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Sep. 30th, 2010 08:43 pmTo avoid fear and uncertainty amongst my readers, the resolution of this story is that I bought a USB fax modem of ebay.
As I've mentioned before, the company I work for is an odd one. While the agency has an online timesheet system, the client seems to insist on using the old fashioned signed/faxed system. So far I've been using the fax machine at work, but this seems to be not working recently. I decided it's time to invest in some means to send faxes.
A fax machine is expensive. I need to send one fax per week at most. A few shops offer fax services as well, but they're hard to find these days since nobody sends faxes any more. I have considered an email to fax service. These are actually quite expensive, at some point I'll have to cancel. You can never cancel online. You have to phone up and they'll try and persuade you to stay. They'll throw offers at you and act sad that you're leaving them. I'm a sensitive soul. I don't want to feel I've abandoned them after getting their hopes up. The feeling of guilt will stick with me for weeks!
What I really needed was a fax modem.
I have one at home. I don't have an ISA slot to plug it into.
Research reveals that mobile phones can't talk to faxes.
So I went into PC World. I looked and there was nothing. I asked the helpful assistant. He directed me to the right area but did advise me that it was unlikely they still had any. None were visible. He went to check with his colleagues, and eventually told me that the last time any of them had seen such a device was back in April. I was impressed by his efforts though. PC World seems to have taken to hiring helpful people in recent years. I'm not used to this treatment.
Alas I came away empty handed. Nobody wants faxes any more. And for good reason - when documents are generated on a computer and stored on a computer it is a remarkably inefficient transmission step to not only insert a highly lossy analogue step, but also to add a physical hardcopy.
I decided I'd buy one off eBay. I may be lucky and receive it by the weekend. Otherwise I'll just have another yet week before I get paid.
As I've mentioned before, the company I work for is an odd one. While the agency has an online timesheet system, the client seems to insist on using the old fashioned signed/faxed system. So far I've been using the fax machine at work, but this seems to be not working recently. I decided it's time to invest in some means to send faxes.
A fax machine is expensive. I need to send one fax per week at most. A few shops offer fax services as well, but they're hard to find these days since nobody sends faxes any more. I have considered an email to fax service. These are actually quite expensive, at some point I'll have to cancel. You can never cancel online. You have to phone up and they'll try and persuade you to stay. They'll throw offers at you and act sad that you're leaving them. I'm a sensitive soul. I don't want to feel I've abandoned them after getting their hopes up. The feeling of guilt will stick with me for weeks!
What I really needed was a fax modem.
I have one at home. I don't have an ISA slot to plug it into.
Research reveals that mobile phones can't talk to faxes.
So I went into PC World. I looked and there was nothing. I asked the helpful assistant. He directed me to the right area but did advise me that it was unlikely they still had any. None were visible. He went to check with his colleagues, and eventually told me that the last time any of them had seen such a device was back in April. I was impressed by his efforts though. PC World seems to have taken to hiring helpful people in recent years. I'm not used to this treatment.
Alas I came away empty handed. Nobody wants faxes any more. And for good reason - when documents are generated on a computer and stored on a computer it is a remarkably inefficient transmission step to not only insert a highly lossy analogue step, but also to add a physical hardcopy.
I decided I'd buy one off eBay. I may be lucky and receive it by the weekend. Otherwise I'll just have another yet week before I get paid.
