No More Junk Faxes, Please

Last week, faxed advertisements from Texas company Envarion were sent to 57 different counties in Indiana and garnered 1,842 complaints, which is the largest number of recorded infractions since the state’s Do Not Fax law was enacted in last year (source: InsideIndianaBusiness.com).

Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter is quoted as saying, “These fax offers are frustrating for business owners who bear the brunt of the costs of unsolicited junk faxes. We don’t want Indiana citizens wasting their time sorting through unwanted piles of paper each day. Home-based businesses also have the added frustration of interrupted privacy during the owners’ time spent with family.”

Realistically speaking, laws can only do so much. Despite the fact that we have laws that are supposed to deter people from despicable actions, there is a small minority who will break the rules for their own gain. That said, when a threat to our privacy and freedom exists, good sense dictates that we ought to take every measure available to prevent something bad from happening.

In other words, be proactive.

I strongly advocate using internet fax services. One of the biggest advantages of using an internet fax service is that your service provides you with an online interface that allows you to see where an incoming fax is coming from and who’s sending it. Your received faxes are stored on hosted web space that you can access through a login. This feature allows you to choose the faxes you wish to print and to delete the faxes that you suspect are junk. If you wish to tie your fax account to an email address, you can view the received fax in your inbox and easily delete junk faxes.

With an internet fax service, you are also able to alert your provider to junk faxers and easily block them, or simply choose not to print them. The service can potentially save you from a lot of grief and is as low as $10 a month, which is cheaper than the cost of a dedicated phone line.

For more information about online fax services, please visit FaxCompare.com.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

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Cost-efficient Web apps replace costly MS Office

We’re in a recession right now; so, who wants to spend $500 on software?

According to Time magazine, many companies and individual consumers still opt for costly software like Microsoft Office, though they rarely or never utilize all of the functions provided. An alternative to software, however, is making its way into the mainstream: web-based software.

Two notable providers of online software are Google Apps and Zoho, both of which offer downloadable word processors, spreadsheets, document management and presentation tools (among other things) that emulate the applications of Microsoft Office. And the best part about web-based software is that it’s completely free.

Most of us are used to MS Office—that’s why we keep coming back. I, for one, have downloaded a 90-day free trial of MS Office 2007 on my home computer, which allows me to use the most up-to-date software without spending a dime. Of course, if you opt to use a free trial, you must also remember to check the box that will prompt you to buy the software once your trial expires, instead of the one that will automatically renew your software and charge you.

But there are also advantages to browser-based applications.

“Because the applications reside on the Web, developers can quickly eliminated bugs and add bells and whistles, like the ability to insert headers, footers and pagination…” writes Anna Hamilton (Time).

Riding the trend train, Microsoft is expected to put out a free, light version of its software on the Web by 2010. It’s a long way off. When my MS Office free trial ends in January, I’m not planning on renewing my software. At least until Microsoft puts its apps online, we can utilize Google Apps and Zoho without hesitation.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

Why Wall-E Would Approve of E-Fax

The impending widespread transfer from analog to digital television next year spells doom for the e-waste recycling efforts that have recently been gaining momentum. But the fact that people are even talking about the impact of the switch on the environment reflects a growing trend of combating electronic waste.

(Austin, TX) August 1, 2008 – The ubiquitous recognition of the problem of e-waste recently culminated in the successful Disney-Pixar film Wall-E. But if the film’s main character were replaced with a young Indian or Chinese boy living, not in the distant future, but here in 2008, then perhaps the movie would have hit a bit closer to home.

Though Wall-E calls attention to the problem of e-waste, it leaves many unanswered questions about e-waste and what ought to be done about it.

What does a child do with a broken Nintendo DS, and more importantly, do his parents know what to do with it? A nationally (or sometimes even locally) systematized means of collecting e-waste does not exist. One hardly ever sees e-waste recycling bins around residential areas. However, some local volunteer e-waste recycling programs have sprung up around the nation. These programs are rare and speak of a general avoidance of recycling efforts.

