Faxing from the cab

Faxing from the cab of your truck with-out a laptop?
Here is how it works....

1. Gather the documents you wish to fax.
2. make note of the receiver's fax number
3. get out of your truck and walk into the truck stop up to the fuel desk
4. hand the girl working behind the counter your papers along with a few other papers from your wallet; the green ones
5. wait for the girl working behind the counter to give your papers back to you along with the confirmation.

 

I would say to look at a netbook. Those things are like laptops but way smaller and WAY cheaper. I dont know of anything that you can plug into your phone to scan stuff. I personally. Just email stuff to my dispatcher from my phone. Mostly just to mess with him. But sometimes its business oriented. Such as a snapped off wiper blade.

 

I scan stuff to my dispatcher all the time; such as signed BOLs and temp strips.
I scan them into a PDF using a Kodak 3100 (All-In-One).
It has saved my ### on those occasional "girl-in-billing" screw-up as well, you know when they say "we can't find the bills for trip number blah-blah"?
I just resend them.

 

I print mine out to a pdf file. If you are using windows you use a program called CutePDF, which puts a software printer in your printers folder, then you simply use that printer to generate a pdf file by simply hitting the print button on any photo viewer displaying the photo you took of the document with your phone or digital camera. Then go to Faxzero.com and send the pdf to a fax machine. It's free. A lot of times I'll get my dispatcher to simply email me the forms he wants to send me. he usually sends it in a .tiff file, which can be opened up with any paint program, and I'll use a fine brush in the paint program to put my John Hancock on it with my mouse. This takes some practice. If I really need a hard copy of the forms, I can simply use faxzero in the parking lot of a truckstop to the fax machine at the fuel desk inside, this let's me do it when it's convenient for me.

If you are a linux user like myself, CutePDF is called cups-pdf, it's usually installed out of the box on most distributions I've played with.

 

The Pilot Magizine has a $2.00 coupon in it for a free fax. You cannot take a handful of coupons and fax all. One fax - one trip to the counter.... not saying you cannot do one fax, then get back in line..just saying..