Many of our customers never contact our support lines, and if we contact them, they tell us that their CopiaFacts System "just runs". It sits on a machine somewhere, perhaps with the screen turned off, and sends and receives faxes and e-mails with the minimum of fuss. That's exactly how we like it to work, and so do our users.
If your system works like this, we would like to hear from you! We are having a competition to see whose system has been running longest without attention. Please send us a screen-shot showing the top right section of your CopiaFacts screen, so that we can see the "Uptime" value (displayed in days/hours:minutes:seconds). Email the screen shot to Steve@copia.com and put the words "Screen Shot" as the subject. Just be the longest running system and you could be the lucky winner of $165 credit that can be applied towards your maintenance or any Copia product purchase. The competition will close on the 15th of June.
We're excited to see who wins and which CopiaFacts system has run the longest!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Microsoft Patch for Remote Desktop
Although many of our users make use of our CopiaTech remote support utility (which is based on UltraVNC), we are aware of several who prefer us to log in with Remote Desktop for support purposes.
If you have Remote Desktop enabled on your CopiaFacts server (or any other), we suggest checking that you have installed this week's Microsoft patches KB2621440 and KB2667402, which are rated critical by Microsoft. Without these patches, there is a vulnerability in Remote Desktop which may allow the bad guys to access your system. For more info on this, go to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS12-20.
If you have Remote Desktop enabled on your CopiaFacts server (or any other), we suggest checking that you have installed this week's Microsoft patches KB2621440 and KB2667402, which are rated critical by Microsoft. Without these patches, there is a vulnerability in Remote Desktop which may allow the bad guys to access your system. For more info on this, go to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS12-20.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
CopiaFacts Version 8.1
CopiaFacts version 8.1 is now available to customers whose maintenance is current (if not, please contact Copia Sales). With this version we have made two administrative changes in addition to the ongoing software enhancements and new features:
First, we are now using a standard four element version/build number (at the time of writing, this is 8.1.0.79). All CopiaFacts components in a build will now have the same version details: we no longer have to maintain version lists showing separate numbers for each item, and you no longer have a struggle to work out what version you are using of each component.
Second, we have moved the 'change history' into Appendix M of the CopiaFacts on-line manual, and will no longer be updating the FFCHANGES database. The old Appendix M listing separate version numbers is now redundant. This change allows us to continue with the searchable change history, but in addition each entry can have links into the manual topics which describe the changes in more detail.
We hope that you will find the new version information easier to use. In upcoming blog posts, we will highlight some of the new features in CopiaFacts 8.1, which are summarized in the new Appendix M of the Reference Manual.
Server Down? What are your Plans?
Some of our customers are still using Windows versions that Microsoft no longer
supports, such as NT and Windows 2000. XP and Windows Server 2003 are now
joining them. So some of you may experience the inability to revive your server
if it goes down. With the advent of Windows 7 and 2008 some of the older boards
and drivers may not be compatible with newer machines running these operating
systems. Compatibility with your hardware in the coming years may find you
scrambling for a solution.
Why wait? Copia can help you determine your current, as well as future, needs to insure that you have a plan B.
Most computers sold on the market today no longer have available expansion slots for fax boards. So if you’re looking to upgrade your system, Copia can provide you with a computer and the necessary hardware to have a perfect solution whether its fax, voice or email.
We have already helped a number of current customers with a plan B solution, so don't delay; call your salesperson here at Copia to find out more, 800-689-8898 or 630-388-6900.
Why wait? Copia can help you determine your current, as well as future, needs to insure that you have a plan B.
Most computers sold on the market today no longer have available expansion slots for fax boards. So if you’re looking to upgrade your system, Copia can provide you with a computer and the necessary hardware to have a perfect solution whether its fax, voice or email.
We have already helped a number of current customers with a plan B solution, so don't delay; call your salesperson here at Copia to find out more, 800-689-8898 or 630-388-6900.
Fax is Still a Core Business Solution
Fax is still a proven communication vehicle for business, even in the 21st
Century! Our active and growing customers for fax include:
- health industry, e.g. hospitals using fax to transmit patient records in a secure fashion
- lending institutions and banks
- government installations
Fax doesn't get sidetracked with spam blockers like email does. You no longer need an old fashioned fax machine to send or receive, you can do it direct from your desktop. Copia provides a boardless solution, FoIP (Fax over IP) for SIP-based telephone systems, such as TeleVantage, Asterisk, and Trixbox. We support T.38 and G.711 FoIP fax protocols.
Think of fax when you need to communicate to your list of customers or prospects; and if you'd like an additional guarantee that your message will be received we can provide fall back to email also. Call your salesperson here at Copia, 800-689-8898 or 630-388-6900 who will be happy to discuss your needs and give you a quote on the best solution for your business.
