In these kinds of situations, sending a fax for free as quickly as possible would certainly be useful. In this article, we’re taking a look at 4 websites that let you send fax online and come with a free or trial version.

1. faxZERO

The first one on our list is faxZERO. faxZERO allows you to send two free faxes a day, to the United States or Canada, as long as they don’t contain more than three pages each. Plus there is an ad on the cover page. Out of all the services we tested, faxZERO is the easiest to use and the only one that didn’t require creating an account.

faxZERO also has a premium service that charges 1.99$ for each fax and limits the number of pages per fax at fifteen. If you need to send more than two faxes a day and you don’t want to pay for the premium service, you could consider deleting your browser cache and cookies and using another IP address, either through the TOR network, proxies or simply by resetting your router.

2. Qipit

Qipit is a more comprehensive service when compared to faxZERO. Instead of being just an online faxing service, Qipit helps you upload photos of documents, business cards or receipts from a mobile phone or digital camera, and improves the image quality through a patented technology called Realeyes3D. Next images can be emailed or faxed.

The images you upload are stored online on Qipit’s servers and are also accessible online via the website.

You can upload photos via MMS, email or directly from your computer using the web interface.

Once your document is on Qipit, you can choose to either view a PDF version of it, email the document or fax it. Qipit’s image optimization technology proved to be quite powerful. I never expected that a photo taken with a mobile phone camera could actually be put to use.

The great thing about Qipit is that it’s free:

Qipit is a free service; this includes sending domestic and international faxes. The costs that you have to bare are related to what your wireless carrier charges you if you are using Qipit with your mobile device. –Qipit FAQ.

3. ScanR

ScanR, a service similar to Qipit. The trial subscription gives you only one upload and fax, but the premium account is only 4,99$/month or 29,99$/year. ScanR features OCR (optical character recognition), a slightly better designed interface and sharing capability.

An interesting quote from their help pages suggest that some fax numbers are restricted:

scanR currently sends fax to most phone numbers in East Asia, North America and Western Europe. scanR may block certain premium phone numbers and countries[…] –ScanR Help

You get the same uploading capabilities, via email, MMS or web interface.

Another cool feature of Scanr is that you can use is to convert document pictures that were obtained using you cell phone camera to a properly formatted document. Very useful for things like page captures from library books and lecture notes.

eFax

Another faxing service is eFax. With eFax, you can also receive faxes, but unfortunately it requires you sign up for a 30 day trial using a credit card.

Know about other free tool to send fax online? Let us know in the comments.

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At its simplest, drop.io is a place to store files on the Internet. You create “drops” filled with files, photos, audio, video and more that you can share with other people. There’s a 100MB limit on a given drop, but you can purchase more space if you want. Typically, though, 100MB is plenty- that’s an awful lot of PDFs and Word documents.

Every drop has a 7+ character name, and can be accessed, shared, and dealt with however you want. You can set the drop to be password protected, and even edit it later from your own account. Drops aren’t searchable, which means you’ll maintain the privacy of your files, and they’ll only be seen by the people who are supposed to see them.

In addition to all that, though, there are a ton more features that make drop.io unique. The feature list is gigantic, and there are a ton of features to make drops work for you. Here are eight ways to use drop.io to do more than just hold files.

1. Phone Drops and Drop Conferencing

For a long time, I used Jott to record all my random whims and thoughts – just call a number, record your message, and it gets saved for you. Then Jott got un-free. With drop.io, you can do the same thing Jott used to do. Every drop has a unique phone number- just call it, leave a message, and it’ll show up in your drop as an MP3 that you can listen to, download, or send to others. There’s also no time limit on your voicemails, like there was with Jott- your only limitation is the file size limit of the MP3.

Drop.io is also a really useful collaboration tool, both for file-sharing and discussing. Every drop, in addition to a voicemail number, has a unique conference number that you can give to people to call. Get everyone on the line, and you can discuss the files in the drop, manipulate them, and use drop.io as your project center. It’s free conferencing, and creates a central point for all of your dealings with a particular file or project.

2. Drop Tweeting

One drawback many people see in Twitter is that there’s no good way to share files with your followers on Twitter. Drop.io makes that process not only possible, but simple. Drop.io calls it Tweet.io, and it works like this: you enter your Twitter credentials into the drop.io page. Then, every time you add or update a file on the drop, a link to it will automatically be posted to your Twitter account. That means, for instance, that if you want to share a song with the Twitter world, just add it to your drop, and Twitter users will be able to listen to it with one click. To get here, select “Twitter Alerts” from the “Share” menu in your drop.

3. Back-up Space

This is possibly the simplest use for drop.io. You can add files to a drop by email (every drop has a unique email address), voicemail, fax, the web interface, a Firefox extension, or an embeddable widget. You’ve got 100MB per drop, with no limit on the number of drops you can have. To make them totally private, make sure to make them password-protected. Then, to keep them limited only to yourself, keep that password private. The number of drops you have could get big, though, so you may not want drop.io to be your only backup solution.

4. Drop Fax Machine

I don’t have a fax machine. I don’t need one very often, but every once in a while it’s a really useful thing to have. With drop.io fax, you can send and receive faxes right from the web. Just right-click on the file you want to send, and choose “fax”. Then, enter the number, and presto – they get a fax. To receive one is a bit more complicated, but totally possible – just follow drop.io’s instructions.

