• WHAT: Notification of faxes that arrive at your personal fax number
• WHY: Some people still use faxes instead of attachments
• COST: Free for basic service, premium versions available

If I could stop everyone that I do business with from sending faxes I'd do it in a heartbeat.  Unfortunately, that's neither realistic nor likely, so I'm going to have to live with faxes for a while... as will everyone else.  However, there are a few ways to make the sending and receiving of faxes a little easier, eliminating fax machines for receiving and, most importantly from a wireless standpoint, getting notified of when they arrive. 

Like a lot of people I've got multiple email accounts - one of them is a Yahoo! account and I have a lot of my email sent through there for easier access (more about that in a later post when I talk about their great downloadable application called "Yahoo Go!").  One of the absolute best features of using Yahoo's email is the ability to filter messages in a fashion that will send you an alert when a message coming from a particular sender arrives.  I use this to my advantage in learning about faxes that are awaiting my attention.  It works quite simply and costs nothing if you use the basic version of the fax service.   

I haven't had a fax machine for over ten years - even though I've spent quite a bit of time in the world of real estate buying, selling and investing in various properties.  And believe me when I tell you that real estate is the most document-intensive, archaic and fax-centric business you'll ever see.  Nonetheless, I've been able to get by quite easily - and remain much more organized - without a fax machine than most people who have one. I do have a scanner, which is imperative for sending faxes without a fax machine, but it's pretty rare that I actually have to do that because I have some applications on my Mac that allow me to annotate PDF files with comments or a digital signature.  I often do that, save the file as a different name so as to preserve the original, and email the PDF or send the PDF via a fax service. 

It's easy to do and quick to set up.  First you'll need to select an electronic fax service.  There are many, but I use JFax (which also, I believe, owns EFax - or vice-versa).  You can get an inbound fax number totally free of charge and receive as many faxes as you want without incurring a cost.  The downside of the freebie version is that you cannot select the area code of the inbound fax number - you might live in New York and get an Iowa area code, for example.  If you are willing to pay a small fee - mine is $15/month - you can get a number in your area code and send/receive faxes using JFax's very well-done "JFax Messenger" software.  It's worth it to me but it's an option... this idea still works just fine with the free version. 

Once you have your fax number, send yourself a test fax.  The fax will go through the provider's system and arrive in your email account shortly.  When you receive it, set up a filter in your Yahoo account using the "Options" link in the email section to "Forward message to my wireless device".  Yahoo won't actually forward the entire fax message including the attachment, but it will forward the email to your mobile formatted in such a way that you'll know that there is a fax waiting for you in your email box - and you'll know what number it came from, too.  

You can do this with almost any email application on either a Mac or PC, but I like the Yahoo option because it's easy, fast and free.  Once it's set up you can leave the office with confidence knowing that whenever a fax arrives at the number you've used from one of the electronic fax services you'll be alerted (usually within a minute) and can retrieve the fax as you need to.  No constant calling to your office - or to the person who was supposed to have sent the fax - to see it has been sent or arrived.  

Quick, easy, efficient and free.  My favorite kind of mobile information service.