Computer Telephony Awards

Computer Telephony- OUR 1996 PRODUCTS OF THE YEAR

BLACK ICE ICES THOSE FAX BILLS

Black Ice Software (Amherst, NH- 603-673-1019) sells some excellent fax and image management programming toolkits for Windows 3.X, 95 and NT. All kinds of neat solutions for sundry app-gen problems.

We like Black Ice’s Internet Fax Server and SendFAX client software for Windows 3.1x, 95 and Nt. It lets you set up a server that charges users back for local phone calls. The Internet Fax Server is scaleable- 99 servers can be networked and expanded from 100 to an unlimited number of users.

To get things going, the system administrator installs the server software on a Windows 95 PC with a TCP/IP stack loaded, then configures it for each department’s needs.

Presumably, your administrator understands the concept of a "Domain Name" and knows how to set up e-mail accounts, since the SendFAX Client server domain name must be set to "localhost" in "Server Folder - Server dialog box Domain Name=localhost" and a "hosts" file in the Windows 95 directory must have an entry of "127.0.0.1 localhost".

The Fax Server connects to the Internet through an ordinary Mail POP3 Server. It receives faxes from the Internet and verifies this to the sender. If the sender is an authorized user, the server places the fax to the fax queue.

To complete the installation process, you install the SendFAX client software like any other Windows app. The client and the server become logically linked to each other through an unique User ID string. This ID string can be the user’s IP address or the system administrator can arbitrarily assign one to the user.

Using the SendFAX client software is no more complicated than Windows printing. You print from any Windows app to the SendFAX client driver the same way as any desktop fax software (like Delrina WinFax Pro, for example).

You can select a destination from the included phone book before faxing, whereupon the fax is routed to the remote fax server for faxing. You’ll always have up-to-date status information about the fax sent, such as when it was sent out and the fax’s queue position. If it fails, you’ll hear why.