Believe it or not, in this technologically advanced world of ours, one still needs to crank up certain "old school" former technological wonders such as the fax machine from time to time.

That doesn't, however, mean that you need to own one, thanks to email.

If you have an email account — any email account, even web-based ones — you can set up a fax-to-email account which provides you with your own personal fax number. When a fax is then sent to this number, it gets forwarded to your email account in PDF-format.

In other words: you don't need a fax machine to receive faxes. Yes, quite cool.

The next step is obviously to find a nice, reliable and free fax-to-email service.

I tried out www.faxplus.co.za and so far I'm quite impressed by it. Signing-up is quick and straightforward and emails (faxes) arrive within minutes after being sent.

You can even request your own fax number on the site when signing up, although it won't necessarily be available. (Use Internet Explorer when you request your own number, because the sign-up page doesn't load correctly in Firefox.)

And the best of it all? It's completely free.

If you know of better fax-to-email services in South Africa, please leave a comment with the address below.