Browser Hangup

I am a big fan of the FireFox browser and use it on all my machines. Heck, I even use it on my desktop at work. I find it stable, secure, and ideal most of the time, however, recently I did have an issue.

MaximumPC lets you download their archived magazine issues as PDF's. They are typically large files, and this one was around 22 mb. I tried to download it several times, and each time it just hung up at around 4 megs. My connection was fine and I was able to do other things simultaneously, so I really was not sure what the issue was.

After several attempts, I decided to switch to another browser, this time the Google Chrome one that is generally bulletproof. It downloaded it on the first try. I wonder if there is an issue with the FireFox browser for this particular issue, but for now, the moral is that if one browser is having difficulty downloading a PDF, give Google Chrome a try.

Digital Faxing

I have to admit that anyone asks to me fax something, it is such a throwback to the preinternet days. After all, most folks have access to high speed internet access, so why the heck would we use that silly fax machine? I generally scan the item, save it as a PDF, and email it to them as an attachment. This also works well for longer documents, and there is no concern that they will get all the pages from the fax except the important one.

However, there are a few times when there is a need to send a fax. This includes documents that need a signature, and those Luddites that don't know how to work with email attachments. But rather than dust off the ol' faxer, there are some digital options.

One is FaxZero. While it does have limitations, such as an ad on the cover page, and a limit of 3 pages, as well as a limit of 2 faxes daily, it is still useful to the low volume user.

Another option is HelloFax. Here the catch is that the fax must be less than 5 pages. But hey, this is free as well.

A third option is Microsoft Fax. It comes preinstalled in Windows XP and Windows 7. While it will work in Vista, the issue is that it did not come preinstalled in the Home version that most of us received. Microsoft Fax is ideal for a notebook that has a dialup modem installed that likely sees little use.

With any of these options, the document sent can be a PDF, and other options can be used as well such a .DOC.

FaxZero
HelloFax
Microsoft Fax