Now, I'm no faxing expert; I have only faxed probably fifty pages in my whole life. But to send or receive faxes with the MessagePad you don't have to know squat about faxing. Have a note you want to fax? Select the routing icon, select "fax" and you're more than halfway there. Select a recipient and pick one of three built-in formats (Plain, Letter or Memo), and then pick either "Fax Now" or "Fax Later" and you're done.
Ok, well, it's not that simple. You also have to insert a fax-capable modem card and make sure it's plugged in to an analog line. Yee-haw, that's tough. To make life even sweeter, pcmcia fax modems are cheap. I picked one up for twenty-some bucks mailorder. Popped it in just to see how easy it was to fax and was pleasantly surprised to see just how easy it was. Is. Whatever.
That's all there is to it. Honestly. And remember, I'm not a fax expert and I don't play one on TV.
"Fine", you may say, "but how about receiving faxes?"
Glad you asked :-). A while ago someone posted in comp.lang.tcl about needing to receive a fax while at someone's office. It was a great post -- I wish I could make it available here (if you wrote it and have a copy, I'll be glad to make a link to it, passing a little of my own fame and fortune on to you ;-). Anyway, after going through a couple of iterations trying to configure his laptop or an office computer with no success, this person remembered that his newton could receive faxes. He plugged it to the phone line, instructed the MessagePad to listen for faxes, and that was that. Problem solved.
And let me tell you, that's exactly how it works. I was curious, so I plugged in my MessagePad and told my PC to fax a document. A few minutes later it was all done. I guess I was expecting something more dramatic, but like so many other aspects of the MessagePad, "it just worked". No effort, and with completely predictable results. Yet another feature that makes the MessagePad such an outstanding device.
I bet I send and receive
more faxes in the future. Cool beans.