Some cards like the Sierra Wireless AirCards support the sending and receiving faxes. You need to check out the FAQ for your specific Sierra Wireless AirCard. You will need to specify that the fax will be sent or received using the AirCard. You need software like WinFax Pro and need to configure it to work with the AirCard. You need to check with your ISP to see if they support Fax services (not all do).

Source

In the case of other cards you will need to check the cards specifications. Most cards should be able to support fax transmission with the appropriate software, like WinFax Pro or others. In some case you might consider a gateway or a fax service where you send e-mail and the service converts it to fax format and transmits if for you.

We are often asked what laptop would be best for my needs. This question really needs to be answered by buyer. It depends upon your needs and what applications you are going to be running on the laptop.

Some general guidelines for the various things people do with their laptop and what hardware is needed follows:

Word Processing requires minimal RAM and HD and CPU. You can't type faster than a Pentium 90 and even an older $200 Pentium 2 laptop is fine for word processing.

E-mail requires the minimal amount of CPU speed, RAM etc. The speed of the connection is more important, but still does not matter much if you are only sending text messages back and forth. Even a 28.8 modem works fine for e-mail.

Web browsing works fine one even a Pentium 2 laptop with 64MB RAM. 128MB is preferred and is fine for most situations. Again the type of connection to the Internet is more important than the hardware. DSL or Cable Modem are far faster than a modem.

Excel requires minimal CPU, RAM and HD unless you are a power Excel user with huge spreadsheets then you might need lots of RAM, a fast CPU and a big Hard Drive.

Music is again does not require much in the way of CPU or processor, but if you have a lot of songs a large Hard Drive (at least 20GB is ok and 40GB is better).

Photography might require both a fast CPU, lots of RAM and lots of Hard Drive Storage. If you are using an intense application to edit the photos and take it very serious look at the software's requirements. If you take thousands of photos then you would need a large Hard Drive (20GB minimum, 40GB preferred). You might even consider and external Hard Drive for extra storage and would want a CDRW to burn the photos.

If you are a gamer, then all bets are off, depending upon which game you play. If you use the latest games then a very fast CPU, a graphics chip and as much as 2GB RAM might be needed.

If you are in doubt about what your applications need then go to the software vendors website and check out the Minimum Systems Requirements. That will show you the needed CPU, RAM, HD space and any other special requirement the specific application might require.

The rule of thumb in the laptop service business is that the cost of the warranty should be 15% of the list price of the laptop. So, for a $500 laptop this would mean that a one year warranty would cost $75. This seem a bit expensive and means that the cost of the refurbished laptop has increased the $575. Actually the warranty is 90 days, so the 9 month extension is more than $50, which still seems expensive. We offered such warranties for year and people rarely took them.

If the laptop shows up and works ok then you can typically expect it to work a year or more. Especially, if it is mostly kept in one place. The first 30 days is the most critical period. If you move it around a lot then the hard drive, the weakest link, at some time may have some issues. These days low end, brand new laptops, Dells cheapest as an expample, only include a 90 day warranty.

Should your laptop have a problem after the warranty period, we at UsedLaptops.com, as an example can often repair it for $50. We have lots of parts for the laptops we have sold over the years, so the parts are inexpensive. It costs $20 to ship it to us and $20 for us to ship it back, so the cost would be $100. Out of the hundreds of laptops we sell per month only 2-3 our of 100 seem to have service related issues. Often we can mail a part, sometimes the unit needs to be sent back.

Most laptops include built-in 16-bit sound sound chips. This is old technology and sound improvement has been mostly ignored by the laptop vendors. If you want to hear 16-bit sound or learn about the basics of PC Based Audio and Audio Files.

You can upgrade your laptop's sound with the USB Laptop Upgrade Kit for $60. You only need a 450 MHz laptop with 128 MB RAM and Windows 98 SE. You get a USB Audio Adapter and a set of Noise Canceling Headphones.

If you have at least a P3 CPU with 256MB RAM then for $129.99 the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook PCMCIA card can bring great sound to your laptop. You can add Home Theater sound quality for all your music, movies, and games. Check out the December 2004 PC Magazine review.

Echo Digital Corporation makes three soundcards using the Type II CardBus interface: the basic Indigo ($159), which has a single set of 24-bit/96kHz-capable stereo outputs; the Indigo DJ ($229), with two sets of 24/96-capable stereo outputs; and the Indigo IO ($229), with one set of stereo outputs but also a two-channel analog input. The IO uses a 24-bit, 128x-oversampling A/D converter running at sample rates from 32kHz to 96kHz, and because of its applicability to, for example, the archiving of LPs, it's the one I requested for review. This came from a review by Stereophile.

Death and Taxes are Inevitable. Data Loss Doesn't Have To Be. According to an April 2003 article written by Imation, a leading data storage company, a survey of PC owners found only twenty five percent said they frequently backed up their data.

I am as guilty as the next person. A few weeks ago I had a gliche in the Eudora e-mail program I have been using the last ten years on my laptop at home. It wiped out a lot of the e-mails that I have been storing. It could have been worse, as my laptop at work is backed up to our server. However, it got me to thinking how important backup is and so I decided to write this article for the 80% that are like me that do not regularly back up.

So, the first thing I did in writing this new addition to the used laptop blog was to research the best backup software packages. Not surprising I did not find the free Micrsoft backup utility that comes with the Window Operating System. I have been using it irregularly and don't find it particulary endearing.

The December 23, 2004 PC World Article, led me to Argentum Backup 2.1. So, I downloaded their free trial copy and am testing it as I write this article. It got the PC World best buy award and is very inexpensive at $25. My initial impression is that it is very, very easy to use. A critical factor for those 80% that don't backup. I am writing this article as it backs up my precious data and it I hardly notice it is running other than the noise on my external USB hard drive. So, it takes little in the way of system resources. It seems designed for the beginner in that it has templates to backup the Windows registry, the Windows shell settings, outlook folders and even the database of your favorite messenger application, like MSN or AIM. You can either back up manually or automatically, which requires no regular effort. Most people should set up a schedule and allow it to happen without any effort on their part.

Wow! Argentum just finished backing up and I looked on my USBDrive E: and the data appears to be all there. I will continue to use it and give you and update in a few months to provide some longer term feedback.

Check out Backup Sofware Reviews.

Other programs that I found by searching for "backup software" reviews 2004 are Genie Backup Manager Professional 5.0 and Dantz Retrospect. I had used the Danz program a few years ago, but can't remember why I stopped, so will check it out again. This program is of particular interest, since EMC Corporation, a leader in information and storage purchased for $50 million them in October 2004. Another back you might consider is Mozy. The offer a free version that has 2GB of space available or Mozy Plus for $4.95 a month.

As time permits I will update this posting with details about these two programs.