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Free Faxing and Collaboration Tools

When you're juggling multiple projects, the free fax and collaboration services described in this article will help you keep track of your tasks. You can use these free online communications services to organize project by project, schedule tasks, delegate to other people, stay in touch by fax or e-mail, and include multiple companies or vendors into a single project.
Eileen Mullin is Vice President of Web Projects for Human Resources at Merrill Lynch. This article is excerpted from her new book, Free Commerce: The Ultimate Guide to E-business on a Budget (Prentice Hall PTR, 2001, ISBN 0-13-033767-6).
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Free Faxing Tools

Even in this age of e-mail, the lowly, sometimes illegible fax remains a mainstay. It is critical for moving around documents that have strayed far from their original computer file, or that contain signatures or other hard-to-reproduce diagrams (as long as they're not in color, of course). If you have access to e-mail and a Web browser, though, you can create a pretty good facsimile of this facsimile machine. Table 1 compares the pros and cons of the free fax services discussed in the following sections.

Table 1 Comparison of Free Fax Services

 

FaxWave

eFax

Pros

Provides your own free personal fax number.

Free voice mail services are also provided.

Cons

Local numbers are not available in all areas.

Local numbers are not available in all areas; viewer is required.

Advertising display on faxes

Yes.

Yes.

Sends/receive faxes

Sends only.

Sends only; receives faxes for a fee.


FaxWave

With CallWave's FaxWave, you have your own free personal fax number that you can print on your business cards or share with your clients and friends, just like any other phone number. You receive faxes in your e-mail inbox as attachments that you can view or print in a flash using a Windows-based imaging application.

What's the catch? Each fax you receive appears with advertising on it. Also, the fax number assigned to you is unlikely to be in your area code, so you need to decide whether having a local fax number is necessary for your business. If your FaxWave account is inactive for a 60-day period, CallWave can delete your telephone number and reassign it to another user. On the plus side, you can receive faxes with FaxWave, even when you're traveling. You also have the ability to immediately forward faxes to others via e-mail.

FaxWave lets you receive faxes only; not send them.

Getting Started

When you sign up with FaxWave, you can choose from one of several phone numbers that are generated for you. The service then forwards your faxes to your e-mail with a file attachment. You need a program such as Windows Imaging (see Figure 1), an application installed on most Windows 95 and Windows 98 machines, to view FaxWave faxes.

Figure 1 You need an imaging application to view the faxes you receive with FaxWave.

During the site's registration process, you are asked to supply personal information—including your age, occupation category, and annual income—that is used to target the advertising you see. CallWave also sends you several follow-up questionnaires throughout the year, and requires you to answer at least one per year to maintain your FaxWave account.

Big spender: No premium services.

URL: http://www.faxwave.com/

Contact: info@callwave.com

eFax

With eFax.com's free fax service, you can sign up for a fax number that automatically routes inbound faxes right to your e-mail. You receive an e-mail message with your digitized fax as an attachment. You have to use the service's free Microviewer software to read or print your fax.

When you open a fax attachment, eFax's Microviewer displays the fax, along with a small ad window that runs at the top of the window. The company claims that its format's compression will produce fax files up to 50 percent smaller than other electronic fax file formats, thus taking up less space in your e-mail inbox and hard disk. The Microviewer is e-mailed to you when you sign up, and you can return to the eFax site to download it at any time.

One nice feature is that if you delete or misplace a fax you received, you can return to the eFax site within three days and download it again; after that point, it's automatically deleted from eFax's server.

Area codes are assigned randomly from numbers available across the U.S., so some senders have to fax long distance. Like other free online fax services, you don't have the ability to choose a fax number in your local area code unless you pay for a premium service with a monthly fee.

The Microviewer software is available for both Mac and Windows users. You can use eFax if you have a Unix box or use Linux or WebTV, but the faxes you receive are in a TIFF format that doesn't utilize the service's password-protection or compression features.

The free eFax service does not include capabilities for sending faxes. When you sign up, you are asked whether you want to activate eFax's free voice mail services, which include sending, saving, and forwarding electronic copies of your voice mail messages. Voice mails are also played through the Microviewer (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 eFax's voice mail messages are played online via the Microviewer.

Getting Started

When you register, you receive a PIN number to view your account information on the eFax.com site. You can use your PIN number to password-protect the faxes you receive and to view an activity log of faxes sent to you during the previous three days, which is handy for managing your information and for confirming that faxes were sent.

Required information includes

  • Full name

  • E-mail address

  • Computer platform

  • E-mail software

  • Zip code

  • Country

Big spender: eFax Plus provides toll-free fax numbers, e-mail-based fax sending, fax preview, and online fax storage with access from multiple e-mail accounts or a fax machine for $4.95 a month, plus a 10-cent charge per-page and per-minute of send time. The site has an easy-to-read chart showing its various services, their features, and pricing.

URL: http://www.efax.com/

Contact: http://www.efax.com/contactus/

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020