According to G. Jeffery MacDonald in a special report for USA Today, Best Buy, Dell and Sony are among the few companies willing to take back non-functional products from customers for free. It is clear that as more people learn about the hazardous effects of e-waste, recycling efforts will continue to increase. But what should people do in the meantime?

A quite important action is to attempt to send electronics back the company or to resellers for possible refurbishment. Also, pundits have argued that checks and certification requirements should be imposed on e-waste recycling efforts to ensure ethical practices.

“The easiest, most cost-effective thing to do is to stop buying new electronics when possible, advises Gaines Kilpatrick, co-founder of online fax comparison website FaxCompare.com. “Telecommunications is a good place to start: Don’t buy new fax machines or phones, and use Internet fax and virtual private branch exchange (PBX) services. From a business standpoint, it’s cheaper; from an environmental standpoint, it’s the right thing to do.”

With websites, such as FaxCompare.com and PBXCompare.com, a website for hosted PBX services, Zilker Ventures has attempted to promote the virtual office over the office that is inundated with obsolescence-prone hardware..

Though e-waste has gone without lasting remedies, it is something that has inspired businesses to encourage alternatives. “Logically, if there are less unnecessary electronics floating around, there will be less waste for both the office and the environment,” says Zilker Ventures co-founder Leo Welder. “That’s not a simple solution, but it’s a simple start. That’s what we try to provide.”

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For additional information regarding the virtual office or Zilker Ventures, please visit our online fax website.

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Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.

Contact:

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC
(512) 448-9031

Going Green with Internet Fax: A Convenient Truth

Whoever said that fax machines aren’t really dead may have been right. How can you kill something that won’t die?

Austin, Texas (PRWEB) May 29, 2008 — Remember the final scene between Louis and Lestat in the 1994 movie Interview with the Vampire? Years after he’s explored the world and all it has to offer, Louis returns to a decrepit New Orleans house to find Lestat, the vampire who sired him, hiding in shadows and living a miserable existence. Lestat asks his former companion to rejoin him, but Louis refuses, obviously having moved on from a purposeless past.

Traditional fax machines and offices are not unlike Lestat and Louis. For years people have regarded their old fax machines with the same disdain that Louis has for Lestat, and now, businesses are parting ways with their long-used standards.

But leaving the fax machine behind is a process. Whoever said that fax machines aren’t really dead may have been right. How can you kill something that won’t die?
In the wake of new Internet fax services, such as eFax, MyFax and Ring Central, reports have surfaced of fax machines tucked into dusty office corners, hidden from sight, but still running and often used by businesses professionals who have not yet seen the light.

Experts call them “vampire loads”—energy-sucking devices that still consume wattage while lying dormant or idle. One of the most notorious of these devices is the fax machine, the Lestat of office equipment, which needs to be kept running in case it receives a fax.

“If you run a fax machine 24/7, you create 80 Kg of greenhouse gas per year in our area. That’s a lot considering how infrequently it’s actually used,” says DJ MacIntyre, President of renewable energy advocate Le Boisé Alternatives.

Greenhouse gases lead to global warming. Global warming leaves polar bears stranded on ice chunks. And the rest is history—literally, the most alarming environmental crisis in the books.

In addition to consuming energy, fax machines also use paper, which is too often wasted on unnecessary cover pages, fax reports and faulty fax transmissions. Internet fax industry leader MyFax recognizes this fact, reporting that “[if] 1% of all paper faxes sent in America each year were sent electronically, 73.5 million trees would be saved.”

Of course, there have been naysayers, people who have touted phrases like “the myth of the paperless society,” and arguments that electronic mediums have only increased paper usage.

But while paper waste has indeed proliferated in recent years, studies are now showing a decline. The speculated reasons have been various. Perhaps the post-Inconvenient Truth generation is simply becoming more serious about going green. Perhaps people are also more quickly embracing electronic copies, which can be saved on a computer or PDA and do not have to be printed.