- health industry, e.g. hospitals using fax to transmit patient records in a secure fashion
- lending institutions and banks
- government installations
Fax doesn't get sidetracked with spam blockers like email does. You no longer need an old fashioned fax machine to send or receive, you can do it direct from your desktop. Copia provides a boardless solution, FoIP (Fax over IP) for SIP-based telephone systems, such as TeleVantage, Asterisk, and Trixbox. We support T.38 and G.711 FoIP fax protocols.
Think of fax when you need to communicate to your list of customers or prospects; and if you'd like an additional guarantee that your message will be received we can provide fall back to email also. Call your salesperson here at Copia, 800-689-8898 or 630-388-6900 who will be happy to discuss your needs and give you a quote on the best solution for your business.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Showing Transaction Result Details in a Trace File
We have recently added a feature to bridge the gap between just showing the dialed number or e-mail destination in the trace file and showing a full set of trace lines. You can now define a set of RESULT variables and use them to choose what information to display in a single trace entry for each call.
A typical set of variable definitions, added in FAXFACTS.CFG, would read as follows:
$var_def RESULT_FAXOUT "Fax to @RCVRFAX (@OC_DESC) @OC_CODE {@FSNUM} Pg=@OC_SENTPAGES"
$var_def RESULT_EMAIL "Email to @EMAIL_TO (@OC_DESC) @OC_CODE {@FSNUM}"
$var_def RESULT_VOICE "Voice to @DIAL_DIGITS (@OC_DESC) @OC_CODE {@FSNUM}"
$var_def RESULT_FAXIN "Fax in @DNIS ANI=@ANI (@PR_FAXFILE) @PR_OUTCOME Pg=@PR_FAXPAGES"
$var_def RESULT_WORKER "Worker @OC_CODE {@FSNUM}"
After adding these variables (or as many as are relevant to your operations) you will find that as each outbound fax completes, the contents of RESULT_FAXOUT will be expanded and the trace will show a single line which might read:
13:58:06.48 Result: Fax to 16417416000 (Success) 0 {00447144} Attempts=1
This new feature will allow you to see the results of calls if you look at the COPIAFACTS display, but without the clutter than is often present if you turn on full tracing. Although it is useful to keep a consistent set of result texts by defining these variables in FAXFACTS.CFG, you can of course override them for specific tasks, such as when you have used a pre- or post- process, or for special worker-box operations. The full set of available RESULT_... variables, and of course the variables you can use inside them, are listed in Appendix D of the Copia Reference Manual.
For new users, we will arrange for the initial set-up to place a standard set of result variables, similar to the above, in FAXFACTS.CFG. Please try adding the above variable definitions to your own configuration file and let us know of any variations to the default output line which you find particularly helpful. You will need to upgrade to a current release to use this feature.
A typical set of variable definitions, added in FAXFACTS.CFG, would read as follows:
$var_def RESULT_FAXOUT "Fax to @RCVRFAX (@OC_DESC) @OC_CODE {@FSNUM} Pg=@OC_SENTPAGES"
$var_def RESULT_EMAIL "Email to @EMAIL_TO (@OC_DESC) @OC_CODE {@FSNUM}"
$var_def RESULT_VOICE "Voice to @DIAL_DIGITS (@OC_DESC) @OC_CODE {@FSNUM}"
$var_def RESULT_FAXIN "Fax in @DNIS ANI=@ANI (@PR_FAXFILE) @PR_OUTCOME Pg=@PR_FAXPAGES"
$var_def RESULT_WORKER "Worker @OC_CODE {@FSNUM}"
After adding these variables (or as many as are relevant to your operations) you will find that as each outbound fax completes, the contents of RESULT_FAXOUT will be expanded and the trace will show a single line which might read:
13:58:06.48 Result: Fax to 16417416000 (Success) 0 {00447144} Attempts=1
This new feature will allow you to see the results of calls if you look at the COPIAFACTS display, but without the clutter than is often present if you turn on full tracing. Although it is useful to keep a consistent set of result texts by defining these variables in FAXFACTS.CFG, you can of course override them for specific tasks, such as when you have used a pre- or post- process, or for special worker-box operations. The full set of available RESULT_... variables, and of course the variables you can use inside them, are listed in Appendix D of the Copia Reference Manual.
For new users, we will arrange for the initial set-up to place a standard set of result variables, similar to the above, in FAXFACTS.CFG. Please try adding the above variable definitions to your own configuration file and let us know of any variations to the default output line which you find particularly helpful. You will need to upgrade to a current release to use this feature.
Friday, December 16, 2011
New PDF Conversion Options
We are seeing an increasing number of reports of issues with converting PDF documents for faxing.
First, there is the increasing bulk and complexity of the latest Adobe Reader X. Although you can be reasonably confident that any valid PDF can be opened with Adobe Reader, including the ones that Adobe actively prevent other software from processing, the principal problem we have seen is its habit of popping up message boxes asking you to check for updates. Not a good idea if your system is doing lots of document conversions on an unattended server! Adobe do an excellent job of shading colored pictures and logos, but this also creates a problem for faxing: it creates good quality TIF files but they are huge, and so take a long time to transmit.
