I am a graphic/product designer and all of our stuff is produced ad different parts of the world. I have to constantly be emailing productions diagrams and instructions to these places. And they always insist on me emailing it and faxing it. I don't understand how the fax will help if it shrinks down my drawings that I work hard to make to scale and all the color is removed which is a critical part especially with our clothing and jewelry lines. The worst part (which is off subject) is that it is apparently illegal to own a color printer in Vietnam where some of our pieces are produced. Whats up with that. I hate faxing and totaly aggree that it should go the way of the dinosaurs and make room for the all powerful PDF and FlashPaper.

I hate faxes, too...most of my documents are already in digital form on my computer, why print them and then fax them? And don't get me started about the hardware (we've run through 4 machines in 2 years). But the bottom line is we have to send multi-page documents every day and can't afford the time to stand there single page feeding a scanner and putzing with the files until they're collated and ready for sending. Until they make affordable scanners with document feeders that work seamlessly with multi-page document files we'll still have clunky fax machines cluttering up our offices and homes.

Sasha - check out our free service at www.echosign.com. It's like an eFax that directly deals with the signature issue - we automate signatures by fax or by e-signature, track it all for you, and e-mail you all the signed docs as PDFs.

One problem with signing and faxing a document is that it is a reproduction of your signature and, for some pruposes, not deemed to be a legal original signature. Same thing with pasting a tiff-signature into a document. Under the e-sign initiatives, signatures with appropriate safeguards, such as authentication hashes, can be substituted for "wet" signatures legally. One good overview can be found at the FTC web site at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2001/06/esign7.htm. Another problem with faxing is that the size reduction and mandatory fax headers are not accepted by many county recorders and courts as it interferes with their published format requirements which promote electronic archiving. The goal for any document is non-repudiation: the signer cannot deny the document was signed in a legally appropriate manner. Another good summary of existing legislation can be found at http://www.mbc.com/ecommerce/ecom_overview.asp. I have found that the medical community is the last large user of fax machines. RIP fax machines.

Fax machine? How '60's!! pdf & e-mail me--no fax, pls. Besides, with VoIP who has telephone lines anymore?? As for lawyers, rules of evidence accept faxes, but the jury is still out on other electronic documents-some courts accept printed "electronic" documents, some will not. In the courtroom, evidence is everything...

In the air freight business, all pickup and delivery alerts, and routings, must be faxed both ways, then receipt confirmed by phone, then entered into the computer system, then collated and filed with bills. How ridiculous is that? Takes multiple office workers and mountains of time, labor, paper, toner, and filing space,just to handle, say, 300 faxes a day, which leaves the whole office less able to focus on the primary objective, which is to get the job done (moving the freight), quickly and correctly. The fax process is slow and antiquated, and most shipping mistakes can be tracked back to problems with it. Anything that could make it simpler and quicker would be a major improvement for us. I don't know which is worse, the fax technology, or the antique DOS-based software the industry uses.

Obviously there is still a need for a little box into which you feed a stack of documents and key in a short number, and then a reasonable copy spits out from somebody else's little box. OK, fine, we can build some of those. But please, let's dispense with these obsolete, monochrome, low-resolution, dial-up, slow pieces of junk!

Many years ago, WinFax was pretty good. Then Symantec bought them. Poo. (I won't use any Symantec products. Long story.) The last desktop I bought doesn't even have a fax/modem. The laptop does, but I don't think I've even used the modem part. There are some legal ramifications of fax vs email. At another employer, I had my boss (Controller) sign a blank sheet that I scanned and made a graphic that I pasted into an excel spread sheet that I faxed to the bank. Real secure. Grins, RW

I have been using the FAX app that comes with XP for quite some time. I find it easy to use and non obtrusive. The only problem I have is it still keeps me chained to having a fax modem on my system. A broadband option would be nice. But using a big old clunker FAX machine? You need to keep up. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/crawford_02october21.mspx

My fax machine is useless for sending because every few months the scanner gets so full of dust that the copies are virtually illegible and I have stoppedmaintaining it altogether. I use the built-in fax app in XP for sending and it is quite convenient. I have learned to use my scanner in a manner that takes only a moment to create multipage documents for faxing. For receiving, less convenient, but usable is letting faxes go into my phone's voicemail box and then retrieve with the XP fax app. This is OK for the occassional fax sent or received at home, but for anybody with a higher number of faxes going and coming it would not be feasible. I don't think a broadband fax machine will solve the mechanical problems of a fax scanner getting dusty and needing a service call. Not everyone particularly in office or business environments can be bothered to receive documents by e-mail and then print. For them the fax is more convenient as the documents arrive ready to use. The solution lies in sending documents over the internet to a receiving fax machine.

