RE: Communicating with COM objects from iSeries via Java?

Thanks for the replies.

Tom: we hope to bid a new customer and the quantity of faxes is unknown
right now, although I expect it could be as many as several hundred (US
domestic) per week - lots of Mom-and-Pop stores. They have locations in
Canada and Mexico but we're not sure whether we'll bid on those or not. We
will undoubtedly go with an email-to-fax service for startup because it will
work with no changes to our existing distribution system. I need to research
costs, how accurately these services render .pdf and .xls attachments, how
the increased load will affect the existing WinFax, etc. etc. Thanks for the
suggestion for FastFax - I'll look into that one.

James: I recall reading your posts while you were developing the Hylafax
solution - glad it worked so well for you - it was what triggered me to
think of the WinFax possibility in the first place. Our shop hasn't ventured
into linux-land yet and it may be a hard sell to get approval. The Hylafax
link below specifically mentions an AS/400 client - was that your project?
Question: how did you handle the fax log, i.e.: confirming fax receipts? Our
management is obsessive about receipt confirmations...
http://www.hylafax.org/howto/faxing.html#ss5.7

JK


> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Rich
> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 7:49 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: Communicating with COM objects from iSeries via Java?
> > We have a requirement to fax certain documents to users who do not have
> > email. The iSeries fax products I've seen so far are primarily designed
> to
> > translate and deliver spool files. We, on the other hand, need to push
> PDF
> > and Excel files that happen to be stored on the IFS.
> 
> This is almost exactly the same situation we were in earlier this year.
> While our solution may not work for you, it works very well for us and may
> give you some ideas to work on.
> 
> The primary difference between what we did and your situation is that we
> use hylafax (http://www.hylafax.org) instead of winfax.  We chose hylafax
> for two reasons:  1) it runs on linux and 2) it has a java communication
> package called gnu.hylafax (http://www.net-foundry.com/java/gnu/hylafax/).
> gnu.hylafax does all the hard work and since it is java it runs on the
> iSeries.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Jedrzejewicz
> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 7:12 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: Communicating with COM objects from iSeries via Java?
> 
> Although I have no experience with it, I am sure it is feasible, but
> it sure sounds like a lot of work, although it could be fun.  I would
> get a handle on the number of items we are talking about.  If there
> are only 2 or 3 a week, the cost per fax of even a day of work is
> astronomical.  On the flip side, if the volume of non-emails is high,
> an out-of-the box solution like FastFax might be justified.
> 
> Alternatively, join a service such as eFax, where you send the email
> to 1112223333@xxxxxxxxxxx and it sends the fax.  It works essentially
> just like WinFax.  No coding required ... type "email-to-fax" into
> Google and get a pile of them.  They cost very little per month, and
> often have free trials.
> 
> Another solution is to setup a "default" internal email address and
> tweak the sending program to route blank emails to the default.  Then
> have someone monitor the default mailbox and send them manually
> (through WinFax!).
> 
> --
> Tom Jedrzejewicz
> tomjedrz@xxxxxxxxx