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General software and network General OS-independent software and network questions, X11, MTA, routing, etc. |
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Fax software
Does anyone have an experience with fax software for freebsd? I'm going to fetch a web page that can be plain text, save it as a file, then fax it to a local phone number. It seems most people have used mgetty+sendfax, hylafax or efax. I know nothing about any of them and was hoping someone had some insight, guidance, etc.
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This does not really answer your question, but we always scan (or convert) to PDF and send the file by email. There are very few places that *require* a FAX. For those, there is Kinko's.
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Nope. FAX is required. No exceptions.
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Well, there are still a few antidiluvians around.
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While it's not exactly a FreeBSD thing, I heard about this website a few weeks ago: http://www.efax.com/ and it looked useful.
As to things in ports, a quick psearch for fax turns up a few things that might be worth investigating: Code:
comms/acfax Receive faxes using sound card and radio comms/efax Fax send/receive program comms/efax-gtk GUI front end for the efax fax program comms/gfax A Mono based pop-up fax manager comms/ghfaxviewer GNOME compliant fax viewer capable of displaying TIFF G3 faxes comms/hamfax QT application for sending and receiving facsimiles o ver radio comms/hylafax Fax software comms/mgetty+sendfax Handle external logins, send and receive faxes comms/pyla Hylafax client written in Python comms/qsstv Amateur Radio SSTV/FAX reception program for unix comms/tkhylafax A tcl/tk interface to Sam Leffler's fax package comms/tkscanfax Tcl/Tk frontend for fax scan/receive/send program (co mmand is tkfax) comms/viewfax Display files containing g3 and/or g4 coded fax pages net/astfax AstFax provides an outgoing email to fax gateway for Asterisk net/asterisk An Open Source PBX and telephony toolkit If you're not anticipating much need for sending or receiving faxes at a later date, I'd personally suggest print the file and drive down to the nearest telifacsimile machine; less to screw with.
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My Journal Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''. |
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Ok, let me explain.
This store has an online ordering system. When the orders are finished, a sheet is made up with the details and available online. That page needs to be printed on the store's Windows computer's second printer, not the default. The employees have no access to Windows at all. It runs a 3rd party application and cannot be shutdown, nor would they want to. Too busy. The order page must automatically print out within 2 minutes of being finalized online. They cannot use the default printer. There is no way to make a Windows script print on anything but the deafult. The only thing left is their fax machine. All their stores have fax machines for more uses than you would think. It has not gone away in that industry by any means. So, until my "proof of concept" works and I can pay some Windows person to write code to make the second printer work, I can use their fax machines anywhere in the world for free. All of the ports mentioned above I am aware of and looked at. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with them before I plug away at it. |
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To bad you can't just send the data to a specific printer port, i.e. much like 'type foo.txt > LPT2' in a command prompt.
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My Journal Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''. |
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You would think that would be a no-brainer but I'm told Windows scripting is pretty bad.
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Compared to the Bourne Again/Korn shells + associated utils, it's very basic (in more ways then one) if you use cmd.exe for scripting with batch files. I'm not very familiar with WMI/WSH/OLE and related crap though, so hopefully there is something worth using.
Different OSes, different paradigms ? curse : blessing;
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My Journal Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''. |
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Quote:
(that is way I have secretary and trusted Brother fax machine) but I am very, very curious about fax software. It looks to me from reading abot software you listed that efax is just simplified version of mgetty+sendfax for a single user system and that hylafax is separate enterprise level solution. I also know that HPLIP has component for FAX sending for all-in-one HPLIP devices but from my experience with HPLIP I would chose million times over to play with serial port and fax modems then with HP and USB connections. If I was you I would try installing all three of above solutions and possibly front-ends for them and see which one is the easiest to set up, configure, use and finally if it fits my needs. Could you please post your findings and recommendations? Last edited by Oko; 23rd December 2008 at 08:05 PM. |
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I was reading more about your FAX software. If I was you I would give a
try to Hylafax. You also have a gui for it TkHylafax but GUI can not handle all advanced features of the back end software. Hyla is BSD licenced and coded originally by SGI people in 1991. I might play on weekend with it myself. It is definitely enterprise level solution. |
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mgetty+sendfax isn't maintained anymore but I don't know if I should let that bother me. I had read that hylafax might be overkill since it's enterprise, as you said. There may be days when no faxes are sent at all, while others may have no more than a few in an hour.
I thought hylafax might be easier to throw together and make work, too, but after installing and playing for one whole minute, it seems I'd get the same thing out of mgetty*. (As if I really knew) |
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I haven't sent a fax in... forever.. but this small utility looks easy enough.
http://www.cce.com/efax/ http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi...efax&stype=all Looks like it would be easy to script with, all you need is a fax modem.. one that's supported by FreeBSD. |
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I hadn't read the docs about efax yet. It's on my list above. That site explains it simply enough and might actually be what I want. I was somewhat concerned it was related to efax.com.
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Doesn't appear to be, probably a coincidence.
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Argh!! I thought all my boxes had fax modems in them. Turns out, none of them do. I found an old external USR one but it needs a serial cable. I might have one but do I really feel like messing with all this?
This is the 3rd time I've been screwed by Windows. The first time lead me to FreeBSD so that actually worked out OK. The second time caused me much grief trying to get modern methods to work with Internet Explorer. And now this! |
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Quote:
in the fax(1) man page it says: Quote:
receive a fax all I did was start a new console or xterm and within it run "fax receive" when the phone rang. Again, not sophisticated but it did the trick for a one-off co-ordinated fax every few years. Quote:
page section on "Accepting both fax and data calls". |
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I finally set a headless WinXP machine (with coLinux and VirtualPC) for those applications that only run on ... [fill the blanks]. Put UWIN on it for good measure (and X server).
So, I send faxes via Pamfax (which comes as extended service to Skype). Had to find an usage for the Intel Atom board I once bought.
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da more I know I know I know nuttin' |
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Quote:
They are breeze to set up. Make sure you phone lines are not DSL but analog lines!!! |
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