Law Office Technology

TimeMatters and Vista

Here is the following information on TimeMatters and Windows Vista from TimeMatters.

I recommend not upgrading right now, as many program links do not work.  I will keep you posted when I think it is a good ideal to upgrade.

NOW AVAILABLE - SERVICE RELEASE 1A FOR TIME MATTERS® AND BILLING MATTERS® 8.0

Version 8.0 Service Release 1A (SR-1A) for Time Matters and Billing Matters is now available for FREE by download in the Time Matters Service Center (http://www.timematters.com/info/servicerelease).   We encourage all customers to download and install the latest Service Release to ensure you are operating on the most recent version of the software. This Service Release includes enhancements such as: 

• Microsoft® Windows® Vista support
• Microsoft Office 2007 support
• A Timesheet for Time Matters (formerly a Billing Matters only feature)
• COMING SOON! Enhanced PCLaw reporting functionality through the Time Matters link (Available with PCLaw 8.10 release)

TimeMatters Vista WhitePaper.

Selected Important Information from the WhitePaper

Time Matters should be uninstalled prior to the upgrade to Vista. Once the Windows upgrade is complete, Time Matters should then be reinstalled using a new application CD with Service Release 1A.

Microsoft SQL Servers hosting Time Matters Enterprise data must be patched  or upgraded to a new version prior to upgrading to Windows Vista.

o Currently Windows Vista does not have Microsoft SQL Server support.
o Support for SQL Server on Vista will be added with Service Pack 2 of
SQL Server 2005 and/or a later service pack of SQL Server 2000.
Note: If running any other version/edition of Microsoft SQL Server,
please check with Microsoft before proceeding with an upgrade on SQL Server.

Due to the differences between the various editions of Windows Vista, Time Matters only supports the following editions: Windows Vista Business Windows Vista Enterprise Windows Vista Ultimate.

PCLaw XML Issues with Office 2007

Upgrading to Office 2007 will prevent you from opening PCLaw.  You will get an XML Error message.  The simple solution is to reinstall PCLaw, which will upgrade your system to support XML parsing.  You should reinstall PCLaw by opening My Computer and browsing to the Network Drive where PCLaw resides.  Run the netsetup.bat and you should be good to go. 

Amicus Attorney and Vista

Kudos to the folks at Gavel Gown for jumping ahead of the bandwagon and talking about compatibility issues Amicus and Vista. 

Amicus 7 does not currently work with Vista, but will on the next release. 

Amicus V+ / Small Firm does work with Vista but you cannot have it installed in the program files folder.

Office 2007: The following features failed testing:

• Attach to Brad and Add to Library function from Word
• Master Document authoring in Word
• Outlook Contacts and Calendar synchronization
• Exporting Reports to Word or Excel

If you have Amicus Small Firm or V+ it would be okay to run on Vista, but make sure you are using Office 2003 or below.  Amicus 7 users will need to wait until the next release.

I will post when these features do become avaliable in Vista and 2007.

You can see the Amicus's results here

Closing a Year in PCLAW

You are probably getting to that time when you need to start thinking about closing 2006.  I have been getting a lot of calls of the implications of closing a year and best practices.

At this time of the month, you are probably about to close December.  I would not do this.  If you have, you can always reopen December.  Get everything in order for December but do not close it.  You want to leave that month open so you can enter your accountant's adjustments.

Instead of closing December, go to System Settings --> Other and change the No Accounting Entries On or Before to 12/31/2006.  This will prevent anyone from entering in anything in 2006.  Once you get the adjustments, change this date to 11/30/2006 and make make the necessary corrections.  The next step would be to close December and then 2006. 

The PCLAW CIC Training Manual gives this description for what the End of Year Does:

"The end of the year process will create entries to zero out all income and expense accounts.  In addition to this, draw accounts will be closed off into the partner equity accounts (if a partnership) and income (or losses) will be allocated to the partners equity account as designated in the Lawyer and Rates table for each partner.  If there are no allocations, then income will be put into the default equity account (3000)."

PCLAW Update to 8.05

PCLaw has recently come out with a new update, 8.05.   Unlike other updates, this one did force me to restart the server.

Windows Genuine Software

I was over at a client's house the other day.  He had a Sony Vaio laptop and a Dell desktop. Both computers were giving him messages that his copy of windows was invalid.  I know for a fact that he had 2 legit copies of Windows XP, since there were stickers on the Laptop and Desktop.  I went to the Microsoft Genuine Software Website to see what could be done to fix this problem.  Here is what Microsoft had to say:

What do I do if I fail the validation test, but am certain that I purchased/have a genuine copy?

Contact the reseller that you purchased your PC from. If your reseller is unable to help you, contact your local Microsoft call center. The Microsoft call center agent can help you verify whether the Product Key installed on your PC is genuine. The majority of customers who fail validation purchased their PCs from system builders. The PCs came with a genuine COA, but Windows was installed using an invalid Product Key. For customers who have a legal Product Key from the COA or the backup media that came with the PC, the call center agent can point customers to a Product Key Update tool which customers can use to convert their system to genuine, using the legit Product Key they have.

Reading their site a little further, you can find out what causes your PC to appear to invalid.  I think what happened to my client was that he tried reinstalling windows on his PC and accidentally used the laptop's product key.  He has valid software for each, so if he calls Sony and Dell, they should be able to help him out.  The interesting thing is that if Windows detects your operating system is being used on two computers at once,it makes both copies invalid.

Itunes and Latitude CDRom do not agree.

Itunes version 7 disabled my DVD/CD Rom drive on my Dell Latitude 600.  It is a driver conflict.  This is not the first time I have heard of this happening, and a lot of my clients have Dell D600s, so I thought I would post it.  You basically have to delete some registry keys to get it to work again. Itunes will then give you a warning that it needs to be reinstalled if you want to be able to burn or rip DVDS.  I have not reinstalled it because I do not want to lose my DVD Rom drive again.  This happened in the last release of Itunes 7, so maybe a new patch will fix it.

3 Monitors

I have finally achieved my goal of having 3 monitors.  In an article by the New York Times, they site a study that claims that adding an extra monitor increases your productivity by 20-30%.  I have not seen any studies about 3 monitors, but I knew it would be a big help for me. 

The big problem I have is that I use a laptop for my main computer at home and at the office.  Therefore I cannot just add another video card for my third monitor.  Using Google, I was able to find Matrox DualHead2Go, a device that allows you to plug in 2 monitors and treat them as one.  It is perfect for laptop users that want to go to 3 monitors.

Lack of Posts

Sorry for the lack of Posts.  I have been very busy with PCLaw installs, LSU, and Saints Football.  I got some great pics from the Saints Playoff game yesterday.  I have been to the college National Championship Game in 2003 and the Saint's Monday Night Opener of the Superdome earlier this year.  None of those games came close to what I saw Saturday Night.  The energy was unbelievable.  Anyway, back to work. 

680 has some bugs to work out

I just wanted to make everyone aware of some bugs the Treo 680 has.  I am going to Cingular soon to see if these problems can be fixed.

1. Short Battery Life.  I did not notice this at first, but my Treo can not make it through the day without having to charge again.  I need at least 2 charges a day to make it work and I am not on the phone that much.
2. Often, when someone calls, I cannot hear them and they cannot hear me.  This has nothing to do with reception.  I say this happens about 33% of the time.
3. I really dont like the new menu. Why did they get rid of the 5 menu pages.  It is hard to move around 1 page.

I could  just have a lemon.  We will have to see.