So my creosote bush in my front yard is out of control. Apparently it’s found some untapped source of groundwater and doubled in size enveloping my mailbox. The postman is not happy with this situation and seems to be in silent protest of my shrubbery encroachment because about a week ago he stopped delivering snail mail (no explanation of any kind for the cesation of mail delivery, just an empty mailbox for the past week). The funny thing is, what surprises me most about this incident is not the postman’s silent protest nor the failure to leave notice about the but… the fact it’s had exactly zero impact on my daily life- the only thing that’s really changed is that now I don’t have to stroll to the end of the driveway when I get home to clear out the coupons and creditcard offers to make room for tomorrow’s batch (and the junkmail I get now is still a fraction of what I received before doing the NewDream.org postcards). If it wasn’t for the fact that the new WIRED just came out, I wouldn’t be cutting back my shrub this morning. This little mishap w/ the bush actually IMPROVED the quality of life both for myself and my postman this past week.
So I got to thinking more about this situation. A few months ago I ditched my physical fax machine in favor of using MyFax.com for all fax transmissions. It’s great because in keeping with my desire to be entirely mobile as a consultant, I am now no longer leashed to a physical fax machine – I can go in over a web interface from anywhere and send, receive or call up an old fax. Having this kind of flexibility along with a digital timestamped archive of all fax correspondence is priceless to me – $13/mo is a no-brainer (not to mention I have one less communication device to check since I get faxes emailed as pdf to my gmail and simplicity is always a good thing). My question is this: "Does the equivalent of MyFax exist for snail mail" Please tell me somebody has developed a service where I can get a PO Box w/ Virtual SnailMail of Arizona and direct all my paper crap there. They scan it and give me an RSS feed of what’s clogging my inbox (now their physical inbox). I can setup intelligent SPAM filters (since it’s just another message to me at this point) and minimize the white noise I deal with daily. Does exist, and if not, ummm hello-potential-business-idea…
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Sean,
You pointed me at one of your other blogs (reading corrupt memory card) and now I’m going to have to stay up to date with what you write.
I like this entry because I’ve asked for the same thing and am also looking for complete mobility as a consultant. I’ve gone several days without visiting my mailbox and had the mailman actually come to our door and ask me to clear the mailbox out.
I’m tempted to simply say, throw away what you wouldn’t keep and I am sure there is plenty of room.
I’ll see if it will work.
Matt,
yea I really only get one or two legitimate pieces of mail each week. I hunted around for this type of service and came across all kinds of sites for virtual office re-mailers and remote maildrops but nothing where they would actually open your mail, scan it and email it to you. I would think there would be more demand for such a service.
sean
I am looking for this exact service right now! Scan my snail mail, convert it to PDF, and send it to me an in email.
Intuit’s Paytrust does this for me with ALL of my BILLS (opens physical mail, scans, PDFs, emails), but not for all of my mail. Seems like they could easily expand what they already have for all mail at an additional fee.
okay, so apparently this now exists. see this TechCrunch posting from today->
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/22/remote-control-mail-check-your-postal-mail-on-the-web/
woohoo! somebody try it and tell me how it works…
sean
Send faxes via internet with PopFax service.I am a manager and I have to send faxes on the go.I use my portable computer to send faxes from cafe,airplane an so on.At Popfax they got great customer care,plus it is only0.07$ per page.
Thanks for advice.I tried free trial fax service.I send and receive faxes it really works.
I recently signed up for http://www.popfax.com and like it so far.
I can’t believe I used an actual fax machine for as long as I did. It’s so nice to not have to be by a fax machine to get a fax. Log in from anywhere and read/print or forward as needed.