For many years, our recommendation for users who had problems with Adobe products in Document Converter has been to try Ghostscript. Although a little klunky to install, and subject to some variation from release to release, this at least does not attempt to 'phone home' for updates, and generally does a good job. We have also added a few specialist options, such as the ability to create high-res faxes (300x300 and 400x400) from PDFs. However Ghostscript also suffers from issues that have proved to be dealbreakers for some of our users: font rendering can be of less than perfect quality, half-tone and colored images and logos can easily become blocked white and black, and Ghostscript cannot handle a document which contains both portrait and landscape pages: the latter are truncated and occupy only part of the page.
To solve some of these issues, we have now added a built-in PDF converter to CVSINGLE, which requires neither Adobe or Ghostscript software to render PDFs to TIF. And like Ghostscript, it does not need to use the Document Converter printer driver. As well as creating compact and high-quality TIFs from text-based PDF originals, it is also highly customizable for optimizing color and gray-scale images, with many options which are selectable using the QPDF_OPTIONS variable. You can adjust the brightness or gamma of the image before dithering it to monochrome, choose various dithering methods, and force selected background levels to white. There is also edge-sharpening capability, and a de-speckle option. Mostly, these optimizations will more useful for fax 'applications' where you need to handle specific styles of PDF: for these, you can tune the parameters to balance readability and speed of transmission. But for all PDF document conversions, you will find that the new option is simple to use and provides a high-quality result. Customers have used these options to create faxes which are not only easier to read in TIF format but can also be transmitted in a fraction of the time taken by Adobe output from the same original PDFs.
So how do you select the new built-in PDF conversion? There are basically three ways:
You can use the third method to experiment with different conversion methods: and using -G instead of -Q will select Ghostscript if you have it installed. The renderer options can be selected with a CFG, UJP or USR variable QPDF_OPTIONS.
For complete documentation of the CopiaFacts built-in PDF converter, refer to this topic in the reference manual.
First, there is the increasing bulk and complexity of the latest Adobe Reader X. Although you can be reasonably confident that any valid PDF can be opened with Adobe Reader, including the ones that Adobe actively prevent other software from processing, the principal problem we have seen is its habit of popping up message boxes asking you to check for updates. Not a good idea if your system is doing lots of document conversions on an unattended server! Adobe do an excellent job of shading colored pictures and logos, but this also creates a problem for faxing: it creates good quality TIF files but they are huge, and so take a long time to transmit.
For many years, our recommendation for users who had problems with Adobe products in Document Converter has been to try Ghostscript. Although a little klunky to install, and subject to some variation from release to release, this at least does not attempt to 'phone home' for updates, and generally does a good job. We have also added a few specialist options, such as the ability to create high-res faxes (300x300 and 400x400) from PDFs. However Ghostscript also suffers from issues that have proved to be dealbreakers for some of our users: font rendering can be of less than perfect quality, half-tone and colored images and logos can easily become blocked white and black, and Ghostscript cannot handle a document which contains both portrait and landscape pages: the latter are truncated and occupy only part of the page.
To solve some of these issues, we have now added a built-in PDF converter to CVSINGLE, which requires neither Adobe or Ghostscript software to render PDFs to TIF. And like Ghostscript, it does not need to use the Document Converter printer driver. As well as creating compact and high-quality TIFs from text-based PDF originals, it is also highly customizable for optimizing color and gray-scale images, with many options which are selectable using the QPDF_OPTIONS variable. You can adjust the brightness or gamma of the image before dithering it to monochrome, choose various dithering methods, and force selected background levels to white. There is also edge-sharpening capability, and a de-speckle option. Mostly, these optimizations will more useful for fax 'applications' where you need to handle specific styles of PDF: for these, you can tune the parameters to balance readability and speed of transmission. But for all PDF document conversions, you will find that the new option is simple to use and provides a high-quality result. Customers have used these options to create faxes which are not only easier to read in TIF format but can also be transmitted in a fraction of the time taken by Adobe output from the same original PDFs.
So how do you select the new built-in PDF conversion? There are basically three ways:
- You can select it globally by adding an environment variable CVTOPTS with a value of 'Q'.
- For use in job administration jobs or for general document conversion applications, add a $convert_options QPDF command to the UJP or USR file controlling the operation.
- Finally, for single conversions, you can use a -Q command-line option when you run CVSINGLE.
You can use the third method to experiment with different conversion methods: and using -G instead of -Q will select Ghostscript if you have it installed. The renderer options can be selected with a CFG, UJP or USR variable QPDF_OPTIONS.
For complete documentation of the CopiaFacts built-in PDF converter, refer to this topic in the reference manual.
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