

 32 BIT Software for Windows NT


 Ambrose Campbell uses NT v.3.5 client as his primary operating system.
 He has been contributing his experiences to the various Windows
 conferences around the nets.  Other 32 bit software evaluation and
 review articles will follow as they make their way to market and to
 Ambrose's desktop.

 TELECOM FAX PERSONAL..an evaluation        (c)1995 by Ambrose Campbell

 I had heard that there was a fax program for the NT Workstation and decided
 to give it a try. The name of that fax program is Telcom Fax Personal
 v2.0. Telecom Fax Personal comes on a single 1.4MB floppy diskette that
 includes a small manual.  Installation was a snap, with not much left
 for the user to do. Even so, setup caused me to pause a bit. During the
 Installing the Print-to-Fax driver portion there was an omission of a
 step regarding setting up the printer.  After staring at the manual for
 a few moments, the infamous comic strip light bulb came alive.

 Setting up the Print to Fax Driver

 The following procedure is another variation of establishing a
 specialized driver as the default printer on a computer system.  After
 the driver is installed it becomes one of several options in a drop
 down box to be selected when printing to fax from a spreadsheet, a word
 processor, etc.  In this case, in the Print To box, at step 16, I
 needed to install a port by selecting "other".  This gave me a Print
 Destinations box at which point I selected "other" and typed in the
 path to the Telcom Fax Print to Fax Files (ptf) location in my case
 c:\programs\tfp20\ptf. I was then given the option to select the new
 port called "LTC Print-to-Fax".  There is a note at the end of the
 driver installation saying that some systems would not recognize the
 printer until the system is restarted. Therefore I restarted the
 printer, to be on the safe side, before I tried out the 32 bit faxing
 software.

 With a document in MS Word for NT, I selected the Fax Printer as my
 printer and promptly received a message that said no printer was
 installed.  I then went into note pad and composed a test fax to my
 office without any problems. I restarted the system, and Word NT several
 times only to get the message that there was no printer installed when
 trying to print from File/Print. With nothing else left to try, I hit
 the print icon on the tool bar and was meet with the popup windows to
 the fax program! You figure it! After that I was able to fax with no
 problem. I restarted to system just to see if the fax program would work
 in Word NT. Word NT handled the faxing task with no problems when
 switching from the fax printer driver to the laser printer driver and
 then back again.  Had to have been a fluke. The program is a straight
 forward fax program. You can print to the fax from a Windows application
 or use the fax software to compose your own fax from within the fax
 manager. There is also an address book that is of good quality, - a
 feature I unfortunately don't need.

 Quite frankly it is great having a FAX program for NT as this is one of
 the few things I have sorely missed since going exclusively to NT.

 One of the nagging problem that I will talk to the developers about is
 the fax software releasing the modem for normal use without restarting
 the system. The fax software doesnt disengage from the hardware when
 it finishes sending.  As a result I am running two modems to deal with
 this problem because of our heavy message requirements. Not every one
 will have this unusual need or would want to justify the cost.  Or am I
 happy with this flaw!

 I have since found out that in order to reset the modem  for normal use
 with a communications program, the server function must be halted in
 the fax administrator. It's not sufficient to close the fax
 administrator as Telcom Fax is still running in memory. One must
 actually shut off the modem. Talked to the lead development person and
 he promises revision of the manual in reference to setting up the com
 port. He will also add instructions of how to start the fax program
 automatically by using the services icon in the NT control panel and
 will add a button that stays on the active title bar that will allow
 the fax program to be turned off/on.

 I will be getting a demo of Executive Software Defrag program for
 Windows NT Workstation 3.5. I have a data packet from them but wont
 comment on it until I actually get the software which I have ordered. I
 understand part of the NT Kernel already has their software built in and
 hope to talk about it soon.

 I ordered Telecom Fax Personal direct from from:

 Rainbow Technologies
 142 Helfer Lane
 Mineola, New York 13116
 315-673-0122
 Fax: 315-673-1820

 The Personal version costs $129.00 + s/h
 A Server version is available.
 VISA or MasterCard





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