[macnifico]

I ocasionally need to send or receive a fax from my Pismo PowerBook.
The preferences in Print/Fax are very limited. I was used to the GlobalFax application on OS 9.
I want to change the "Retry x Times" to 0 (None).
I'd like to see some input. Like if the fax was sent, or when I receive a fax.
Can I do this with the Fax application that comes with OS X.3.5,
or should I look for a third party product?
(I send or receive about 4 or 5 faxes a month).
TIA
macnifico

[Dr. Smoke]

Hi, macnifico.

Fax, the bundled fax send/receive function in Mac OS X 10.3, is excruciatingly basic. What you see is what you get. We don't get much ;-)...

- I've not found any way to reset retries.

- It does not perform logging, i.e. who you faxed, when, received, etc.

- It does not confirm receipt of sent faxes. When it's done sending, it stops sending. Makes life interesting with those critical faxes... ;-)

- You can set preferences for what to do when you receive a fax in System Preferences > Print & Fax > Faxing.

If those functions are critical to you, then go third-party, e.g. FaxSTF X, etc.

I send so few faxes, e.g. a couple a year, I can live with Fax, but if I sent a few a week, I'd install something else.

You can investigate other solutions by searching MacUpdate or Version Tracker.

[macnifico]

Originally posted by Dr. Smoke:
Hi, macnifico.

Fax, the bundled fax send/receive function in Mac OS X 10.3, is excruciatingly basic. What you see is what you get. We don't get much ;-)...

- I've not found any way to reset retries.

- It does not perform logging, i.e. who you faxed, when, received, etc.

- It does not confirm receipt of sent faxes. When it's done sending, it stops sending. Makes life interesting with those critical faxes... ;-)

- You can set preferences for what to do when you receive a fax in System Preferences > Print & Fax > Faxing.

If those functions are critical to you, then go third-party, e.g. FaxSTF X, etc.

I send so few faxes, e.g. a couple a year, I can live with Fax, but if I sent a few a week, I'd install something else.

You can investigate other solutions by searching MacUpdate or Version Tracker.

Thank you, Doctor, for your help.
It looks like I'll shop for some application that can do at least what Global Fax did when I was using OS 9.
Anyone has hands-on experience with such an app?
Something to recommend?
TIA
macnifico

[bergy]

I'm sorry to inform you that there is only one real contender and that is Page Sender ...
Sorry because I have used page sender for 2 years but have had to give up on it recently .. it is not keeping pace with OS development and freezes on me constantly now.

I have gone back to Apple fax .. primitive but works all the time.
You can use third party apps to supplement its features such as "fax status" ... but we're all hoping that faxing gets at least a little better in Tiger ... maybe hoping against hope.

Global Fax was a beautiful app ... why someone can't recreate something like it for OSX is beyond me and very frustrating ..

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the interface in page sender is quite confusing such as having to use the "print" command to fax ...

There is also Cocoa Efax (FaxCenter) but in my opinion it wasn't even as good as page sender .

I say stick with apple fax and get a good handle on it ...