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Internet (email) Fax

Jenny — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:01:10 +0000

How can I send and receive a fax on the internet? That was the question I needed to answer when I ditched my landline phone. I don’t use faxes too often but I have a small personal fax machine, which has become a big paper weight.

Nowadays most things can be done email or sending a scanned document by email. Still, there are some people/companies that prefer faxed documents. So, I went searching for some info.

Can I Send a Fax via My Cell Phone?
It looks like it’s difficult. Even though I remember my old old Sprint cell phone, my very first cell phone, had some documentation about connecting the cell phone to a fax machine, at this time and at least in the U.S., it’s not an option unless you are using a wireless carrier that supports GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and have a GSM cell phone. AT&T and T-Mobile use the GSM system while Sprint and Verizon use CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access). I am a satisfied Verizon Wireless customer because of their network quality, so I’m not going to drop Verizon just to be able to send a few faxes a year.

howstuffworks.com has an interesting article about using a cell phone camera to take a pic of a document but it just sounds too tedious.

Internet Fax via Email
There are many internet fax services on the internet now. Basically, what you do is to send an email with an attachment to the fax service provider and they will convert the attachment so that they can send the document to a regular fax machine. You can also receive a fax through the internet fax site. Here are some major internet fax services.

eFax
eFax Plus costs $16.95 (USD) per month, with a one-time $10.00 (USD) fee to activate your number. You get 130 pages of incoming faxes free each month. Outgoing faxes cost $0.10 (USD) a page to numbers in the U.S. Incoming faxes cost $0.15 (USD) a page.
myfax.com
$10/month or 30 day trial.
faxzero.com
Offers free fax. Max 3 pages per document and max 2 faxes per day for free. Their premium service costs $1.99 per fax, max 15 pages.
MetroFax
Monthly Fee — $12.95 per line
Activation — $9.95
Toll Free — $2 extra per month per line
Included Pages — 1000 inbound/outbound (combined)
Per-Page –3¢ after 1000 pages
FaxAway
* There are no set-up fees for a Faxaway account.
* You may allow as many as 250 email users access to your Faxaway account at no additional charge.
* There is a small account maintenance charge of $1 monthly.
* Those enrolling with a credit card are charged a fixed deposit of US $10.00 upon activation.
* Sign-up using a check or money order for a minimum of $100.00.

Kindle DX

Jenny — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:24:58 +0000

Today was a big day at Amazon.com. As I posted a couple of days ago, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, held a press event today, announcing the new version of Kindle, Kindle DX. It has a 9.7” 1200×824 pixel screen, which is about twice as large as the standard Kindle. There are some improvements over the standard one but few are technical. It now has a built-in PDF reader so the user can carry some personal and professional documents. It can store 3,500 books compared with 1,500 in the standard version.

The two notable aspects of today’s press release are Kindle’s partnerships with educational institutions and the traditional print media. Students of five universities will have an option to have textbooks in Kindle. It’s a novel idea but I’m not sure how practical it can be for students and teachers.

Its another partnership is with the print media. During its trial period, users can get electric delivery of three major newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. That’s interesting.

See, I like to try new things, so I subscribed to an audiobook/magazine service for a while at Audible.com. So, naturally I’m starting to like what Kindle offers. Even though the price of Kindle DX is rather steep ($489), Kindle book prices are much lower than paper book prices. For example, a new Kindle book price is $9.99 while the price of hard copy versions ranges between $24 and $26. What’s more, the delivery of a book is instantaneous. They already have a good selection of newspapers and weekly magazines for Kindle at very affordable prices.

If you travel a lot and like to read, Kindle DX is very convenient. If you read about 3 books in a month, you can recoup the cost of your initial investment within a year because of cheaper Kindle book prices.

One of my coworkers just recently bought Kindle 2 and she was not happy today. She thinks Amazon.com should offer her a discount toward a purchase of Kindle DX. But she can sell her (almost new) Kindle 2 at eBay. So, I took a look at what eBay has at the moment.

Here’s eBay’s offerings.

AMAZON KINDLE DX 9.7 inch IN SEALED BOX～fast shipping

US $200.00 (8 Bids)
End Date: Sunday Aug-01-2010 15:01:26 PDT
Bid now | Add to watch list

AMAZON KINDLE DX 9.7 inch IN SEALED BOX～fast shipping

US $202.50 (23 Bids)
End Date: Sunday Aug-01-2010 11:01:35 PDT
Bid now | Add to watch list

Kindle DX (warranty, leather case, Mighty Brite LED)

US $203.60 (2 Bids)
End Date: Monday Aug-02-2010 12:47:39 PDT
Bid now | Add to watch list

Kindle DX Global version, FREE 3G, FREE Shipping in US

US $202.50 (15 Bids)
End Date: Saturday Jul-31-2010 6:11:44 PDT
Bid now | Add to watch list

Brand New sealed Amazon Kindle DX GRAPHITE NEW

US $343.00 (20 Bids)
End Date: Friday Aug-06-2010 18:50:30 PDT
Bid now | Add to watch list

Amazon Kindle DX, 9.7", FREE 3G, LATEST!!

