Perhaps the greatest feature of Google Chrome is it’s omnibox. In case you don’t currently use Chrome or otherwise don’t know the terminology, the “omnibox” is what Google calls Chrome’s address bar. Why omnibox? Besides for being used to find web addresses, the omnibox can also search the web, predict your keywords, find pictures, and in our case, query your Phaxio logs. Before you start typing fax ID’s into your omnibox, you’ll need to install the Phaxio Chrome extension. You can grab it here. It’s completely free, installs in seconds, and it’s totally awesome. Once installed type Phaxio into your...

Developers already use Phaxio to save money by sending personal faxes using the command line, but for the less tech saavy who are constantly asking, Phaxio has no built-in email to fax feature. Although consumer faxing isn’t what we’re focused on, we’ve been hounded with questions about setting up email to fax using Phaxio. So we decided to take a stab at writing a standalone email to fax solution; it’s called MailPhax. There are a couple of really nifty (yeah, I said nifty) things built into MailPhax. We’ve dropped Heroku’s Deploy button in MailPhax’s README which will automatically deploy the...

You can now send HTML faxes in landscape orientation using Phaxio! Previously all HTML faxes were automatically rendered in portrait orientation, but many users asked us about sending landscape files and we listened. The new feature works with HTML posted as string data, a URL, or as a file. So, how do you define your HTML’s rendered orientation? Simply add <meta name="phaxioOrientation" content="landscape"> to the <head> tag of your document. As an example, the following html would render in landscape: <html> <head> <meta name="phaxioOrientation" content="landscape"> </head> <body> <h1>This is a header</h1> This is a paragraph. </body> </html> If you’d like...

A couple of weeks ago we began allowing users to send faxes in monochrome as opposed to the default halftone option. The difference between monochrome and halftone can be very useful in certain cases and many of our users welcomed the option. Still, a few users didn’t understand if they should switch from the halftone default, and what difference, if any, it would make. Below I’ll explain the difference and go through the pros and cons of each. Halftone Because (most) fax machines only print in black and white, colors get lost in the fax printing. To compensate, a fax...

As an infrastructure provider, we handle all security matters with the utmost seriousness. Before we rush to make changes, we try to analyze the issue, identify what might be affected, and work to provide the best possible fix. Phaxio is hosted on Amazon Web Services and makes use of its Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) service. Because we terminate our SSL connections using ELB, there was a time when our services may have been vulnerable to Heartbleed. We closely followed the updates posted by AWS and have been assured that all affected load balancers have been updated and are no longer...

New clients often ask why Phaxio is reporting ‘0’ when sending callbacks to their domain. Phaxio records an HTTP status of ‘0’ if we were unable to hit the supplied URL at all, usually because of a DNS or SSL issue. When we get support requests relating to ‘0’ responses, the first thing I typically check is to see if the callback URL is using SSL. If it is, the culprit is usually a missing intermediate SSL certificate. At a basic level, the intermediate certificate sits between the SSL certificate you’ve been issued by an SSL reseller, and a Certificate...

We’ve been updating Phaxio to ease the transition toward releasing more international destinations. In all cases, we're trying to build enhancements that make Phaxio easier to use without disturbing the system you already have in place. Going forward, we’ll be using the E.164 format for validating phone numbers. E.164 is the standard in telephony and should give our users a better idea of what to expect from Phaxio. If you’re curious if this will affect you, or how to use it properly, keep reading. When to use a “+” If you’re making calls to destinations outside of the US and...

Today we’re releasing two new API operations: areaCodes and supportedCountries. The idea behind both operations is to give your application information it needs to provide your end-users with better service. Very simply, the areaCodes operation will give you a list of area codes where we currently have available phone numbers. Much like the rest of Phaxio, the operation works the way you would assume it does: you pass Phaxio either a state or a boolean for toll free numbers (or neither) and we’ll respond will a complete list of the area codes available in that area and, when appropriate, the...

We’ve been porting our clients’ phone numbers into Phaxio for a while now, but we wanted the process to be quicker and easier. We’ve streamlined the process to make ports faster and more transparent for you. Best of all, you can port your number to Phaxio absolutely free. There’s no reason that you should have to pay $10/month for a fax number. Here at Phaxio all of our numbers (whether you provision one or ported it in) only cost $2/month. That’s cheaper than a cup of coffee. Completing a port with the new Phaxio porting system requires just a couple...

Zapier is a great service. If you aren’t familiar with it yet, Zapier helps you automate tasks by connecting multiple web-services in a simple GUI. For example, you can set up a “zap” (Zapier lingo for integrating apps) to send a fax to your warehouse when a new Freshbooks invoice has been generated. Thanks to Zapier this can be done in minutes and without writing any code. I’m happy to announce that we’ve integrated the Phaxio Send operation into Zapier. That means that you can now connect any Zapier supported service to Phaxio to send faxes. Additionally, after a fax...

Every Phaxio feature is built for a reason. Some features we build intuitively, but most have initially been requested by our users. No feature has been more widely asked for than the Cancel Timeout feature. We created cancel timeouts specifically for restaurant ordering apps. Restaurant ordering requires very fast turnaround times, and many users wanted to guarantee that a fax would succeed or fail within a certain maximum time constraint. For example, a restaurant ordering network may estimate that if a fax completes within eight minutes, the receiving restaurant will have enough time to make and deliver an order to...

story

Fax, Saving us from World War III

January 02, 2014 by Howard Avner

We don’t usually write posts touting fax as the communication device of the future. It isn’t. But when two countries, at the brink of war, need to threaten each other, nothing is more terrifying than sending a fax. Just think of those high pitched sounds (“eeeeeeeeyaaaaaahhhhh”)… like when you hooked up your computer to the internet for the first time (Al Gore is proud of you). However unlike the dial-up internet, there’s no AOL frisbee here. Just good, old fashioned paper. So when baby-faced, ruler-extraordinaire Kim Jong-Un wants his military to get down and dirty, he whips out a fax...

Posts

Your Phaxio logs, now in the Chrome Omnibox!

December 31, 2014 by Howard Avner

MailPhax: Your very own email to fax solution

September 04, 2014 by Howard Avner

Landscape HTML Support

June 16, 2014 by Howard Avner

Halftone vs Monochrome - Which one should you be using?

May 22, 2014 by Howard Avner

Heartbleed Vulnerability Update

April 09, 2014 by Howard Avner

Where's my callback?

April 03, 2014 by Howard Avner

We're Taking This Thing Worldwide (Kinda)

March 23, 2014 by Howard Avner

New Operations: areaCodes & supportedCountries

March 13, 2014 by Howard Avner

Free number porting!

March 09, 2014 by Howard Avner

Make your favorite apps send faxes with Zapier

January 08, 2014 by Howard Avner

Cancel timeouts - Because sometimes you can only wait so long

January 03, 2014 by Howard Avner

Fax, Saving us from World War III

January 02, 2014 by Howard Avner

Start sending faxes right now!

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