Though somewhat expensive, sending electronic documents via upload to eFax using their software and having them fax your document to a fax machine works well for moderate numbers of documents. You also get a 'fax' number people can fax documents to you, which come as email attachments readable by eFax software, and printable. I haven't researched other eFax-like services, for cost and features, but would love to hear other voices.

For the record, the fax machine was patented in 1843. (google fax machine Alexander Bain). Commercial fax service was available in France in the 1860's. My personal pet peeve is doctors taking the output of the latest high tech digital imaging device and faxing the results at 200 dpi. ugh.

Yes the fax machine is dead here. Rogers Cable a Canadian ISP has a service which for C$7/mnth gives me 25out/50in pages by email and a local/800 phone number for people to send me faxes.They arrive by email as pdf/tiff and accept 10+ document formats to transmit. They also give a script for a FAX button on Outlook. Very convinient, if you must have. But as others have said, either the format should be updated to color + 300dpi or put to rest. With cheap all-in-one inkjets/lasers avialable for a number of years now, the equipment is there & its time to upgrade the portocols.

I don't know about the broadband fax but I use myfax.com for $10.00 a month. I scan my documents as a PDF in color if need be and fax it out. Okay so now they have that stupid blue ink signature. Even though when I am anywhere, I use a black ink pen go figure. Anyway I have been using myfax.com for a long time. Keep us posted on how the Sharp Broadband fax work.

I can fax with myfax.com without having a header just like on any fax machine..you just disable it.

I have been filing electronically for years in the federal courts. They do not like FAX, but do like uploaded PDFs. The reason: Anyone can send a FAX, but only those permitted, who have a password, can upload a scanned document showing a signature in PDF. So what? Well, the rules of procedure say that if you sign it you swear you have made reasonable inquiry as to the facts and law. So what? Well, if you have not, then you can be fined, or worse! FAX can sometimes be used, if the local rules allow it, but usually only in an emergency, and the court defines that.

This topic is too funny. I was a legal secretary from 1966 to 1998, and I can tell you fax capability was a wonderful advancement for its time. In Dallas,Texas, courts not only accept electronic filings but encourage them, and they send out file-stamped petitions, notices, etc. electronically to attorneys and others in the legal community - in batches. Faxed signatures have been legally binding for many years, so I'm surprised to hear folks saying not so. I know attorneys in both Texas and Missouri have handled execution of jillions of contracts completely handled via fax - even acquisitions of huge corporations. Personally, I fax electronically via a fax program called FaxTalk - wonderful program I've used its ongoing versions since the mid 90's; works like a champ. (I have a physical fax machine - it's been boxed up in the closet for a long time now. Guess I should dispose of it instead of taking up space.) I also use eFax for receiving only of faxes via email on occasion. I do prefer sending documents via email and in .pdf format, and extensively use PaperPort which gives all kinds of electronic document management capabilities. A growing number of entitie are willing to accept .pdf's, electronic signatures, graphic signatures, etc. At any rate, I guess I'm one of Brian Livingston's "three people". ;) But for those with fax-phobia, don't worry, it is a technology destined for obsolescence, much like manual and electric typewriters, but no doubt will be faster in fading away.

Correction, one of SASCHA SEGAN's three people. Sorry about that Sascha !

I use a Brother 5440CN MFC all-in-one (printer, scanner, copier, fax machine and PC fax modem). It comes with Paperport which allows scanning into PDF documents or pasting into other apps. The machine is on my network and so allows me to send the document from my various computers in whatever format suits the purpose. Most people I deal with who want fax do not want to have to print out or read the whole document but are looking at only a few items of interest. There is also some security in that it is much more difficult to broadcast the received fax to other parties than it would if it were scanned into a PDF or TIFF file attached to e-mail or posted on the web. In my office, fax is also currently a way of centralizing receipt of letters and evidence to one place, although the agency is also converting written and faxed documents into a centralized collection of scanned and e-mailed monochrone documents. For those who want to scan multipage documents directly into PDF files, there are scanners (I have looked into some from Fujitsu) dedicated to do that.

Well, bought the machine today for the following reason... It will automatically resend to e-mail (up to 10 email accounts) in PDF or TIFF format INCOMING faxes automatically. It was $130 at one of the office supply chains this week with a $30 rebate. So for the net of $100 I have a machine that is on and takes the incoming faxes and automatically forwards them to email, and does a pretty good job at that. I didn't get it to originate faxes or receive paper ones at that (ink jet $$$). I usually send original PDF's as attachments and rarely fax from my HP LJ3380 which has a ADF, scan to PDF, etc. But for $100 I couldn't find any other thing on the internet to do exactly what this machine does. As a consultant I try alot of techno stuff before recommending it to clients so if there is any other hardware solutions as simple as this, please respond.

