Comments on: Paper and the WebWorker http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/ Fri, 25 May 2012 02:59:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Crossing the Paper-Digital Divide « Web Worker Daily http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51710 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:02:17 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51710 [...] working out of a cafe, for example), you can still handle contracts entirely electronically. Web Worker Daily readers suggest you use a scanned copy of your signature and paste it into documents that you receive and send [...]

]]> By: Jacob Bohall http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51709 Mon, 06 Nov 2006 00:50:49 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51709 I just wanted to say thank you for everyone who is signing up to p-fax! I hope that you find it as useful as I have.

Thanks,

Jake
my blog

]]> By: techbee http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51708 Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:41:09 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51708 I use Scanr

]]> By: PB http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51707 Sun, 22 Oct 2006 05:10:18 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51707 Adobe Photoshop & http://www.onebox.com

That usually does the trick without me ever having to touch paper.

]]> By: Jacob Bohall http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51706 Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:17:07 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51706 Very interesting point. I actually work within the Insurance Industry, so I quickly found the problem you are discussing. To make it most simple for myself, (especially since I send less faxes than I receive… I email everything) I signed up for PFax aka Packetel. It’s 3.95 per month, and you can receive unlimited emails, and they are forwarded to up to two inboxes.. I’ve never had any problems and I have been using the service for several years now. I def. have pushed the envelope on volume, as Nitin pointed out.. in this industry, most things get faxed to you. If you are interested in signing up, use promotion code hgajk4781 as they have a nice referral service.

As far as sending faxes.. I just use Faxzero.com Their service allows me to send 2 faxes a day for free, up to 3 pages.. I just go to their webpage, upload the doc and send. I don’t have to have an account or anything. If I need to send a large fax, they require you to pay $1.99. My experience has gone pretty well.. the only time I had a problem, they sent me a credit for 2 free “premium” faxes.. and the problem was my clients fax machine was turned off..

As far as the signature.. there is no way to keep it from being “extracted”. If you were to send me a fax, I could always copy/scan/print the signature.. you just have to trust who you are sending it to. I just paste the image of my signature onto docs that I am faxing (and emailing) The quality looks as good as it would if I had actually signed it.. and as someone stated above.. my intent is to provide the signature, so that is all that matters.

As far as putting the signature into a doc.. I just have the “image” saved on my computer, and from word I just insert picture. In a .pdf, depending on what version you have, there is a signature option… generally.. as Jason said..you have to add it in paint or some photo editor and then print/convert back to a .pdf.

Sorry for being so long, I hope that this has helped some of you.. I’m a big fan of this site, and am happy to be able to contribute.

Jake
A friends blog

]]> By: mudflap http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51705 Fri, 20 Oct 2006 03:11:38 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51705 I work out of my home and use an online fax service for some of the print-sign-fax tasks. If I need to print a document, sign it, then fax it back, I can use your digital-picture-of-my-signature trick.

I receive the fax as an attachment (usually a pdf). I embed my signature using my favorite image editing software and create a new pdf. This I “fax” back using my online fax service. Considering the quality of faxed signatures, I don’t see why this wouldn’t be equal or better. I know it’s a slapped together, hackneyed solution, but I can do it without a fax machine or a printer. ;-)

]]> By: Jason M. Lemkin http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51704 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:04:54 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51704 OK one last one . . . “By the way, everyone, how do I sign a PDF file? An MSWord File, an HTML file?” If you want to electronically sign at least a PDF or MSWord file, you can use the “Approve” feature on EchoSign . . . it’s free and will instantly apply an electronic signature to your doc and email it back to you, and anyone else you want. Not exactly the same as a digitized version of your hand signature but we have lots of people that use this to quickly approve a document sent to them.

]]> By: John B http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51703 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 18:14:46 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51703 If you have a touch screen or pad that you can use a stylus on you could simply receive faxes into your computer, then sign them with the stylus, and fax them back, all digital but you are applying your signature yourself, and the folks who are requiring the signature can never complain, after all it’s good enough for credit card companies. Now we just need laptops that have an appropriate sensitive surface, or you can change the settings on the touch pad.

As for preventing someone from abusing your signature I think it’s a non-issue. Even if you hand deliver a signed paper document somewhere your signature is still there for someone to scan and reproduce. Unless you insist on having the actual paper that you signed be present or you won’t honour your signature, (a tactic that I doubt would stand up in court), there’s no way to really protect your signature.

]]> By: Nitin Borwankar http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51702 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:50:51 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51702 Jason,

Thanks for that clarification – it does make it a lot better, especially if I get a doc from some one already on EchoSign. Then I don’t have an issue with it.

To all the people suggesting fax based solutions – there always seems to be a step where I print the doc out, or am I missing something. It’s the paper step I am trying to avoid.

Chris, yes I do understand that someone else can scan my signature and do the same thing but its a lot easier on a computer and when you make it a lot easier to do something a lot more of it happens – orders of magnitude more.
That’s why consolidating electronic databases of personal information is far more of a theat to privacy than having that information in paper databases – the electronic ones can be processes, filtered and collated much faster and over whole populations of countries compared to the paper records.
And I have already had my credit card blocked twice because of fraud on it once by someone in Brooklyn and I live in the Bay Area. So maybe I am more paranoid than most but just because you aren’t paranoid …

By the way, everyone, how do I sign a PDF file? An MSWord File, an HTML file?
Please don’t tell me to go fax myself ;-)

]]> By: Jason M. Lemkin http://gigaom.com/collaboration/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51701 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:50:13 +0000 http://webworkerdaily.com/2006/10/18/paper-and-the-webworker/#comment-51701 Nitin -

Just one more clarification:
“EchoSign requires both parties to be signed up for the service prior to the document exchange.”

Actually EchoSign only requires the Sender to be signed up for the service. All the signer/recipient has to have is an email address . . . in fact to fax-sign, the signer doesn’t go to http://www.echosign.com at all, just prints out the doc email to him/her as a PDF and faxes it back . . .

]]>