US $202.51 (7 Bids)
End Date: Friday Aug-06-2010 9:00:00 PDT
Bid now | Add to watch list

Amazon Kindle DX

US $255.00 (2 Bids)
End Date: Thursday Aug-05-2010 15:15:34 PDT
Bid now | Add to watch list

Big Screen Kindle

Jenny — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:47:25 +0000

Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

The New York Times is reporting today that amazon.com is working on a Kindle with a larger screen. The current version is version 2 and it’s slim and compact. According to the New York Times article, amazon may release the new version of Kindle as early as this week.

As we all know by now, most of the print media have been struggling financially because of diminishing readership and advertisement revenue, due mostly to the rise of internet media. The New York Times reports that the new device from amazon may save by offering a convenient method for the traditional newspaper and magazine publishers.

It is an interesting development. For me, Kindle, with its price tag of $359, is a bit too pricey even though its convenience of purchasing a book (at a very low price) on the spot is very tempting. I have a friend who bought Kindle and she loves it.

Recovering Deleted Photos from a Memory Card

Jenny — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:51:34 +0000

Have you ever accidentally deleted a photo from your digital camera before you had a chance to download it to your PC? I have. I looked for a recycle bin on my camera to see if I could recover from a recycle bin but there was no recycle bin on the SD card. Don’t despair! There are ways to recover deleted photos from a memory card. But most of them are not free. You need to shell out at least $20 to use the service/software. There is a free one, though. So, the option I recommend is to use PC Inspector Smart Recovery. I tried it and It worked fine. So, here are the steps you need to follow.

Download PC Inspector Smart Recovery and install it.
If your computer has a memory card slot, insert the memory card in it. If your PC doesn’t have the slot, connect the digital camera to the PC with a cable.
Start the PC Inspector Smart Recovery.
Select the drive to recover the photo(s). This is usually E: or F:.
Select the folder on your computer where you want to store the recovered photo(s).
Click “start,” then the program starts to scan the memory card. The result window will show all the pictures you ever deleted. You can pick the ones you want to recover.

Since the program scans the card sector by sector, it may take a long time to finish scanning. I did it for a 2 GB card, and it took about 2 hours to complete the scan. But it’s worth the wait.

Lap Top: Restoring the Factory Default

Jenny — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:54:33 +0000

All Right. I restored the factory default from the restore CD that came with my laptop. I had time to back up all my personal files, most of which are music and video files, to an external HD, so there was no loss of data. The restoration process was tedious but not difficult. After the restore, my laptop has been behaving well, and I am determined not to clutter the lap top with lots of evaluation software. (Not sure how long it will last, though.)

I reinstalled most of the programs that I use frequently. I’ve got a few more to go, but I can wait until the weekend.

Kintiskton Spiders Update

Jenny — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:08:35 +0000

This is a quick update about kintiskton spiders I told you about in this post. After the initial spike, the site still got hit moderately next day, and they went away. But after that, they came back a couple of times. I really want to know what the spiders are doing.

Samsung Glyde Charge Problem

Jenny — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:45:07 +0000

This is my second major problem with Samsung Glyde. For some reason, its battery stopped to hold charge long enough. Up until 2 weeks ago it was OK; I didn’t have to charge the phone for a few days at least. Now I have to charge it every day or twice a day on some days. I don’t use my cell phone much, so I don’t know why it cannot hold charge. The phone is fairly new, so the battery has to be fairly new also.

I went to a Verizon store to have the battery checked but they didn’t have the equipment to do it. I wanted to buy an extra home charger because I wanted to have one at work and another at home. Well, the store didn’t have it in stock. I thought about buying another battery but batteries are rather expensive. So, I bought a home charger online.

The short battery life is really a problem in an emergency situation. I do have a car charger, so it helps a bit. Samsung Glyde is the first cell phone that I want to replace only after 6 months. I griped about the touch screen problem of this phone here. If you are in the market for a cell phone, I do not recomment this phone.

Traffic Spike from Kintiskton Spiders

Jenny — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:02:03 +0000

One of my other sites, Ballroomtube.net, got a mysterious traffic spike today. According to Google Analytics, those spiders are from Kintiskton, LLC. A quick Google search revealed that this company is based in Mountain View, California, and many other sites got hit by their spiders. A weird thing is that nobody seems to know what the spiders are for, so some call them “mysterious” and some state that they are “unlawful spiders.”

I wouldn’t mind my site being hit by search engine bots but this one is different. One commenter on a blog site said the spike would subside after a few weeks. I wonder if the spike on my site will continue for more than one day. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on this and will search some more info on this.