So, I had a problem. My 84 year old father lives in the heart of Appalachia in the little town of Whitley City, Kentucky. I live in Danville, California, nearly 2800 miles apart. Mail service between the two areas can take up to a week, and fax services tie up phone lines for lengthy periods of time just to get poorly rendered and often streaky and unreadable content delivered.

Yet, I had a need to communicate some important documents to him on an ongoing basis, and my 3 brothers and his numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren wanted to stay in touch as well.

Using a computer was out of the question, even though he had two that I had given him in hopes that he would use them for email. He just did not want to have to deal with the headaches of using a computer.

One day I saw a commercial on TV for a product called an HP Printing Mailbox and something called Presto service.

I took a look and signed up immediately and had Presto ship him one of the units. All he had to do was unpack the box, install an ink cartridge and plug the unit into his power line and also plug it into his phone jack. Once he added some paper, the unit started delivering email to him from me and the rest of the family!

There are built in protections so no spam arrives, yet he can have control over who sends him email so that he can add friends if he wishes. I have access to the health of his machine via a web based admin interface. When he runs low on ink or paper, I get an email from Presto and can order supplies right over the web. They get delivered to him before he runs out and so his service stays uninterrupted.. All he has to do is to check the machine and pick up his email which is printed out for him with no intervention required on his part.

Click here for their web site or Click here for a demo!

Over the weekend, I was taking a course to become certified as a Seniors Real Estate Specialist Instructor (Yes I will be offering SRES course in the near future) and one of my classmates volunteered that she had lost a listing due to the logistics of staying in touch with a client who did not have a computer (no email), or an answering machine. If she had given her clients the use of a Presto HP Printing Mailbox and an inexpensive answering machine she might have been able to have kept that client informed and a customer instead of just another expired listing.

Do you have a client, maybe an elderly one, who does not use email? Or one that does not have voice mail? Hard to believe, I know, but they are out there. Or you may have an elderly parent who does not have tech skills. In either case, this is the product for you!

Let me know what you think.