Having successfully retrieved a set of report forms from a PC-floppy (Chapter 3) and cleaned them up for use (Chapter 4), it was child's play on the Mac to generate a report by opening the forms in ClarisWorks and using them to prepare the report. After saving the completed report under an appropriate title in a dedicated folder, I only needed to send the report to my Client before joining friends for an evening of armchair football and adult beverages.

While in my pre-Mac days, this would have required printing a copy of the report and manually faxing it on a separate fax machine, or driving to Kinko's to use theirs, I eagerly anticipated using the built-in fax capability of my Mac to accomplish this task electronically, without a paper copy.

As I prepared to fax with the mere touch of a button, I marveled at how far technology has brought us. The printing press which eliminated forever the ranks of scribes manually copying each letter in a document, thereby opening the possibility for mass education. The postal system, making it possible to transfer documents from one location to another (at glacial speed) without hiring a dedicated messenger to physically carry them. The modern courier services, with their own fleets of airplanes to speed delivery. And now, the fax, making such information transfer universally available and virtually instantaneous.

I also marveled at the ingenuity of the early experimenters, and how useful inventions so often appeared "before their time" - many years before other resourceful souls found a way to make those ideas a reality. The early sketches of DaVinci, that predate the actual building of the glider, the helicopter, and the parachute come to mind. As does the fax machine, which predates the telephone and the telegraph in its patent date.

(The first device for electrically transmitting a facsimile was patented in the very early 1800s, and consisted of a wooden drum that held hand-placed brass letters. A pendulum with an electrical contact swung over the letters and was synchronized with a pendulum over a receiver drum covered with a sheet of paper. The receiving paper was "burned" by a spark, creating an image of the brass letters.)

Because telephone networks (and even electric wiring) weren't built until almost a half-century later, as well as the impracticality of setting the letters by hand, the fax patent languished into obscurity. The idea went without being implemented for over a hundred years, until in the modern era, someone realized that the letters appearing on one's computer screen could easily be sent to a remote printer over a telephone line with the touch of a button on the keyboard.

Providing you can get it to work. Which I couldn't.

Logically, my first attempt, was to use the "Fax" option from the ClarisWorks "File" menu, which allowed me to easily create a cover page for the document I wanted to send. The cover page completed, I clicked on the "SEND" button and waited as my cover page and report scrolled onto my hard drive, where they sat, untransmitted.

After several additional unsuccessful attempts to get a fax transmission, and verifying that my modem and telephone were properly connected and turned on, I decided to explore other possibilities for faxing from my Mac.

MacComCenter seemed a promising place to begin. Clicking on its icon resulted in a menu bar with a Fax option. My heart leapt! A few deft keystrokes and the nifty scroll cursor again, and....Nothing. Diddley Squat Nada. No transmission.

Okay, recheck hardware and try again. Same result.

Thinking, perhaps, that my preferences were wrong, I opened MacComController and used the toggle to reset the "Mode" to "Fax Send/Receive" and, when that failed, to "Fax Send Only" - neither of which cured anything. As my blood pressure rose, I could picture the smug expression on my therapist's face as he extracted yet another Beemer payment from my checking account.

Searching my screen for other options, I spotted "Drag'n Fax" which, when clicked, told me that I could "Send a fax easily!" merely by dragging a document and dropping it onto the cute little dragon icon. What a concept! This being simpler, less time consuming, and with fewer legal ramifications than dragging my Mac back to the store and dropping it onto the head of the sales manager, I decided to give it a try.

I located the report by double-clicking a sequence of folders, and dutifully dragged and dropped it onto the dragon icon, knowing that my problem would be "easily" solved. After all, would a Dragon lie?

I was astounded when I was greeted by a nasty disclaimer: I had to first configure the document for faxing by selecting "Page Setup" and "Print" from the program's File menu. Doing so yielded no change in results except for further deterioration in my attitude, which I resolved to adjust by taking a much-needed break.

I shut down my Mac and spent a few "Happy Hours" with friends.

Upon my return to my apartment, I resolved to give it another try, powered up, repeated exactly what I had done before, and to my great joy, successfully sent the report using Fax in the ClarisWorks File menu. Ecstatic at my success, I sent it again using MacComCenter, and yet again using Drag'n Fax! My joy knew no bounds! I did my best to cover my client's floor with copies but I still could not figure out what I had been doing wrong in my earlier efforts. Could success in faxing be somehow tied to one's attitude, blood alcohol level, or the fortunes of the Cowboys?

Not until I was able to question my local computer guru somewhat later did I learn the answer....