the hardware chase is going nowhere. This whole hardware obsolesence and upkeep issue is out of control. Ok -At first blush , I admit I'm thinking about buying this Sharp machine for the e-mail router capacity. However, upon closer examination, the real issue for me is their small inkjet cartridge costs as much as a laser cartridge with only 480 pages capacity V.S. a 6800 page capacity on my old brother. There is also Sharps' questionable reputation for extremely fee intensive, low quality parts in their fax machines. Not to mention that Sharp's market niche is extremely inexpensive price points... I'm betting their machine is real cheap for a real good reason. I have 5yr old Brother MFC 8500 that I overpaid $285.00 + 38.00 s&h on ebay back in 2003. Last week, the machine was working fine. then, I got a paper jam. The area shop took a $40 deposit and then called me back to tell me the toner fuse was "burned out " (to replace it was $350.00 So come and get your machine.) when I got it home, the paper jam hadn't been touched. the more I think about it, the more I cant understand how the tech could know that the fuser was bad, because that part was only accessible under the rear roller containing the wedged paper jam, and that hadn't been touched. The machine was obviously working fine previously to the jam. To add insult to injury, the shop kept my $40 for a "diagnostic" deposit . Now my quandry is Do I really need a Sharp ux-B800se replacement for our Brother mfc-8500? Now I have three choices: 1.find a factory authoried repair center and spend more money to "save money" on what may be an extremely minor repair. 2. buy a new fax machine the sharp UX B800se and get a used laser to offset the sharps' ink jet cost. 3.go with an e fax service like maxemail.com 500 e-mail or voicemail faxes a month, for $24.00 a year. This looks like the best deal of all. the toner for ($31.00 & $6 s&h/ every 2 months) that's $222.00 a year without ph service long distance paper or repairs. the hardware chase is going nowhere. I think I'll just go with 1 & 3 and "forget about it".

I subscribe to an electronic fax service. It doesn't matter which one. Here are the negatives I have found so far. 1) This is the most intolerable negative -- false positives to senders! Someone sends you a fax. The electronic fax service receives the fax and indicates a successful transmission to the sender. But then there are delivery problems. An early electronic fax service that I tried did not guarantee delivery or store backup images. They would try to email the image to you three times and then quit after the third. The one I am with now at least has a backup store online for 30 days, however on occasion they have become backed up, and it took nearly TWO HOURS for a fax that was sent to me to appear. I didn't even know it was aproblem for an hour since I had gotten used to the receipt of an email indicating that I had a new fax. It nearly killed a deal for me once and guess what? I cracked out the old PAPER FAX MACHINE to solve the problem! 2) Busy signals. Not supposed to happen with an electronic fax service, you say? One of their selling points? Think again! They happen with all of them! They overload their services with customers and do a lousy job load balancing. 3) They own the fax number. After you advertise the number, print business cards, etc., what if you want to switch providers? No number portability here! You can get around this with a remote call forwarding number that you own and configure to route to the electronic fax service, but at least from my local phone company that's another $20 per month per call path. 4) You're paying what, $5 to $20 per month for electronic fax service? What kind of CUSTOMER SERVICE do you think you will get for that? NONE! When I complained about the issue from #1 above the attitude was tough luck, buddy, for this kind of money, deal with it! 5) If you've got a spare phone line already then why not buy a device that you will own. At the $15 per month level you'll own a Sharp Broadband fax machine in seven months or so at the pricing mentioned in an earlier post. (This is no endorsement. I haven't tried it.) Fax is not dead; it is just transforming. The need to easily send and receive copies of stacks of paper will be around longer than most of us will live. I am glad that Sharp came out with this device. I hope it will meet my needs. In any case I think we'll see more of these devices as it serves a need at a good price point.

Paul,

You actaully lease the Toll free fax number if u get a number throught them. U could get around this by transferring your number to myfax and pay $25 transfer fee and if u don't like the service u could take the no to another provier...

The Sharp UX-B800SE is a worthless piece of machine it does not support several ISP's and customer service is no help. Called Sharp several times and the technicians were untrained and unaware of the product. Was told several times that the machine could not perform said function when it was written on the box and all support literature from Sharp. Attempted to escalate call to Sr. or Manager but was told that a manager would could later. Three weeks later and no call. Logged online to get assistance and took several days for response and finally was told to call the toll free number. Bottom line it's a worthless machine as a broadband fax.

I have to disagree with Marty. I do believe it is a piece of crap for him though. I recently bought one of the at the local price club for 98USD. I set it up in an office that typically receives 50-150 fax pages a day. The office manager then tosses out the spam faxes, after that she scans all the ligitimate faxes so they can be sent to telecommuters by email who do not have fax machines or who are mobile. It works flawlessly. 15,000 or so pages later, it is still on the same ink cartridge. One really nice feature of the machine is that if it cannot find the email server it will print the fax by default. This happened one time while I was working on the network.