Number 223 - December 2001

Faxing with Cable
by Don Edrington, (MrPCChat@aol.com) - October 2001
In response to a recent column saying that cable and DSL connections are not capable of sending and receiving faxes, Marla Vance wrote to say that she uses her cable modem to connect to the Internet and uses her dial-up modem to send and receive faxes all the time. Well, I had a cable modem installed over the weekend and found I can do the same. \~With a dial-up connection, you can be online with your ISP or you can do faxing; but not both at the same time. With a cable connection you can.     By the way, I'm still using 32Bit Fax, which can be freely downloaded from www.electasoft.com. I've been using the program for over a year and a half and have been very satisfied with the way it works. However, when I recently installed the beta version of Windows XP, the faxing software was trashed, as were several other of my most-used programs. (I assume Microsoft will have this fixed before the finished version of XP goes on sale in October.)     Anyway, upon reinstalling 32Bit Fax, I discovered that it can be set up as a single-user program, or as a multi-user "network" application. Since Windows \~XP has been designed to be used in a network environment, I chose that option for the faxing program and am very pleased with the way it works. Things to Expect in Windows XP     Speaking of WinXP, here are a few more things its users can expect to find. With previous versions of Windows, we've all learned that the opening screen is called the "desktop" and have always been able to return to it quickly and easily from wherever we might be on our hard drive. With WinXP you will have two	or more "desktops" depending on how many users you tell it will be using the system. The same goes for frequently used folders such as My Documents and My Download Files. Other features that you've become accustomed to finding in just one place will also be divided up among multiple locations. It does take some getting used to. WinX Has Built-In CD Burning.     One of the programs that WinXP killed was Adaptec Creator, used for burning CDs. However, I discovered that WinXP has its own built-in CD burning software, which works just fine. WinXP also has built-in "zipping" software,which means you don't need to have WinZip in your system.     I've heard that other software providers are complaining that WinXP will be cutting into their sales by providing similar built-in programs; most notably Eastman Kodak, who cites WinXP's digital camera software as a clone of theirs. Voice Recognition Built-In to MS Word XP     Speaking of XP products, I've been using MS Office XP for a while and will soon be reporting on some of its advanced features, as I learn more about them. I'm particularly curious as to how well its MS Word voice recognition software works. I've used Dragon Naturally Speaking in the past and want to see how they compare. I'll let you know.     All of this year's and last year's PC Chats can be found at www.pcdon.com. The site is currently being rebuilt, however, so please fogive any broken links or missing graphics that are still being reconstructed.
Number 223 - December 2001