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For many, the requirement for Fax has long gone and has been replaced by emails.  However there are still a number of companies that still use fax daily and with Win Fax being the market leader for a number of years it was discontinued a while back and the last version to be released, 10.0.3, worked just about with Windows XP but doesn’t stand a chance with Windows Vista.  So for one of our clients we had to find a solution and we did!  We found FaxTalk FaxCenter Pro 7.5.  A brilliant piece of software that looks and work almost exactly as WinFax did, so for those used to WinFax it won’t be too much of a learning curve to change over.

Fax Talk happily will find any existing WinFax phone books and import them for you which is great.  We found you have to have WinFax installed and the phone on the system for that to work but don’t fear, you can install WinFax on XP and Vista and import the phone book from another machine, import the phone book and then uninstall it.

Admittedly we have only had it installed on clients machines for a few days now but they use it a lot and have had no problems…in fact I would say the install was easier than WinFax’s! )  We’ll update you if anything changes following further use, and would love to hear your thoughts if you have used the software or know of something better.

You can download trial version for 15 days to see if it does what you need.  But at $59.99 it has to be worth a try!

Hope this helps you!

I am often asked what are the advantages of having a server for a small business. Which is a good question as it can be a heavy investment and often a wasted investment if it is not used to its full potential. So how could a small business use a server to its full potential without using features for the sake of it..?

It’s my opinion that using Small Business Server from Microsoft is the ideal operating system as it is packed with features the standard versions don’t come with, most importantly for small businesses it includes Exchange Server. More specifically the features that I think would be most useful to a small business are as follows…

• File Storage – store files centrally to ensure easy access for all users rather than emailing documents back and forth or using USB Pen Drives.
• Exchange Server – Have your server manage your company emails so sending internally is immediate, you can share each others calendars and access all this remotely from any machine with an internet connection so your team can always stay in touch.
• Remote Access – Allows employees to work from anywhere with an internet connection for ultimate productivity.
• With all data stored on the server you have only one backup to worry about – even with the best server in the world you still MUST backup!
• Share printers
• Enabling Faxing from and to the server with faxes being delivered to the email inbox of users

Servers can do much more, but in my opinion those are the things that are the biggest advantages to Small Businesses looking to improve their Computing capabilities.
Something to try on your own? Most definitely not. Get hold of your I.T. Company and ask them to do it for you.