5. Drop Huge Attachments

Even if you use drop.io, odds are it might be too much for someone you know. For them, if they use email, you can still keep them involved. Emailing files out of drop.io is as simple as finding your file, clicking “send,” and then “email recipient.” They’ll get the file as an attachment, plus the link- which makes sure that they’ll get access to files of any size. It’s great for sending music, videos, or other large files you might not be able to send through email- but still dealing with email, which everyone’s comfortable with.

6. Drop to Facebook

Thanks to Facebook Connect, drop.io and Facebook are now totally connected. That means a number of really cool things: you can leave a voicemail to your Facebook feed for your friends to listen to, or fax things to your Facebook friends. With drop.io, Facebook has become a way to socially collaborate on files, and to share things you like with other people. No linking to download sites, making them download software, or other confusion- just fire up Facebook Connect, and your drops can be as involved with Facebook as you want. For more, check out drop.io’s Facebook page.

7. Drop Family Photo Albums

Drop.io’s support for photos is pretty fantastic. The viewer is good, the uploading quick, and the use of the drops easy. It’s as simple as uploading the images you want, and selecting “View” from the options. The view option (blog, media, etc.) you choose is up to you. Then, click on one of the images, and select the arrows to scroll through them. You can also share, embed, or comment on any given image.

8. Drop Insta-podcast

I’ve mentioned all of the things relevant here, but this is worth noting again. Here’s how simple it can be to make a podcast: one phone call. Call your drop’s number, leave a message, and boom- podcast. Or, upload a video, view it like a blog, and it’s a weekly podcast. How you create a podcast is up to you, but sharing it with the world couldn’t be easier- thanks to drop.io.

I’ve barely scratched the surface here of all the things drop.io can do. There are RSS feeds, SMS alerts, Dropcasts, and a huge number of other features that make drop.io a killer sharing application. I’ve learned a lot about it as I’ve been researching and writing this post, and I’m pretty sure I’ve become a life convert to drop.io.

Do you use drop.io, for backup or something else? Do you use a similar application? Tell us about them in the comments.

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So today, let’s take a look at my Skype and two of the features I have found useful.

Record your Skype calls with PowerGramo

After a disasterous experience with Pamela Recorder, I next turned to PowerGramo and I have never had any cause to be disappointed. PowerGramo is a small software program which you can use to record your Skype telephone conversations. Unlike Pamela, PowerGramo runs silently and automatically in the background and the person whom you’re speaking to will never know they’re being recorded.

Calls are initially recorded as “PGA” files (PowerGramo’s own file format) and from there, you can convert the audio file into MP3, OGG and WAV (although MP3 files need a “lame.dll” encoder file which I can give you a copy of if you like). The sound quality is also crystal clear.

Upgrading to the paid version, you can also record conference calls (the free version limits you to recording conversations with only one other person)

The only problem I have found with PG is that if you run several Skype programs at the same time (under different Windows accounts), PowerGramo crashes (maybe because you have to connect a specific Skype account to the program and if you run other Skype ID’s at the same time, the program doesn’t know what to do). I often run up to 4 Skype lines at the same time and during those times, I have had to shut down PowerGramo. I have reported the bug to the company but have not received an answer to date.

Another little niggly thing is that PGA files can be pretty big in size so converting it to another file format is a must. When I convert my audio files to mp3’s, they are often more than half the size of the original PGA file!

How PowerGramo has helped me: Since I partly use Skype for business calls, I’ve often found that keeping a recording of a phone call helps when chasing bad debts or negotiating agreements. In a “he says, she says” situation, having a MP3 file of the phone call can make the problem go away instantly or the call recording can be used in court as evidence if you’re collecting a bad debt. Which is why I like the fact that PowerGramo doesn’t warn the other person they’re being recorded, unlike Pamela Recorder, which broadcasts it far and wide.

Send faxes on Skype with PamFax

I was overjoyed when this feature was rolled out as I have never been able to afford a fax machine and I lost track of the number of times when business clients asked me to fax them something, and upon hearing I had no fax machine, they virtually asked me if I was an amateur or a professional. So PamFax comes as a welcome relief. OK, you can’t receive faxes with this service, you can only send them. But hey, it’s a step in the right direction.

You have to download a small program and from there, it’s an easy step-by-step process. The cost of sending the fax is taken out of your Skype credit, there are no up-front or recurring costs, and you can get a status report of your fax’s progress by Skype chat, SMS or email.

The only problem is that, as I have said, you can’t receive faxes through Pamfax so if you send a fax and the other person tries to fax you back, it will fail. Strictly one way.

How PamFax has helped me: Obtaining new business clients by being able to fax back important documents quickly such as signed contracts, completed work and confidentiality agreements. Being able to fax documents also makes you look a little more professional – that is unless they try to fax you back then the whole professionalism thing goes right out the window!

Tomorrow, we’ll be looking at some more ways to build up your Skype application, including taking a look at the Extras Manager and the programs being used by Skype API developers.

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer, proofreader, editor and blogger. Check out his blog at http://www.betterthantherapy.net

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