Re: flexfax: Setting up a Hylafax system.

[Nico Kadel-Garcia <raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, Lou wrote:

> Hello Nico,
> 
> Thank you so much for the speedy response!
> 
> I appreciate the input and will follow up on some of the information that
> you have provided.

Hey, no problem! I may also have some consulting time available over
the next month or two if you need it, especially if we can get the
next HylaFAX release finally out the door. (I love freeware, but the
desire to support and upgrade it vs. doing my day job is always a
conflict for me).

> PS. I forgot to mention that if you write to me, please address it directly
> to louv@crutchfiel.com. We have an e-mail server that all messages go
> through. When clicking on reply the message goes into our sales pool. Not a
> big problem, but it throws the guys(and gals) in the web sales dept. for
> loop! I really appreciate the speedy response.

Ahh. This is also addressable. Either mentioning that the reply
should go to you individually, or adding a "Reply-To:" field to
your email that says "louv@crutchfield.com" would let people
hit "reply" more easily. That may be a pesky thing to set up
correctly for all uses, of course!

I have some more specific thoughts for you. I'm also sending this note
to the HylaFAX list so that they enter the mailing list archives for
other people to use.

> > 	3. Faxing is done at customer request, i.e. lost manual or invoice, and
> > requests for sales quotes.

This could in theory be automated: but it could potentially become expensive
when people accidentally request large faxes or if you annoy a prankster
who will tie up your fax lines. 

> > A.	Manuals(30 - 40 per day) can be lengthy(some are 80+ pages), rarely is
> > full manual faxed.

There are some configuration fields you'd want to change, such as
"MaxSendPages" and "MaxRecvPages" to send such large faxes.

> > B.	Manuals are in PDF format.

"pdf2ps" is available as part of the more recent versions of the
default ghostscript installation required for HylaFAX, and will
convert PDF to postscript easily for fax transmission. It's *bulkier*
and takes time: since disk is fairly cheap, it might be more efficient
to pre-convert all your PDF documents to Postscript and leave that
accessible for your sales staff to select the faxable documents more
directly.

> > C.	Manual requests may not include all pages.

This can be handled at the postscript stage with "ghostview" or other
tools selecting pages, which are also available at various freeware
locations (mentioned on my HylaFAX installation notes at
http://cirl.meei.harvard.edu/hylafax/)

> Not that I'm aware of, but it seems quite feasible with the current state of
> the software. Talk to www.vix.com, that provide an electronic faxing service
> based on HylaFAX.
> > How would one determine the number of fax lines needed, and how easy or
> > difficult is it to add lines to Hylafax?
> 
> Attachment is trivial. Adding modem lines to your server is the
> expensive/hard part, depending on your server hardware and OS.

I've been thinking about this. The correct way to estimate it is to
examine your telephone bill and the current number of faxes sent vs. the
price of telephone lines. Since your modem lines may also wind up being
used for dial-in by your own people, you'll want to examine whether to
support that as well.

In general, however, I'd try to shift to sending people email with the
documents (and being able to support a set of standard configurations
for them), or making the documents easily web accessible. Fax
documents are notorious for poor resolution and losing details: making
them electronically accessible and well organized puts the burden of
printing costs on your customers, where it resides anyway with their
fax machines, and takes it off of your fax service.

> > Does the conversion definition to TFF files work with PDF successfully?(I
> > would think so from the Hylafax web site, but would like to confirm this).
> 
> Not directly. PDF to Postscript tools are broadly available on the net,
> including as part of ghostscript, but would add a significant processing
> step that will somewhat load your servers. Not a hell of a lot you can do
> about that in any case: there is no direct PDF to tiffg3 converter that I've
> ever heard of.

And I've been thinking about this: it would be a very modest update to 
add this feature to a ghostscript and HylaFAX installation, less than
a day of technical time with any luck. Then it could be added to the
HylaFAX code permanently.

			Nico Kadel-Garcia
			Senior Engineer, CIRL 
			Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary
			raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBOBBcQj/+ItycgIJRAQGKEQP/QEMUP9hMlifhq9g93fGZ0PCV5WRoyjQk
kxps0DQR8D0LK+f1oLyPo2nh/jj5WtTYPjNzEegKf/aL/2vzJ72myzZzA4Y55G9h
ivv8661y2TICH9p1e17+fz3St+3E8nnxHPinxWnlkeVJJWHi4p77QyC4z97qhkMz
ZfQecs0+ks8=
=G3vw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----