On Sat 21 Jul 2007 10:58:04 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: > Distinctive ring is about $4-5 per month on the phone bill.
$2.45. Much less than a second phone line. > It gives you > a second number with a different ring. Suitable hardware (look for > claims of "faxability") can distinguish the ring and answer if it likes > the ring. If your hardware won't do that then there are addon devices > that you can plug into a phone jack that will do the detection for you. Those gadgets would only work with a real fax machine. There are definite advantages to having the fax received and in the computer. > I'd like to think that faxes have had their day, and could be replaced > by scanners and email. I very much disagree. The print quality of faxes is shocking, but they are protected by privacy laws (pertaining to the telephone system) and are reasonably secure. Emails are postcards, not protected (there are no laws for the Internet!), not encrypted, go around half the world and can be read by anyone in between. I only have a limited interest in having my financial affairs conducted for the entertainment of every sysadmin or computer user who received it because some Redmond Exchange went bananas. Banks want documents faxed because every Joe Dick can forge an email, and because email has no legislation saying that it has a remotely legally binding signature. Well dunno, it doesn't even have a signature (and I'm not talking about the bit below the "-- " here). Yes email would be the way, but it has a long way to go (and no ETA in sight) for meeting minimal standards of privacy, security and legal accountability. You are well aware that on the odd occasions where those standards are reached it almost always only works on Winblows - not acceptable fullstop. That scanner/pdf/everything else machine you've got is superb in a law office where it's used every 5 minutes, but it's not justifiable for the occasional use. Very interesting discussion, but I'm still also interested in hints regarding modem faxing and caller ID... Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
