Im not too keen on having to send over a "custom cover sheet" to the person who wants to send me a fax. Really seems more of a hassle than anything. To me, its worth $10/month or whatever it is now for a fax to email service than have to waste time doing that and inconveniencing the person who has to send it to me to wait for my email/fax/whatever before being able to fax me a document. And what about people who print documents to fax like I do occasionally?

To receive a fax into your drop:

1. Go to your drop and click 'receive a fax'
2. Email the cover sheet to the person sending the fax to your drop OR click 'this coversheet' and send the custom drop.io cover sheet to the person sending the fax
3. The sender must put the drop.io cover-page on top of the fax.

I can see as an outgoing fax, this would work. But as for incoming, its way too much headaches. I guess you get what you pay for.

Lazarus

@Joseph:

(brandishes gun and shouts) TELECOM RAGE!!!! ;)

Unfortunately I still have to support a FAX infrastructure as something like 70% of businesses are too stuck in the dark ages to make the (much needed) switch to digital nirvana.

If this service is worth anything I might actually be able to make use of it.

jglessner

@Joseph: They say it was corrupted by demons decades ago =O

Victor V.

What's a fax?

Joseph

I'm still waiting for the day that all fax machines get the "send to email address" option.

Oh yeah, I suppose I'm also waiting for PEOPLE to be ready for this. I was just working with a salesperson at a vendor the other day who said "fax it to me, don't email it to me; I don't like email". I had to do a sanity check against my calendar to confirm it is indeed the year 2008.

ww2db.com

This isn't meant for a professional business solution. This is designed for what the rest of the site is designed for, which is securely transfering files. I've used their service many times, (yet not the fax part) and it works well when you are in a situation where you need to setup a quick fix.

When someone needs a file you have, but its a zip file, can't use Gmail, use this.

Have a small group of people that you need to quick share some documents with? Don't bother setting up a Google group for a one-time deal, use this.

Did you get caught in a tight situation and need to make files accessible RIGHT NOW and don't have time to make sure everyone involved has an account with whichever service you choose? Use this.

Sure, it has it's faults, but when you remember it's intended purpose, it does it all perfectly. it DROPS files somewhere, so you or someone else can get them later. Does it do that? You betcha.

Keeter

this would be a good way to print something on the fly. like from your hotel room, to the front desk

johngute

hi guys - this is sam from drop.io - thanks for the post and the comments.

We agree with Lazarus that needing to use our cover page to fax into a drop is a bit cumbersome, but it was the only way we could make the 'fax in' service free. It was a trade off - and over time we will have other options if you are willing to pay a few dollars a year. That said, it is a good solution if you want free fax (we use it ourselves)

we totally admit and agree that the 'fax out' is a much smother process on the site

Keeter, thanks for the kind words about drop.io - you nailed it - fax is just another 'Input' and 'Output' for us on our service. After all, there really is no difference to us if you upload a document into your drop from our site, from our widgets, via email, mms, or even fax - it is all the same document...

we have a lot more coming (same focus on simple private sharing) and are honored that lifehacker calls us 'innovative'

lessin

I'll be keeping an eye on this. I still use j2 for my free faxing in-and-out but this may be a better alternative if they can make faxing in easier as j2 isn't always reliable.

JuryDuty

@lessin: Thanks for recognizing the downside to this as well as explaining why its that way. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that people at a company are actually reading potential customer feedbacks. (I love customer oriented companies)

Lazarus

@lessin: I just wanna gush for a moment.... I luuuurve your service. Easy, fast and free!! No I'm not a paid shill I just love the site.

saketini99

sounds like this is potentially useful for some.

for those who need to receive faxes semi-regularly, i suggest k7.net - has worked great for me and is free. for sending outbound faxes, i swear by faxzero. it sends faxes of a few pages for free. longer faxes are just $1.99 via paypal. very solid for those of use who need to fax once in a while.

mjk6986

@mjk6986, ita k7.net for free incoming faxes (and a free voicemail account, as well, btw), and faxzero free out-bound faxes. That's the exact combination I wound up with when I had to identify my free faxing options.

I have a note to self in my gcal to phone the k7 number every 4th Monday and leave myself a message, just to keep that number alive.

Tegan

Great concept but faxing out and receiving a fax doesn't work for me. Faxed to my drop yesterday afternoon and it hasn't arrived overnight. Sent a doc via fax and 15 min. later fax machine hasn't received it. I'm following the directions as written.

Fitwit

Isn't this post a little late? Drop.io faxing has been available for weeks.

kiwinerdgrrl

@Fitwit: I've had similar trouble with the fax in. Tried twice, both failed. I wrote to drop.io support, and they replied very quickly, suggesting that the fax resolution is insufficient to allow their OCR system to read the cover sheet. I'm not about to try to troubleshoot the sending party's fax resolution issues if I need a fax sent to me. It's a great idea, but doesn't cut it.

danielo