building a fax/e-mail client/server application in C#

[jakebur01]

I would really like to build an application in C# that will send out faxes and e-mails.  I have been going through some C# tutorials learning the language.  I have experience with php.

 

On the client side (I could do this in C# or php) I would have a few customer groups setup to select from.  Each group is pulling data from our customer data file through odbc.  So, with this client application you would select a group and attach a pdf.  Hit send and the client application would then rename the pdf to a unique id and ftp it to a directory on the server.  Then, all of the faxes and e-mails that need to go out would be written to a mysql database on the server.

Example ftp file: 20111112112938.pdf

Example data fields: id  company  fax  email  file  email_status  fax_status  fax_tries

Example insert: 0  Jan's Restaurant  Y  Y 19995555834.pdf  [email protected]  20111112119238  pending  pending  0

 

On the server side the C# program would look at the mysql database to see what e-mails and faxes need to be sent based on their status.  The faxes would go out through a zoom serial fax modem.  And the e-mails would send out 5 every 15 seconds or whatever I set it to.

 

Getting the server to send out the e-mails should not be hard http://stackoverflow.com/questions/449887/sending-e-mail-using-c-sharp.  But, sending a fax through a serial modem could be a challenge for me.  I do not know anything about this.  Does anyone have any experience sending faxes through a serial fax modem using C#?

 

Thanks,

 

Jake