KSE TrueFax 2.0 & the Zen of Faxing

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ksesoftware.com/products/ce/communication/truefax2/default.html' target='_blank'>http://www.ksesoftware.com/products...x2/default.html</a><br /><br /></div>"Sending documents securely is a great concern for business executives, especially when they are out of the office. Sending e-mail remotely can leave an executive vulnerable to corporate espionage, and there are certain documents that need to be sent or received via fax in situations where someone doesn't have access to a secure fax machine."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.ksesoftware.com/products/ce/communication/truefax2/img/ksetf2-screen-ppc.gif" /><br /><br />"KSE Software has a solution for secure faxing with TrueFax 2.0. This software for Pocket PCs lets users send and receive faxes directly from their Pocket PC, and guarantees that documents will be sent and received securely, eliminating worries about corporate spying or espionage. It gives users the ability to fax or receive faxes whether they're at a hotel, at dinner or in a business meeting."<br /><br />This software got me thinking - how often are faxes still used? I have one in my office, but I only get perhaps two to five faxes a month, and I rarely have to send faxes...but for those instances when I do need a fax machine, I'm happy I keep my around. This got me thinking - what if I just used a Pocket PC for faxing? That would work OK for sending (I have a CF modem kicking around here someplace), but not really for receiving. How do you manage your fax scenarios?

[Cortex]

i send and receive faxes a great deal at work. im sure businesses that place information in printed form continue to use them.

for receiving faxes i use jfax -- which gives me my personal fax number for incoming faxes but sends the .tif file to my email account where i can view it, store it, print it etc...

[dh]

i send and receive faxes a great deal at work. im sure businesses that place information in printed form continue to use them.

for receiving faxes i use jfax -- which gives me my personal fax number for incoming faxes but sends the .tif file to my email account where i can view it, store it, print it etc...

I use eFax which is probably the same kind of thing.

Nice thing is, that faxes come to my email so I can get them when traveling. I use my Thinkpad when traveling, I'm sure that a connected PDA would work with eFax just the same.

I do have a fax machine. It ran out of thermal ribbon about a year ago and hasn't been used since. Shows how little I used it. Having said that, I think my scanner is broken so maybe I'll have to get some ribbon.

[beedee]

I use KSE Truefax to send & receive faxes. Sending is easy - receiving needs some thinking, unless you keep your PPC on and connected to a phone all the time.

How do I manage to receive faxes?

1. I have all faxes sent to my T-Mobile mailbox. Once a new fax is in, I receive a call from the mailbox, that a new fax has arrived.
2. In the mailbox-settings I have set the standard-faxnumber to be used to print-out faxes from my mailbox to the number of my mobile phone. This phone (SonyEricsson T68) is connected via Bluetooth to my ipaq 3870.
3. As soon as I receive the first info-call from my mailbox, I start the PPC and KSE-Truefax. Put Truefax to receiving mode and within a minute or so the fax-call from my mailbox arrives.
4. Truefax is set to automatically take incoming fax-calls from the mobile phone.

Alas, all incoming faxes end up on my PPC.
A little tricky, I admit, but it works well for these (admittedly rare) instances where I need to receive a fax while on the go.

[WindWalker]

Though I am not currently using my Pocket PC to manage faxes, I do still use faxes for my voiceover work. A studio often faxes me a script so I can go over it before recording an MP3 audition and shipping it back. Also, some voiceover work requires an NDA before you can even do the audition, so faxes are still worthwhile, at least in that sense.

I don't know that I am ready yet for managing my faxes via PDA, as i don't have constant connectivity yet, but the thought intrigues me.

[Gary Garland, Esq.]

I probably send and/or receive 20 faxes per day, varying between 1 and 50 pages per fax - when i'm not using fed ex - lawyer = paper oriented profession. i have truefax for the ppc, used it for setup and never again - but great to have on the road for the capability of "printing" when necessary - can fax to a hotel you're staying at, etc.
I signed up for e-fax, never really used it - more of a "let's see what this can do"
so, in the computer field, faxes may not be that necessarily, but for other fields, still critical
just my 2 cents - btw - while i was typing this, i had a fax going through...

[mattsmith0622]

I use AirComUSA for my inbound and outbound faxing, even from the PPC.

[JonnoB]

I use the internet fax service from these guys (http://www.accpac.com/ipfax) :-)

[zcmc1066]

I still want a plugin for A Efax type Service :oops:

[marlof]

In my line of work - legal - faxes are still used a lot. But then again, the same goes for WordPerfect. :) I can send and receive faxes with my Pocket PC and a GSM phone using KSE Truefax or BVRP Winphone Pocket. W?BIC!

