.

The Fax Wizard will now take you by the hand and help you create a cover page and sending your Fax. After this is done, enter your recipient’s data. When entering their Fax number, type it in a format such as +1 (123) 456-7890.

The Fax Console is linked to your Outlook Express Address Book where recipients names can be stored there. Your recipient’s name will appear in the Recipient Information Window.

You can now format the cover page by choosing ready made templates or create your own. And now you can schedule when your Fax can be sent. To send it now, just click Now. Or you set a time in advance but be sure to leave the modem and computer on when the time comes.

Click next where you can preview the cover page and Fax preview. If all is well, click finish and the Fax Monitor will appear and show you the status of your Fax. You will see a saved copy of your Fax if you did not send it now.

By following these steps, you can send a Fax from any Windows application. Such application include Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Excel. You can use a scanner with the Fax Service to made it more versatile. Go over to their web site at www.support.microsoft.com to learn how to use a scanner with the Fax Service.

If you’re considering using the Fax Service to send faxes, its a great time while rewarding this article to grab your WinXP CD, install the software and get going. There will be a lot more help in the software and you’ll see just how easy it is to fax with Windows XP.

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The PC has become one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, and indeed the PC has done more for revolutionizing the way we do business than any other single innovation in the past one hundred years. Not since the printing press has one single innovation made such an impact on the business world.

One of the features that makes PCs so useful and indispensable is the ability for the device to “wear many hats” and serve as a multifunction device that different employees and technicians can use for different purposes.

For the all around office machine, fax software should be included on the list of applications that all office PCs should have to make them as useful as possible and to lessen the amount of hardware that needs to be purchased in order to have an office working at peak efficiency.

When equipped with faxing software or utilizing the services of an online internet faxing site, you not only add functionality to you initial PC investment but you also save money by not having to outfit the office with cumbersome hardware that is difficult to use. Additionally, when you use your PC to accomplish faxing tasks, you have the same ability to have a digital “paper trail” (like the type enabled by email and other internet based textual communication). Records can be kept by the software or service and allow for lightning-quick search and verify actions to be done when necessary. No more wondering if your secretary sent the fax you asked to have sent by lunch. Individuals with an interest in the faxed communiqu can be notified via email upon reception of the fax and can follow up on messages as they are received.

James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest. Read more at www.project-management-guru.com

Fax is getting an infusion of new blood, helping it evolve to meet today’s fast paced and flexible business communications needs.

In fact, the global fax market was worth approximately $80-billion (U.S.) at the start of the decade and is continuing to increase rapidly. Industry watchers have noted that the Internet-based fax market itself is growing at a rate of approximately 50 per cent year over year.

The ubiquity of fax numbers on business cards is a testament to how heavily fax continues to touch our business lives. And, while the fax service pie is split up over a variety of service markets from the production fax market, individual fax and fax broadcast, Internet and e-mail based fax services are poised to skyrocket.

Faxing over the Internet introduces a ubiquity fax hadn’t previously seen. According to a Nielsen NetRatings report from December 2003, Canada has 20,450,000 Internet users – roughly 64 per cent of its population – with access to the Net. That means more than 20 million potential Internet fax users in this country alone could be sending and receiving faxes by e-mail.

But why would they want to?

Well, first off, fax is far from gone from our business lives. Every day, purchase orders, forms and a variety of professional documents need to be delivered to legacy fax machines – and we need a method of delivering them, easily and cost effectively.

Internet-based faxing brings about a number of significant advantages. First, it improves employee mobility, productivity and efficiency. It avoids the high cost of a telecom infrastructure and overhead in capital costs on fax equipment. Lastly, it affords the users enhanced document management capabilities and the ability to integrate it to a business’s workflow and processes.

The small business is a growing market in Canada, and globally, and Internet-based fax is the perfect solution. By avoiding the equipment cost, it helps level the playing field for the small office and user working from home.

Telecommuters of larger company’s can feel the same benefits, as more and more businesses reduce overhead and improve employee satisfaction by offering the option to work from home.

Purchase orders, quotes and invoicing are areas that continue to employ a great deal of fax use. Let’s look at Internet-based faxing as an example. A sales person could be on site at a customer location, complete a discussion and then, immediately using a wireless Internet connection send a quote – or invoice – directly to the customers’ fax machine. All while sitting in the car using a laptop and wireless connection on the customer’s network or a wireless hot spot.

Because e-mail applications have become ubiquitous and standardized, faxes can be easily forwarded, saved and stored digitally, enabling greater document management and control. Internet-fax virtually eliminates lost pages, allows for immediate electronic document storage, and ensures delivery of the document to the right hands.