This mobile aspect of email and electronic documents is appearing more and more desirable and environmentally responsible to consumers. People are also becoming more comfortable with Email fax or E fax services, especially since the majority of email servers and Internet fax sites provide secure archives of stored information that can be accessed “anywhere one can access the internet.”

Though there is not yet a paperless society, there is, instead, a myth that traditional fax machines are still desirable.

“[The] biggest challenge that people have is the lack of the familiarity of [electronic versions]. When people think of a fax, they think of a physical piece of paper and a machine that spits out… so there is a general reluctance or a bit of concern about what works—and that’s a concern up until people use the service,” says Steve Adams, Vice President of Marketing for Protus, owner of MyFax.

The truth is that the world is moving much faster than the naysayers would have people believe. Network connections are becoming more secure. Consumers are buying iPhones and Blackberries, carrying hundreds of electronic pages in their pockets. And we are supposed to believe that using a paper-jammed, whirring, buzzing energy-sucker is faster, more reliable and more convenient than the alternatives?

If the fax machine is still alive, it is, like Lestat, prone to abandonment. As MyFax says, “Fax online. Save a tree.” It doesn’t get any simpler.

Says Steve Adams: “[A] lot of people are surprised to see how easy it is once they get going.”

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For additional information regarding online fax services, visit FaxCompare.com.

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Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.

Contact:

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC
(512) 448-9031

Put the Bat Away: Fax Machines are Dead And the Internet Killed Them

The day a new fax machine arrives at the office is the final day that it’s not stressful. It’s also the final day that it’s full of ink and paper until more money is expended to maintain it. It’s all downhill from there—a paper-jammed, humming, screeching, migraine-inducing ride downhill. But thanks to the emergence of online services such as online fax services that can replace expensive workplace equipment, the small business owner can confidently take a baseball bat to his fax machine with a clean conscience. As the importance of email develops and the business world insists on holding on to fax machines, bridge technologies like internet fax services are becoming more and more common—a fact that FaxCompare.com strives to underscore.

There are currently lots of fax providers in this industry ranging from five-employee offices to Fortune 500 leaders. Some of these fax providers include MyFax, RingCentral and TrustFax. J2 Global Communications is a Fortune 500 leader that handles several internet fax service sites, such as Rapid Fax and Fax.com, but their most well known brand is eFax. confronted with a wide selection of service options, fax users may find the process of choosing a service to be an unwanted stress to their business.

The current void of detailed information regarding internet fax services prompted Zilker Ventures, LLC to offer FaxCompare.com. After much uninformative searching, Leo Welder, founder and COO of Zilker Ventures, LLC, signed up for an online fax service that he later had to cancel because it was lacking some components that were essential for Zilker Ventures, LLC. This experience persuaded Leo that the online fax service market was a perfect arena for an informative review site.

Further verifying the desire for helpful information and reviews was the discovery that eFax, the market’s most well known leader, charges 70% more than the ‘Market Standard’ and includes fewer pages than their foremost competitors.

‘Market Standard’ for an online fax service according to FaxCompare.com is $10 per month for 300 pages with no start up fee, a 30 day free trial and overage pages for $0.10 per page or less. At those prices, six months of service fees will cost substantially less than most traditional fax machines.

In addition to its ‘Market Standard,’ FaxCompare.com offers thorough eFax reviews and other eFax comparison information, including ‘need to know’ comparison data regarding eFax service fees. As almost all of the advertising for these services is done on the web, most of the information regarding online fax services is provided by the providers themselves.

Internet faxing will certainly relieve faxers in the future. And by discovering more about this emerging business tool fax senders can maximize benefits and minimize cost. As founder Leo Welder puts it: “With great options like MyFax and RingCentral, unwitting consumers paying above market service fees is clearly the result of a lack of information. We hope to provide that information with FaxCompare.com.”

For more information regarding online fax services, visit www.FaxCompare.com.

Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.

Contact:

Jen Udan
Zilker Ventures, LLC
pr@zilkerventures.com
http://www.zilkerventures.com