[wellylug] Fax Servers and Why I (didn't) choose WinFax

[Jo Booth]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 22:24:45 +1200, Phillip Hutchings <sitharus at sitharus.com> wrote:

> As an example, Apple MacOS 10.3 Server has full GUI tools for DNS, Apache,
> SysAdmin and quite a few other things. Everything can be done point and
> click. Linux needs to take a few ideas from Mac on ease of use.
>My Mac cost $3000 plus two ~$240 OS upgrades. It has built in fax send/receive stuff, and it >uses OSS fax software with a GUI. You pay for it. A new eMac costs ~$1500. My linux server cost >me $800. See the difference? I expect to get more when I buy a Mac because of the price, and I do.

Aye.  I have a dirt cheap G3/333Mhz Strawberry iMac answering the fax (distinctive ring), serving files, and storing my music for me on an easy NFS mount.  All out of the box -- emails me a PDF of the fax, and prints a copy, as well as archiving it all.  All I did was tick two boxes and unpack a file into a directory. It even speaks out "Jo, you have a new fax from XYZ", and tells me the time when I yell out "iMac, whats the time?".  It also runs a a couple of standards compliant browsers, has a tendancy to serve a few php pages when I need an "external server"... and way more.  Plus i've never bothered to attach a keyboard and mouse since I set it up 5 months ago.  Never needed to.
If you want one (or three) -- $420 and it's yours (email me off list) - complete with Panther (OS X 10.3) installed.  Nice GUI, and even better CLI :) - as well as all the usual good Apple stuff.  If you really want to feel good - try out Panther Server.  mmmm.

Beat that, and i'll buy a PC to run my open source software ;)

--
Jo 'Mangee' Booth
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