Meeting strict security and privacy regulations are fast becoming a more critical part of doing business. Beyond simply meeting the requirements of government policies like the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documentation Act (PIPEDA), a company’s business hinges on its perceived security and credibility with its customers.

Traditional fax machines pose privacy and security threats as paper faxes sit idly on shared fax machines. With e-mail and Web-based faxing, incoming faxes are sent directly to the intended recipient, remaining totally confidential, without the addition of any hardware or software.

The University of Ottawa moved to Internet-based faxing with an eye on just such security concerns. The organization routinely processes a large number of documents that require anonymity, including contributions from donors, letters of recommendation, offers of employment and student applications.

“Protecting the confidentiality of our data and communications is critical,” says Eric Dubois, Vice-Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Engineering. “By transitioning our existing e-mail into a private fax service we ensure security, while enabling us to store and track documents electronically.”

The flexibility of the Internet has fuelled an evolution in communications. Today, we expect information immediately and demand that voice and data keep up with our fleeting attention spans and hectic schedules. Fortunately, the Internet has given fax a much needed boost by spurring a shift in how we use traditional forms of communication. New applications and new capabilities have kept the fax from going extinct and, in my estimation, will keep it growing and thriving for years to come.

Joseph Nour is CEO of Protus IP Solutions, an application service provider offering value-added voice, email and fax messaging services to businesses around the world. MyFax is an Internet-based faxing solution that is owned and operated by Protus. For information on MyFax, please see www.myfax.com.

Junk fax companies have been fined by the federal government and sued repeatedly, but has anyone noticed a reduction in the number of junk faxes? I certainly haven’t. The question for most businesses is whether there is a practical way to beat the daily waste of resources caused by junk faxes? Many businesses are using the fax-to-email solution provided through online unified messaging systems.

What is Unified Messaging?

Unified Messaging is a highly flexible communication system that ties all of your communications together. It has the capacity to centralize your voice mail, faxes and email messages in one online area through an email address and single phone number. These systems use their own phone lines and provide you with a separate number, so you don’t have to tie up your own or have an additional line installed.

Fax to Email Conversion

One of the best aspects of Unified Messaging systems is the fax-to-email conversion feature. You are provided with a phone number where people can send you faxes and leave voice mail messages. The beauty of the system is that the faxes are then automatically converted to text files and emailed to an inbox.

So, how does this save you money? You simply delete the junk faxes unless, of course, you need to “maximize the potential of your septic tank.” You then read or print out the faxes that are germane to your business. No wasted paper, no wasted toner and no smoke coming out of your fax machine!

An added advantage of the fax-to-email conversion element of unified messaging is the flexibility it gives you. Since the faxes are available to you online, you can print the ones you need at any location. You no longer have the frustrating situation where you are working at home, but need to see a fax that was just sent to your office. You just access your inbox and print it out.

The cost of using unified messaging is very low, particularly when compared to the cost of wasted paper, toner and fax machine maintenance. Depending on the service you use, you may be charged a monthly signup fee, by the minute for phone line usage or both. The best option for your business is entirely dependent upon the number of faxes you expect to receive each month.

Despite the lawsuits and fines issued by government agencies, there is little doubt that junk faxes will continue to bombard your fax machines. Unified messaging provides an inexpensive and practical way to eliminate the cost of junk faxes.

*Previously appeared at ArticleCity.com

Barry Waxler is the President of 3in1box.com – your unified messaging solution. Visit http://www.3in1box.com to get your FREE unified messaging box or contact Barry at BarryWaxler@3in1box.com

Then there are the fax/computer hybrids. One of these uses your computer’s built-in fax modem, along with software such as Symantec’s WinFaxPro, to send a file directly from your computer to the recipient’s fax machine. If you often fax information that exists in your computer, this is much faster than printing it out and slapping it on the fax machine, and the image is clearer. Sending the same fax to a large number of recipients (broadcast faxing) is quick and easy. And the fax software keeps a record of what you faxed to whom and when. I’ve used WinFaxPro for years with great results.

But why not just use e-mail? E-mail is fine for text, but if you’re sending a file that contains charts, graphics, or your logo, e-mail won’t do. Faxing — whether via a standalone fax machine or a fax-modem — sends a graphic image rather than a text file.

WinFaxPro works with your contact management software, such as Act! Or Goldmine, so once you’ve added a fax number to the contact’s record, you never need to type it in again. You can even set it up so your contact manager automatically adds the fax event to the contact’s history.

Receiving faxes via faxmodem and WinFaxPro software, while it can be done, is a little more complicated. You can’t get incoming faxes unless your computer is on, when you’re downloading E-mail people trying to fax you can’t get through, and you’ll need a powerful computer to be able to use the fax software in the background while you’re using other computer applications. So you shouldn’t rely on this exclusively for receiving faxes.

