Brand new idea about faxing

Use a GNOME applet to poll for a fax in a given directory...

There is a single directory visible as /group/public/.faxnumber/ in unix or P:\.faxnumber in windowscontaining files named after users.File format is

 STATUS YYYYMMDDHHMM PHONENUMBER

Status can be OK, BAD, STALE, USED. YYYY...MM is data of last file modification.There is a simple GUI which can update the contents of this file, like

 Please confirm fax number (STALE): ______
                   OK        Cancel

There is a gnome applet that once in a minute polls this file and pops up program if file exists, the stamp is newer than 1 hour ago and status is non-OK. The fax driver pulls originating user name from the request and looks in this file. If the status is OK, the phone is non-empty and the time stamp is not older than 1 hour, the driver takes phone number from the file. If the stamp is old, driver changes status to STALE and polls the file. If the number is empty or badly formatted (non-ASCII, non-digits), the driver changes status to BAD and polls the file. If after 1 minute there is no answer, the job is rejected with "no valid fax number supplied". On success, the job is submitted and status is changed to USED.