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Home » Computers And Internet Articles » Save Our Planet Use Internet Fax

Save Our Planet, Use Internet Fax

Do you know more than 17 million trees are cut down yearly just for the usage of faxing papers in United States? Ever thought of cutting down your paper usage, especially in office? Now here's a simple way to do so: Switch from conventional fax machine to Internet faxing machine. Yes, and I mean cut down all conventional fax machine usage!

What is Internet faxing?

In general, Internet faxing is known as a web service that allows users to send out and receive faxes in email forms. Faxes are transmitted via Internet and no fax machine is needed during the process. The very first Internet fax services are started since mid 1997 by PSI Net. Back then, Internet faxing was better known as InternetPaper. The technology then revolved and developed into a multimillion industries where more than dozens of merchant popped up to provide similar services. Nowadays Internet services are available worldwide.

Can I really send fax over Internet?

The answer is yes! In fact there are more than couple ways to send and receive faxes via Internet.

When you are shopping Internet faxing services, your choices are wide. Some service allows you to fax for free; while some require monthly subscription fees. Some Internet faxing services require you to install special software on your computer; while some allows you to send fax directly on the web. The right thing to do is to review and select the one that suits your needs.

What are the benefits of Internet faxing?

When compare to conventional fax machine, Internet faxing is so much easier and more affordable.

Firstly, there's no need to waste money on an extra fax line. Also, no extra cost for fax machine, fax paper, as well as printing ink. All Internet faxes come in as email attachments – softcopies are easier for circulation as well as file organization. More over, do you know according to research, 17 million trees (as said) are chopped down annually just for the faxing paper in United States? Sending virtual faxes save more than just your money, the technology save more trees as well!

If you use a conventional fax machine, you should know that using those old fax machines can be very tiring. The frustrations cause by paper jam, extra phone line cost, cuts off page text, and fax transmission failure are always bothering the users. Isn't terrible? You bet! On the other hand, while comes in cheaper operation cost, Internet fax provides an easy faxing method where the service is 24 hours ready, no more engage tones, and no more paper jamming.

With Internet faxing services, you can send faxes as long as you have an active Internet faxing account and a computer connected to the Internet. The flexibility and mobility of Internet faxing is a valuable feature for frequent business travelers. Just imagine finishing all your faxing works while waiting for boarding in the airport – you wouldn't have this done if you are still using the old fax machine, right?

Using Internet faxing services

For commercial usage, setting up an Internet faxing needs nothing more than just an email account (well okay, you do need a computer with Internet connection). Most Internet faxing service providers offer immediate activation – this means you can start receiving and sending faxes right after you register for the services.

Once activated, you can construct your outgoing faxes like how you compose your email with Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. What's different is on the recipient address bar – instead of email address, you will need to input recipients fax number with fax service name. Say we are sending fax to 1234567890: the recipients will be 1234567890@myfax.com for MyFax; while for eFax, it will be 1234567890@efax.com. Email subject line will be converted to fax header, while email content will be the fax content.

Before you ask, yes, Internet fax service is very much similar to sending and receiving the email. In fact some services allow you to setup your virtual faxing service on popular mail agent like Outlook. For most Internet faxing services, a user friendly GUI (a toolbar or something similar) will be installed in your system during setup. Upon receiving the email to the Internet fax service providers the automated programs convert the email messages to the fax format and send the fax to the recipient fax number. On the other hand, the recipient receives the fax on their fax machine normally.

Shopping for the right Internet faxing services

Now in case you are looking for a suitable virtual fax service provider, here are some names you should know: eFax, Fax Away, MyFax, Ring Central, CallWave Virtual Fax, Max Email, Zip Fax, Fax (UK), Fax Mate, Inter Fax, and so on.

Although these services are offered based on the same technology, their service and pricing could be quite different from each other. Some of these services work perfectly well for heavy fax users, while some are more to small business owners where faxing needs are minor. At the time of writing, standard Internet faxing priced $10 - $20 monthly depends on the number of faxes you can receive and send monthly. Also, shoppers should be aware that not all service providers offer their service world wide. Thus, you need to be very sure that the merchant service is available in your country before purchasing.

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

How To Invest In UK Commercial Property! Exclusive Interview with Peter Bill of the Estates Gazette

Peter Bill, Editor of the Estates Gazette as well as 7 others experts in UK Commercial Property investing have teamed up to talk about how to successfully invest in UK Commercial Property.

Fiona Goldman recently interviewed Peter Bill, editor of the Estates Gazette.

Asking Peter Bill what his thoughts are on the future of the UK Commercial Property Market gives any prospective commercial property investor a real insight into where the UK market is heading in the next few years.

Fiona asked Peter "Would you say Great Britain is still a buoyant market to invest in with regards to property"

Peter replied "Yes I think it is, as we speak I think its been buoyant now for 8 or 9 years.

Is it slowing down? This we keep saying it's going to but every year it keeps going up. If you can imagine a very tall glass filled with water on one side of the table and a very short glass filled with water on the other side of the table. The small glass for the amount of property that there is in the world and tall glass for the amount of money chasing it. At the moment there is probably 10x as more water or money as there is to property to buy. So there's a massive over supply of money to property at the moment so that's what has been driving it and will continue to drive it, its completely globalised now."

This is great news for any prospective commercial property investor be they novice, intermediate or advanced investors in residential or commerical property investing in the UK.

To emphasise the benefits of investing in the UK Commercial property market right now, Stuart Law, founder of Assetz Finance, mentions his experiences in UK commercial property investing and why he thinks now is the time to invest in the market. Stuart say "Commercial property could also be new built student halls which are carved up into individual student apartments. That's a particularly low hassle and a longterm investment and that's generally high income as well. With commercial property, there really is two ways you can go in. You can go into commercial property by sector, so retail, shops, etc, offices or industrial. But another way of looking at is, whether or not the property is tenanted or untenanted, its very important to understand that with commercial investment its not been done before, but when you buy a property with a tenant in place, you're paying a premium for the lease. The lease is the promise to pay, each year, four quarterly payments of rent. If you buy a building with out that promise and without that tenant in place, then you are just buying bricks and mortar. And when you buy bricks and mortar with a lease, you pay more."

Issues such as taxation are important to consider when investing in uk commercial property. Amir Saddiq founder of the Property Tax Portal says "Say somebody purchased a property for £50,000 five years ago and its now worth £150,000 which is quite feasible, they may well have to report property values and they maybe liable to pay tax of upto 40% on the £100,000 profit. They have only got 25% left of equity on the property but they could have tax liablilitys as high as £40,000. So there the kind of areas that Daniel Feingold iin particular would start to get involved as he could help restructure people's assets and give them the development advice they require"

Daniel Fiengold head of a leading independent tax consultancy in the UK, called Strategy Tax Planning said "Correctly structured, tax is only 22% in the UK. If you borrow to acquire a property you can offset the interest so it starts to slide down from 22% so a lot of people are effectively paying something like 10 or 11% tax on their rental income which is obviously a very attractive rate, a very low rate and in addition paying no capital gains tax. It provides a very, very exciting investment opportunity for them but its all about getting the right structure from the start. If someone comes to me saying I've bought a property then alarm bells normally ring but if someone comes to me saying I'm looking, I'm considering, I'm about to, then its normally the point at which I can give the right advice and get them in a position to minimise their UK tax liabilities.

Copyright 2006 Invest UK Publishing