Land lines

[FlyerInHi]

BG, you need the acrobat software and a feeding scanner (about $300 -$400). I scan all my documents and acrobat software makes very small files.
It’s cheaper than paying for a phone line month after month and supplies for your fax machine.

Shall we mention all the clutter paper creates? I keep only keep a few original documents.

[spdrun]

(1) Are you an attorney? Paper records are still required in a lot of cases.
(2) Some people need to fax. They don’t want to do so through a cloudcrap service. You can get a “landline” via VoIP adapter for $10-15/mo.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=La Jolla Renter]I ditched my fax machine a year a go. My faxes come strait to my email via voip (ring central). I have a scan snap ix500 on my desk. It scans, saves to hard drive and emails out simultaneously. Amazing how fast it scans. Best $400 I have spent in a long time.

Way better system than a fax machine, even if the phone line for the fax is free.[/quote]Sounds good, LJ Renter. I find myself frequently faxing (or scanning) 40-100+ page documents so would need a separate sheet feeder on a garden variety scanner built for home use.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, you need the acrobat software and a feeding scanner (about $300 -$400). I scan all my documents and acrobat software makes very small files.
It’s cheaper than paying for a phone line month after month and supplies for your fax machine.

Shall we mention all the clutter paper creates? I keep only keep a few original documents.[/quote]I have used Nuance pdf Converter Professional for the last decade or so. It converts pdf to Word and vice versa and also scans forms making the fields type-able and compresses pdf documents and a few other things. I’m happy with it.

I only pay $11-$12 month for my landline phone acct because I have agreed to pay .18 minute for “long distance.” Meaning area codes 858 and 760 in SD County are “long distance” from my (619) fax number as are all the other area codes in the state and country. It is a bare-bones account with my fax ringer turned off so I don’t care how many spammers try to call it, day or night. They get a high-pitched beep indicating it is a fax line so they all hang up after two rings. I can hear the machine when a fax is coming in. I have a separate fax machine/flatbed scanner with a sheet feeder (w/o a phone receiver) that I switch the phone line to when I need to send large documents.

This is by far the cheapest method for me and my “clients,” (the firms/agencies I work with).

Yes, brian, I have several lateral files collectively likely weighing nearly 1000 lbs. Plus a few dozen banker’s boxes stored. :=0 I’m chipping away at this “project” little by little. One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2016 was to devote 2-4 hours per week to shredding as time permits.

Little by little, I am making progress.

And you’re right, spd. I don’t store anything in the “cloud.” My business files are on separate, password-protected e-Sata and SCSI hard drives (mirrors of each other) which are locked away unless I am using one of them. Absolutely no confidential files in my “charge” are ever available to anyone but me.

[La Jolla Renter]

The scan snap software is pretty slick and easy to use. Put doc in, hit the button, it scans the doc, screen pops up on my desktop do I want to save or email. When I click to email the doc, it opens outlook and attaches the file and still auto saves to a preset folder. If I want to save it, it remembers the last several folders so I just select from drop down. The scan is an adobe pdf file, or you can set to jpeg. You can set to auto ocr your docs as well. I have turned on a dozen people to the scan snap and they all love it.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=La Jolla Renter]The scan snap software is pretty slick and easy to use. Put doc in, hit the button, it scans the doc, screen pops up on my desktop do I want to save or email. When I click to email the doc, it opens outlook and attaches the file and still auto saves to a preset folder. If I want to save it, it remembers the last several folders so I just select from drop down. The scan is an adobe pdf file, or you can set to jpeg. You can set to auto ocr your docs as well. I have turned on a dozen people to the scan snap and they all love it.[/quote]How does your machine handle 50+ page documents? I’ll look it up online but my older stuff still works fine. Ink rollers are only $31 for my high speed Panasonic fax machine and the drum has already been replaced so I doubt it will need replacing again as those bulk jobs are handled by my flatbed copier/scanner/fax with a sheet feeder (different “all-in-one” machine).

[FlyerInHi]

BG, you’re old fashioned. i fail to see why faxing is necessary, especially if you’re editing. Faxing is very low resolution and having to OCR a fax is a waste of time. It’s a lot more efficient to send digital documents.

You’re using the wrong software if you need to take an extra step to compress pdf. Whole books are under 10mb

[spdrun]

Lawyers are lawyers. They’re old-fashioned. If you want clients, you have to make the clients happy. Keep in mind that many attorneys used WordPerfect till about 2008-9, when it was a dead package for all other uses. Why? Because.

[La Jolla Renter]

[quote=bearishgurl]How does your machine handle 50+ page documents?[/quote]

Works great. If you are scanning more pages than the feeder holds, you just load more pages and hit resume, it just adds it to your pdf.

[NotCranky]

I only have a landline for an emergency back up. We live pretty remotely. It doesn’t ring too much or have an answering machine even. Funny I don’t get much spam on my smart phone.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]Lawyers are lawyers. They’re old-fashioned. If you want clients, you have to make the clients happy. Keep in mind that many attorneys used WordPerfect till about 2008-9, when it was a dead package for all other uses. Why? Because.[/quote]

If you have valuable clients who insist on faxing to you, you can setup a computer/service to receive the faxes. Receiving faxes on paper and scanning them is ridiculous.

I archive everything on pdf and got rid of paper a long time ago. I name my files year-month-day followed by a description for easy retrieval.

I remember reading this article a while back. No wonder Japan is falling behind.

[spdrun]

Not necessarily ridiculous, if you need hard copies of most of the faxes anyway. Though my choice would probably be to set up a computer with fax-modem connected to either a VoIP or regular line.

As far as Japan, their embrace and adoption of technology is weird and uneven. I was there in 1995, and rotary phones were still relatively common, some places outside Tokyo also required an operator to dial the States.

Their phone network was 10-15 years behind the US in the 1990s.

[FlyerInHi]

Why would you need a hardcopy of a fax if you have it stored on the computer? Even if you signed the document, you don’t need the hardcopy anymore once you scanned and sent it back. If the “facsimile” is good enough for the recipient, then it’s good enough for you own records.

I find Japan to be slow and backward in many ways. Their trains are good, but their ways of doing business is inefficient. No wonder things are expensive over there. Basically, consumers are paying to support the bureaucracy.

If a business receives order via faxes, they should setup a few computers to receive all the faxes. paper fax machines can jam and paper orders can get lost. Not so for digital documents.

[spdrun]

Maybe the bureaucracy is sort of a surrogate for a social welfare system. Keeps more people employed without resorting to outright hand outs.

[bearishgurl]

I use an OCR software for scanning which often makes the pdf file too big to e-mail. Then I have to “reduce it” to send with the Nuance software.

I understand everything you’re saying here, FIH. Now tell it to all the law offices, medical and dental offices, escrow companies, insurance agents and government agencies, etc.

The paper fax machine isn’t going away anytime soon.

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