The Daring Dufas wrote:
George wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
bob haller wrote:
On Apr 14, 3:28�pm, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Apr 14, 2:52�pm, Pat wrote:





On Apr 14, 12:35�pm, wrote:
On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:40:02 -0700 (PDT), DerbyDad03
wrote:
On Apr 14, 10:44�am, Pat wrote:
On Apr 13, 11:42�pm, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Apr 13, 7:40�pm, metspitzer wrote:
When I bought my printer, I got it with a fax machine because
I still
need it. �Many people will let me scan something and email it
to them
to avoid a long distance call, but not everyone.
I called the bank today to dispute a direct draft charge to my
checking account. �The girl said she would fax me a form. �I
asked her
if she could just email it to me. �She said....no sir, we
can't do
that.
So I am waiting on a fax as we speak. �I only have one line
so my fax
and voice share the same phone number.
Fax machines should have died 15 years ago. �They should at
least give
them an email address.
It's all about the signature...
We fax documents all the time. Documents are signed in our
office by
our clients and ourselves and then faxed to insurance companies,
banks, lawyers, financial institutions, etc. Due to compliance
regulations, all documents get approved by one of a small
number of
people and then faxed from one central fax machine. This fax
machine
not only faxes the documents to the recipient, but it
automagically
sends an image of the fax to a centralized storage server for
archiving purposes. The paper copy is also filed and
eventually sent
off site for hard copy archiving.
To do this via e-mail or e-fax, we would have to set up a
centralized
scanner, either networked to the PC's of the operations staff
that
actually does the faxing, or attached directly to a
centralized PC -
which would have to be set up with individual accounts for
each person
in operations since compliance rules don't allow anybody to do
anything under a shared userid. The operation staff - not the
most
tech savvy group around - would need to understand how to
access the
documents, address them correctly (is it an e-mail or an
e-fax?) and
then send them. They would also have to receive documents,
print them
out and distribute them. Since we send and receive dozens of
multiple-
page documents every day, there is way too much chance for
errors.
Somehow a single machine with a simple numbered keypad just
seems so
much simpler - read: idiot proof - for sending and receiving
documents.
Maybe that's why they've lasted so long.
For outgoing mail, a email would be no different than a fax for
you.
You'd still use paper to get signatures, etc., and when it was
time to
send, you'd drop in on the same machine. �Then you'd push the
email
button instead of the fax button. �I imagine that most of the
people
you fax to are people you routinely deal with (insurance
companies,
banks, etc). �Once you've programmed in their email addresses, you
would just pick them from the address book and hit send. �Then
you'd
take the same paper copy and stick it on the stack for
archiving. �It
would save you a little time (scanning might be quicker) and
you would
save phone charges. �Otherwise there would be little difference
expect
if you send "big" documents -- which go quicker via email than
fax.
I have a fax here, but I don' think I've used it in a year. �I
tell
everyone it isn't working and then they email it to me.- Hide
quoted text -
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Once you've programmed in their email addresses...
You are assuming that the recipients have an e-mail address into
which
to accept the documents. I can honestly say without any
reservations,
that no company has ever offered an e-maill address as a means of
receiving signed documents.
The conversation typically goes like this:
Them: I can send you the forms that need to be signed by regular
mail,
email or fax. How would like me to send them?
Me: email please. How should I send them back to you once they are
signed?
Them: You can either mail them back to PO Box xxxx or fax them
to xxx-
xxx-xxxx.
They almost always offer 3 ways to get the blank forms to me but
never, ever offer anything other than mail or fax for getting them
back - and I'm talking about dozens and dozens of major
companies, not
just 1 or 2 mom & pop shops.
Granted, I can't say whether or not the fax number they give
actually
produces a hard copy, or if it indeed goes into an e-fax electronic
mailbox, but as I said, an email address has never been offered.
You may recall that I said that all of our outgoing faxes
automagically get stored digitally on an archiving server, so it's
very possible that many of the faxes we send actually end up as
digital images on the receiver's end also. In other words, I'm well
aware what the technology is capable of and the options
available. All
I know is we are always given fax numbers, not email addresses, to
send them to.
I scanned my signature and I paste it on word docs I Email.
Nobody who
would take a fax has ever refused it. It is still not an original
document, no matter how you send it electronically.
Actually, an electronic document with a proper electronic
signature is
valid as an original. �It's a little more than signing and scanning
into PDF. �You go into PDF and use a self-signing security feature
(on
my version 5.0). �It produces a signature (visible or not visible)
that allows both parties to verify the signature and to tell if the
document has been altered.
Other forms of electronic signatures are things like your PIN number
at the ATM. �That's your perfectly legal electronic signature.
I do a lot of work with state and federal grants. �They are almost
all
100% on-line. There is no paper version of anything and no paper
signatures -- we're talking multi-million dollar funding application
with nothing but an electronic signature.- Hide quoted text -
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we're talking multi-million dollar funding application with
nothing but an electronic signature

And I can't transfer $100 from a joint account to one of the
individual owner's accounts without submitting the request on-line
*and* submitting a form that must be signed by both joint owners,
myself and a manager.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I have a small business and tired of junk faxes and the machine
ringing softly in the middle of the night. I turned my fax number
off

The machine sits here mostly unused,. I ask everyone to e mail it to
me instead.

Faxes and beepers are both mostly obsolete

beepers replaced with cell phones and so much more

My cellphone will never replace my pager/beeper. I've
had the same service for 25 years and the same number
for 20 years. Someone can always leave a message.

TDD

I had pagers for years. For a while they were good until cell coverage
really improved. The biggest disadvantage of a pager was that if you
were out of range the message was lost forever. With a cellphone if
someone sends a message the system will keep it until your handset
registers itself on the network. Same is true of voicemail. The pager
carriers tried to address this with two way pagers but it was too
little too late.

My pager service has voice-mail. I have a greeting just
like an answering machine asking callers to leave a
message. It was transitioned to a digital pager some time
ago but I still have the voice-mail. When my pager goes
off and shows my number, I know I have a new message. If
I'm out of range, my messages are stored for three days
by the service. I simply call up and check my messages.
I prefer the setup I have and only turn on my cellphone
when I'm going to use it. I rarely give anyone my cellphone
number. I even have my VOIP forwarded to my pager.

TDD

The other serious problem with paging is that since there are almost no
customers left is the reliability of who is left. In my market there is
only one paging carrier left. That is Metrocall or whatever they are
called after 3 mergers and bankruptcies. According to my friend who
works for the local company that leases space to them the entire system
goes down frequently and they can't pay their bills so sometimes it
takes days to get someone in to fix it.