I'm reposting this as sender "Brackish Water" complains multiple attempts to
post via another service are not appearing on Usenet servers. Name of
service that failed to propagate post has been snipped. Apologies who end
up seeing it more than once! Re-post begins here:
Earlier attempts to post this did not seem to go through. Don't know why.
If you want to receive faxes on your computer, not on your separate fax
machine, without adding a separate faxmodem, there is a way you can do it.
It may even be free.
A service I use at
www.efax.com provides free inbound-only fax service for
up to 20 fax pages per month. They provide you a dedicated 24 hr/7 da /365
day/year phone number, and their server converts each incoming fax into a
bitmap which it forwards to you as an email attachment. They also provide
free reader software you install on your computer to view or read print
these converted faxes.
If there is a catch (besides the limited number of faxes you can receive) it
is that your fax number will probably be in some faraway area code where
they have a special deal with the local phone company for cheap lines.
However, I have never yet had anyone refuse to fax me a document because my
fax number is long distance. And I like the fact that I can still receive
faxes when my computer is otherwise engaged, or turned off, all for free.
No, I do not work for efax nor get a commission or anything. If you upgrade
to certain of their paid services, you can get a dedicated local or
toll-free fax number.
If you want to receive more than 20 fax pages a month or send faxes via
their service, you can do so, but that moves you into a "pay for" service
category. At that point, you can evaluate with arithmetic whether it makes
more economic sense to buy the service, or reconsider maybe adding an
inexpensive faxmodem, whether internal or external, to your kit of tools.
Feel free to make your own decisions for your own reasons, I do not
understand the reluctance to buy an inexpensive older tech device if it will
solve a problem and make your life or business easier. There's a lot to be
said for lowest-common denominator solutions. Whatever, hope this helps.
There are other services like efax; just don't know a lot about them. There
may also be other hardware/software solutions. Maybe a little time Googling
will help track down what you need. Try searching on "fax2mail" for
starters.
There are definitely some ways to go. I am surprised that viewing faxes
stored in the "all in one" isn't a built-in feature (if you're sure it
isn't); but if the device works as advertised for the price you named, IMO
it is still a good, justifiable buy.