But there’s one major advantage to receiving faxes in your computer — it’s great for sharing faxes with others you work with. It’s far easier to send it off again via WinFaxPro than to stuff the paper back into the fax machine, punch in the recipient’s fax number, then wait to make sure it goes through.

The second fax option is receiving faxes via the Internet, via a service such as eFax. The only software required is a free, easy-to-use program that you download from efax.com. This allows you to retrieve your faxes anywhere you have access to e-mail — incoming faxes arrive as e-mail attachments. This is essential when you’re traveling or working from more than one office. It’s invisible to the sender, who doesn’t know that you’re not receiving their fax on an actual fax machine.

If you only use eFax to receive faxes and don’t use their other features, it’s free. I started using eFax so I could get by on 2 phone lines without having to continually switch the phone cord between the fax machine and the modem. It also saves me money on fax paper — I no longer go through rolls of fax paper for incoming junk faxes. An added benefit is that I can easily get faxes while traveling — a tremendous convenience.

Just like with WinFaxPro, receiving your faxes through eFax makes it easier to share them with others in your workgroup. You simply forward the e-mail, which is much faster than stuffing the paper back into the fax machine, getting the usual busy signals, then waiting to make sure your fax goes through.

A more subtle benefit of paperless faxing is the ongoing time-savings of electronic storage. Storing faxes in your computer instead of printing them out will save you hours normally spent filing, retrieving, then re-filing. It reduces office clutter. Still another plus is that it makes travel easier – -most of the files you’d normally lug with you are already stored in your laptop!

Jan Jasper has been training busy people to work smarter, not harder since 1988. She helps clients streamline their systems and procedures, form optimum work habits, use technology efficiently, and manage information overload. Her specialty is helping people who’ve already worked with professional organizers and coaches and are still not able to get it all done. Jan is the author of Take Back Your Time: How to Regain Control of Work, Information, & Technology (St. Martin’s Press). She recently completed a North American media tour as the national efficiency spokesperson for IKON Office Solutions, Inc. In 2001, Jan was the office productivity expert for staples.com. She has appeared on radio and TV all over North America and is quoted regularly in print. Jan is currently on the board of the Tri-State Chapter (NY, NJ, & CT) of the National Speakers Association.

-Minimum cost, or better still, no cost at all, especially regarding software licenses.
-Transparent integration with the end user’s software tools (basically Microsoft Office).
-No need to install any software on the client side, even free software, in order to minimize the work load of the network administrators.
-This article describes how the integration of several open source applications on a Linux platform has fulfilled all of these conditions.

Acknowledgments
I want to express my gratitude to various persons or organizations without whose assistant I would have never written this article. First, to the members of the IT department in the Solvay Qumica S. L. plant at Torrelavega, Spain. Second, to my firm’s hierarchy for their approval and support of this article’s writing. Last and most especially, to all the contributors to the Open Source projects mentioned throughout this text, to the participants in the HylaFAX mailing list (which have given me essential information) and to Craig Kelly, developer of the smbfax client tool.

System overview
To clarify which computer I’m talking about where, I’ll refer to the PC where the fax software is installed as TOSERFAX.

The applied solution involves the HylaFAX software. This application controls the installed modems, distributes the incoming faxes and sends the outgoing ones.

The incoming faxes are converted to PDF format and forwarded via SMTP e-mail to their respective destinations. PDF was chosen because Acrobat Reader is part of the standard software platform at the site. The destination is ascertained via certain rules as will be later explained.

If someone wants to send a fax, he prints the document in a printer queue on TOSERFAX, which Samba makes visible to all the other computers. The print job will cause an e-mail to be sent to the user that has spooled the job. This e-mail includes the URL of a web form created on-the-fly in the Apache web server. The web form allows the user to fill in the fax details, particularly the destination phone number. Once the user has completed the form, upon clicking on the “Send” button, the fax is finally put on the outgoing queue.

Hardware and Software
TOSERFAX’s hardware is the following:

PC Dell Optiplex GX150, running a 1 Ghz Pentium III processor, with 256 MB of RAM and a hard disk of 20 GB. The modems are 3Com US Robotics 56K Faxmodem.
As far as software is concerned:

The base system is the SuSE Linux 7.2 distribution. It includes HylaFAX version 4.1beta2, the Apache web server version 1.3.19 and the SMTP server sendmail version 8.11.3.
Samba version 2.2.3a.

Fax sending from the clients is implemented using the package smbfax, version 1.4.

