magic jack

[Bigfoot Graphix]

YOu have to play with the settings on the fax machine.
I have been told by both Charter and Comcast that you can't use a Fax machine on their internet phone service either..but I know people that do.
Myself, I subscribe to an internet fax service that converts and sends me an email with a pdf. I have my own fax number..people send to it, and I get an email. Simple as pie.

Yea you can use 99.9% of fax machines with cable company phone service. I work for a major cable company in the business department and our customers use our cable phone lines for fax machines and even dial-up!!

[Dakotagrafx]

maicjack worked great but is not dog proof if sticking out a front usb port . . .wasn't even dog resistant.  good news is it didn't pose a chocking hazzard

[tory]

maicjack worked great but is not dog proof if sticking out a front usb port . . .wasn't even dog resistant.  good news is it didn't post a chocking hazzard

lol Well I guess there is a silver lining. At least no vet bills. Never occurred to me the dog would actually pull out my accessories from the ports

[BannerJohn]

If it's a boy dog, and your computer is where he can get to the USB ports, you are lucky he hasn't peed on the computer.

[mars]

Dogs eat the damdest things.  A friends dad's dog ate his hearing aids off the nightstand.  He paid a lot of money for them and she told me he was watching his poop for a happy outcome - she couldn't believe he would wash them off and use them - never underestimate how cheap old guys can be!!  I never got the rest of the story - don't know if the dog gulped them down without crunching them up - or if they were well chewed.


On the phone alternative topic, is anybody using google voice?  My son told me about it and I just signed up - no fax capabilities yet, but they may add if enough interest is shown in using it for faxes.  It is basically a dedicated phone number to an online account with some nice features - call screening - dedicated answer messages for specific numbers - call forwarding to any and all of your other phone lines without the caller knowing what they are - text message management - including having them read to you electronically over the phone.  I just have mine set up to ring my cell phone, but I got a number I will use for the sign business and I don't have to set up a phone line and answering machine to get the calls answered as well as forwarded to my cell.  It's free and uses googles servers so your computer isn't directly involved in operating it.

-mike

[BannerJohn]

I signed up for Grand central when it was in Beta about a year and a half ago...then Google bought it..did absolutely nothing with it for a year or more. Then they changed it to Google Voice. It was a great program until Google bought it out. Google has a habit of keeping things 'beta' for very long periods. I don't like that. But it seems to work fine most of the time. I just hope they don't lose interest and leave everyone hanging.

[bowhunter012004]

We dont have a home phone, we just use our cell phones. Why pay more money for another phone.

[cutme]

We dont have a home phone, we just use our cell phones. Why pay more money for another phone.

this is where i am at. my cell phone is not just a phone either. it is so much more.

bb

[CyberSultan]

I have followed and discussed Magic Jack for some time now in a major VOIP forum.  It's a great deal, if you don't mind doing your phone through your computer.

If you do not want to lock a phone service to a computer, there are a couple good services out there that do not require a computer to do phone service over the Internet.  VOIPo.com and ViaTalk.com both offer phone and fax solutions.  I have used both of these services and watched them both grow from their infancy and have discussed them extensively in VOIP forums.  They are both mature products at this point.

I have noticed many VOIP forum members slowly beginning to migrate over to VOIPo.com for their superior phone quality and/or and pricing, although I still use and like some of the features that ViaTalk offers that VOIPo doesn't have (and have no problems with ViaTalk phone quality).  ViaTalk also offers business oriented packages, whereas VOIPo is marketing more towards residential service.  So these are two companies I would look at and I can help answer any questions on either service if you have them.  I'm also familiar with some of the other VOIP services as well.

[BannerJohn]

My computer stays on 24/7 anyway. And for the price and what you get, Magic jack can't be beat by anything or anyone I have seen.
I heard the inventor/owner say once that they were working on a stand-alone unit. Maybe some day.
WE keep a land line because of my mom, who is 87. It is through Charter. Which means if the internet goes out,so does the phone. Power goes out,so does the phone. She pays $39 a month. I get the same thing for $1.67 a month. No brainer.