[clue-tech] HylaFAX + mgetty + WHFC

[Matt Durell]

It's not actually the getty that tells the difference, it's the hardware.
vgetty is used to collect voice mail from some popular modems.

Once it gets to the getty stage, the phone has been answered.  For that
matter, for the modem to even be able to tell it has to answer the phone!
After all, all rings sound alike... or do they?

If you only want one phone line and don't have too much data traffic (fax
included) you can always get the distinctive ring service.  Basically you
are assigned two (or more) phone numbers on one line.  Each number has a
different ring.  Most of the better modems can be configured to cope with
this.  If not, there is always the external ring indicator boxes.  These can
route a ring to different circuits depending on the ring.  I used this
service for some time with a BBS I used to run (many, many, *MANY* moons
ago... 813-737-PIGS, I believe.  It was called "Pigs in Space". Ahh... good
ole' VBBS).  One goes to the phones and one to the  computer (fax, kids, et
cetera).

BTW, something is to be said for the convenience of simply printing through
a special printer and have it fax something.  I suppose, if one was so
inclined, one could do the same except attach a email front-end encapsulated
inside a printer drive.  My guess is you don't have the time to do this. Who
would (Eric Raymond, perhaps.. Oh god no!)?

You could always define a postscript printer and direct it to a file.  You
could then grab that postscript file into an email and send it. Of course,
you still have the problem I listed... a pain-in-the-rear postscript file.
Good for printing, a pain for viewing.

You could get Adobe Acrobat (not the reader, the whole $400 suite) and
generate PDF files to attach (about the closest you will get to a 'real'
fax).  This is assuming you're using Windows.  If you're using Linux, I'm
sure someone has a PDF writer that can be done as a printer filter.  Of
course, you could always write as a postscript file and use ImageMajick as
follows: convert PD:sourcefile.ps pdf:outputfile.pdf.  The file types
followed by colons aren't needed if a valid file extension is provided in
the filename.

Now, is all of this worth your time? I dunno.  I would just buy a blasted
fax machine and get it over with.

Well... It's bedtime for me.  Too bad the Avs lost (again).  At least this
one was close.


-----Original Message-----
From: clue-tech-admin at ta8.techangle.com
[mailto:clue-tech-admin at ta8.techangle.com]On Behalf Of Kevin Cullis
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 2:50 PM
To: clue-tech at ta8.techangle.com
Subject: Re: [clue-tech] HylaFAX + mgetty + WHFC


Matt,

Can mgetty tell the difference between a normal phone call and a fax?
Or do you have to have a seperate line for it?

Rather than sending a fax to someone, I would like to send a fax
(graphic) of the file as an email attachment.  Since my 56k modem is
much faster than receiving a 14.4 fax, it's much quicker and I can print
out as many as I need.  Lynn pointed out how I could do some of it, but
what are your thoughts.

Kevin

Matt Durell wrote:
>
> I have had a few days off of work and I managed to get a few things done
on
> the Linux server (at home) that I have been wanting to do.  I will explain
> what I have done and ask advice for a problem I am having.
>
> I setup (about 3 years ago) mgetty+sendfax with my USR Sportster 56k.  It
> works great.  I have it printing a fax when one arrives.  I had tried to
get
> it to email a fax as an attachment (it comes with a module that converts
> each page to postscript) but did not have a windows viewer that was good
> enough (I tried Ghost View and found it too slow).
>
> If anyone is using mgetty to receive faxes, let me know if you want this
> module.  It attaches to the new_fax feature of the fax side of mgetty and
is
> configured through the faxlist file.  I also have a module that takes all
of
> the fax pages and tars them into an archive directory.
>
> Mgetty can figure out (with a decent modem) the difference between a data
> call and a fax call.  If it is a data call it can be configured to check
to
> see if the connection is a PPP or FidoNET (remember that?) before it
> displays a login prompt.  Very slick.
>
> Yesterday I managed to modify that module to convert an incoming fax into
> PDF format.  It's not perfect (the image scaling is off--everything
through
> PDF is about 75% of what it is supposed to be) but it works pretty well!
>
> Now, I could receive faxes but I never found a decent way to send them
> (excepting a large, bulky fax machine from the 70s--I'm to cheap to buy
> one).
>
> After looking around I could find no decent solution using the sendfax
> portion of mgetty+sendfax.  I opted for another approach.
>
> There is a product (GPL too!) called HylaFAX.  HylaFAX knows how to talk
to
> your fax modem and send faxes (much like sendfax).  Moreover, it has a
> daemon that listens on a TCP port and acts as a server.  In other words, a
> client can connect to the fax server, send it a document, tell it where to
> send it (phone number) and the server will do just that!  There are many
> clients for UNIX and a few for Macs.  There are a few for Windows.
>
> HylaFAX also has the ability to receive incoming faxes as well.  The
> integration is quite nice with the rest of the package.  I decided to keep
> mgetty because the faxgetty included with HylaFAX does not handle data
> connections of any type.  I need this feature quite a bit to gain access
to
> my LAN while I am on the road.
>
> One of the Windows clients is called WHFC (Windows HylaFAX Client) and
runs
> on 9x/NT/2000. It comes with a printer device driver and accepts
postscript
> data.  All one needs to do is simply install a printer using the HP LJ
4/4M
> Postscript driver and instead of pointing to LPT1:, you point to the WHFC
> device!  To send a fax you simply print to that printer and it prompts you
> for the fax information.  It also has the ability to keep a phone book or
> access one through ODBC.
>
> I installed this on my W2K box and it worked like a champ.  However, my
> wife's 98 box wasn't so lucky.  It started to work find but now, right
after
> it connects to the server, it just hangs.  I am using the latest stable
> version of everything.  I have even tried to upgrade her client to a beta
> version with no luck.
>
> Anyone seen this behavior?  It was reported many years ago and it was an
> issue with DLL files.  Since then the distribution has been statically
> linked to avoid these types of problems.  The only other reported issue
> revolves around incorrect network routes.  In this case, there is only one
> and it is configured correctly.
>
> -- Matt Durell
>
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