Or Your iPhone or Windows Mobile Phone… you get the idea.

This is the kind of stuff I love. I know, I’m a geek, but I just found a solution to one of my biggest travel quandaries: how do I fax or scan documents from any location? My mobile virtual office has been lacking scan and fax capability for some time but the answer is pretty simple and I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner… I use my digital camera. What’s that you say? You’re right, hotels do have fax machines and odds are I’m staying at one, but who wants to wait in the lobby to send or receive a fax? Plus, this method is way cooler and increases your nerd quotient by at least a factor of 2.

The basic premise here is to take a digital picture of the documents you wish to scan and, snap, you’ve got yourself a digital document. Combine this with an internet fax service like MyFax, eFax or RingCentral and you’re faxing your way to the fast track. It’s not rocket science but it could save you some time and hassle.

My Windows Mobile Phone

Now being the Windows Mobile junky I am I found a great application over at Handango.com called Scan2PDF Mobile. This program uses my Windows Mobile phone’s camera to ’scan’ documents which it then converts to PDF files at which point they can be saved or emailed. Combine that with one of the email to fax services above and I can send faxes directly from my cell phone. How awesome is that?

If you’re an iPhone user, you can use your camera to take pictures of documents as well. Someone has even developed a platform you can use to get perfect scans every time. Check it out here. You may also want to look into Evernote, which you can find here.

If you’re not an iPhone or Windows Mobile user, you don’t have to be left out in the cold on this one. You can use a regular digital camera to take pictures of your documents and then upload them to your PC. The key to good images is going to be lighting and angle. You’re going to want to make sure you keep the camera as parallel to the document as you can and use your flash (making sure glare isn’t a problem) or just make sure the room is well lit.

I know I feel much better knowing I can conduct business at full-speed no matter where my travels take me. Hopefully you find this useful too.