HylaFAX installation and configuration
The installation of HylaFAX was carried out following the standard procedures, clearly explained in the documentation. The most delicate part is the modem configuration. HylaFAX does not include a template for the US Robotics 56K Faxmodem. However, a search in its mailing list provided the needed information, which resulted in the file /var/spool/fax/etc/config.ttyS0 (and config.ttyS1 for the second modem). The first of these files can be found here.

Receiving faxes
Our plant has several telephone numbers that are connected to fax machines. The telephone exchange can divert phone calls originally made to one extension to a different one. This feature makes it possible to centralize the reception of all faxes in TOSERFAX without any change in the phone numbers that are accessible to the public.

For example, suppose the Purchasing Department has 5550001 as fax number, while Logistics has 5550002. One of TOSERFAX’s modems is connected to the internal extension 1700. The PBX diverts all incoming calls to 5550001 and 5550002 to the extension 1700, where TOSERFAX receives the fax.

But of course, the person that should receive the faxes to Purchasing is not the same one that should get the ones to Logistics. HylaFAX manages incoming faxes by way of the scripts faxrcvd and FaxDispatch, placed in /var/spool/fax/bin. The discrimination we want requires knowledge of the fax number the fax was originally sent to, which is not known in the standard version of faxrcvd. A workaround is to recover that number from the session log, assigning it to a variable, for instance TOPHONE.

TOPHONE=$($AWK ‘/SESSION BEGIN/ {print $NF;exit}’log/c${COMMID})

The new versions of faxrcvd and FaxDispatch can be found here and here.

The standard version of faxrcvd sends the fax to the addressee as a postscript attachment in an e-mail. This is not the best option at my plant, as the standard PC does not include a postscript viewer. But it does include a PDF viewer, and postscript files can be converted to PDF.

However, here we run into a small problem, related to the sending of the e-mail message with the attached file. TOSERFAX uses as SMTP relay a Windows NT server running IIS version 4. For some reason that I have not been able to discover, this server could not distribute the e-mails with attachments created with faxrcvd.

The solution was to use the tool “metasend”, included in the packages metamail 2.7.19. The scripts metasend.sh and tiff2pdf.sh succeed in sending the fax, previously transformed into PDF format, in a way that is acceptable for the SMTP relay. It is worth mentioning that these scripts invoke the tools tiff2ps and gs.

Sending faxes
There are several fax clients written to be used with HylaFAX, for multiple platforms. However, IT administrators at Torrelavega would rather avoid any software installation on the clients. The only operation at the site’s PCs should be, at the most, the configuration of a network printer, and it should be made automatically by the end user himself, if possible.

Using a printer queue has the added advantage that any application that is able to print a document (that is, practically all applications) will be able to fax. In this respect, the fax solution described in this article is clearly superior to other proprietary systems installed in Microsoft Exchange, which only allow to send faxes generated by some applications, for instance those in the Microsoft Office suite.

The package smbfax, developed by Craig Kelly, fulfills the above mentioned requirement. The underlying idea is very clever: the client prints the document he wants to fax in a printer queue, configured in TOSERFAX with Samba, and which features a postscript printer. The printing provokes in fact the execution of a perl script, which puts the printed document into a file and sends the client an e-mail with an URL in it. This URL is a link to a web form created on the fly in the web server at TOSERFAX (Apache). The client clicks on the URL, fires the browser and, using the web form, fills in the number or numbers the fax should be sent to, chooses whether a cover page should be added, and other details. Finally, upon clicking on the “Send” button, the fax is put in the outbound queue. In case there is any error processing the job, the client will equally be notified by e-mail. Obviously, this system requires knowing the identity of the user who is faxing (it must be possible to get the authentication credentials he have acquired upon logging in the Windows PC) as well as his e-mail address.

The installation of smbfax is straightforward. The package documentation clearly explains the different steps, and repeating them here would just be redundant.

Configuring Samba, on the other hand, does show some interesting tricks. The pertinent file can be seen here. The following lines must be emphasized:

[global]

workgroup = DOM
netbios name = TOSERFAX
security = DOMAIN
winbind uid = 10000-20000
winbind gid = 10000-20000
template homedir = /home/win/%D/%U
winbind separator = +
printer admin = @DOM+PRINTADMIN

path = /etc/samba/printers/
browseable = yes
read only = yes
write list = @DOM+PRINTADMIN,root
# The fax queue is configured in this section

comment = Fax queue
path = /tmp
printable = Yes
writable = no
create mode = 0700
guest ok = no
postscript = Yes
printing = lprng
print command = /usr/local/smbfax/smbfax -r queue %u %s
lpq command = /usr/local/smbfax/smbfax show
lprm command = /usr/local/smbfax/smbfax dequeue %j