How to Fax from Your PC

You call your attorney to ask her to review a contract, and she says, "Sure. Fax it over." "But it's a Microsoft Word document," you say. "Can't I just e-mail it to you? I don't have a fax machine." No, she prefers fax. Or, she says, if you'd rather, you can drop it in the mailbox or drive it over. Grrr!

But wait! You probably do have a fax machine and don't even realize it. It's right in your PC. You may have forgotten this if you've moved to broadband, but most computers still ship with fax modems. And Microsoft Windows XP includes fax software, although you may not have realized that either, since it's not part of the default installation. Fortunately, installing it is pretty painless. You'll also need a phone line near your system. If there isn't one there already, you can run a long extension cable, have the phone company install a jack, or use a device like the GE InstaJack, which lets you easily extend your phone lines over your AC wiring.

Why not use an Internet fax service? Well, services such as Efax.com start at about $13 per month for sending, and a desktop fax is almost free (you'll be charged for long-distance faxes). Desktop faxing also saves time: You can resume important tasks while your modem processes the transmission. It's faxing at your fingertips, and you've been able to do it all along.

Unreadable Ram

I added RAM (2 x 256MB) to total 1GB on my computer and ran the DirectX Diagnostic Tool to see if it picked up the new RAM, but it still says I have only 510MB. Do I need something to get it to show, or does DxDiag not read newly installed RAM?

Several things might be going on here. Some motherboards don't play well if you add memory to all the memory sockets. You need to look in your motherboard manual and check to see how many "banks" of memory it supports. Memory modules with chips on one side have one bank. If a module has chips on both sites, that usually means it has two banks. Some motherboards support a total of only six banks of memory, or even less.
So if your existing memory already used up four banks and you installed two more double-banked modules, that memory may not be visible. Or it may simply run more slowly.
Of course, there's always the possibility that your new modules are defective. You might try pulling your old modules out to see if the new ones actually work.