[Gerard]

Since I did a review of TrueFax 2.0 (http://www.pocketnow.com/cgi-bin/directory/content.cgi?mazingo=&mobile=1&db=reviews&id=187) about a year and a half ago, I might have used it a dozen times, perhaps less. But I don't need a fax machine much, and am glad not to have my ancient clunker of a Canon thermal fax any more. Sending with KSE is a breeze via CF modem. Receiving, well, as stated above it presents a problem. But with the rarity comes the luxury of knowing when one is coming. People always warn me, so all I do is watch my call display for their fax number and then tap Receive in TrueFax and wait for it.
As for difficulties 'handling' them in the PPC, there aren't any. TrueFax's viewer is okay, but a bit akward and too easy to mark up the file accidentally with the stylus. Instead, I use PQV, which has always supported multi-page TIF/TIFF file viewing with zooming. It's still a small screen, but a bit of stylus-dragging is good enough for me.

[bbarker]

Some of my clients don't check email at all, or often enough for it to be of any use. When I email some of them their inbox is always full. So I have to use faxes with them.

I use eFax to send and receive most items, although occasionally I send one with my physical fax machine because I don't have the document in my PC. I receive all faxes via eFax because they go into my Inbox, where I can keep them organized along with my email.

I wish eFax had a Pocket PC client. I'm not familiar with any fax product for the Pocket PC.

[Gerard]

Have a look at www.printeron.com where I think there are a few PPC web-based solutions available or under development.

[canadapocketpc]

Hey folks,

I use an "Fax to Email - Email to Fax" option on my Pocket PC Phone Edition. Basically, any faxes I receive are sent to my email, which I can receive and view on my T-Mobile XDA. All faxes are sent in GIF and TIF format.

When I would like to send a fax, I use the reverse of above, and email (through the service I use) a file (word, excel, picture etc). You simply place the fax number you are sending to on the first line of your email message and their servers take care of the rest.

There are several service options (monthly plan or pay as you go). I personally use pay-as-you-go. I don't receive that many faxes when I am on the road (more emails these days).

You can even get a 1-800 toll free fax number.

This service is geared for users in the Canada and the United States, but only offer local numbers for Canada (US customers would recieve 1-800 number).

http://www.protus.com/services/vf.cfm

It works for me.

Cheers... Peter

[Mark R Penn]

I use Truefax over Bluetooth constantly when on the road for sending, but rarely for recieving. However, the two or three times I have recieved a fax have been real life savers.

In the office I still use a steam powered fax machine! Most of my faxes are pages copied from manuals, so scanning and then attaching to an e-mail is just too much hassle.

Re managing faxes on the PPC, it's not helped by the fact that Truefax does not store the tiff files under My Documents, so they don't get synced for printing/viewing on a larger screen. So, I changed it - helps a LOT:

Using a registry editor, browse to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>SOFTWARE>Apps>KSE Truefax 2.0 (Pocket PC)", and change the FaxStorePath string to point to something like \My Documents\Faxes. These will now sync, and can be managed from the desktop.

Mark

[ppcsurfr]

Hey, I remember this topic on faxing!

Several years back, I posted a thread on faxing using a PocketPC. At that time, BVRP offered a free version of their BVRP Phone Manager software that included a fax module. A few months after I shifted to KSE Truefax.

I had comments like, why the hell do you want to fax when you can email the damn thing. I actually got unfriendly remarks about how I was doing things and some people made comments that I better live in te present rather than the past. :x

Anyway... that happened in another site forum...

Well, in case some of you still don't realize, email isn't always the best thing when it comes to sending out documents. It's being a paper-based way of communicating is still the main point of the whole thing.

Some people want to pass the piece of paper around in meetings. How easy is it to pass around a laptop in a hotel lobby, or coffee shop? Yeah ou can receive the thing via email and print it out too... but receiving it in paper form is still something that a lot of people prefer.

We have to live with the fact that we are still living in a paper-based concept here... we may try to minimize our use of paper.... but it isn't going to be that easy still.

I still get requests for faxes... that is why I still have KSE Truefax in my PPC.

ppcsurfr

[canadapocketpc]

I am sure there is already another thread on here somewhere, but could someone relate their experience with TrueFax and the T-Mobile XDA Phone Edition unit.

Are there compatibility problems? I believe Last time I read about this here there were some issues for users on this device.

Any help would be appreciated.... Peter

[Kirkaiya]

I use eFax which is probably the same kind of thing.

Nice thing is, that faxes come to my email so I can get them when traveling. I use my Thinkpad when traveling, I'm sure that a connected PDA would work with eFax just the same.

Me too! The eFax thing is pretty nice - I only get about 2 or 3 faxes a month (most of my clients/contacts email me, IM me, or call me), so eFax works out fine.

I have the free version, and have it send the faxes to my Yahoo account, so that I can easily get them anywhere (my POP3 account does have a web-based client, but Yahoo's is pretty standard and fast worldwide).