Law Office Technology

TrueCrypt

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Free open source Hard Drive encryption. 

Printer Review: X9575

For the past 4 months I have been using the Lexmark X9575 printer at my house in Baton Rouge.  I get more work done at my home then at my office, so this is usually my work horse printer.  This is hands down one of the best multifunctional printers I have used in a while and I highly recommend it during my CLE speaking on small office legal technology.

 

Installation:  Takes about 30 minutes on the first install and 15 minutes to add additional computers.  I had no problem installing to my 3 XP Machines but there was an issue with Vista.  I called tech support, waited on hold for 5 minutes, and a tech explained how to fix the issue in about 2 minutes.  Can’t complain about that.

Fax:  I have no phone lines in my house so I could not test out the fax.  Who still uses faxing anyway? 

Copying:  Very easy to use.  The quality is very good and it takes about 30 seconds to copy a page.

Scan:  Just put the pages into the sheet feeder and choose which workstation you want to scan to.  I am mostly scanning documents as pdfs and then using ocr to make them text searchable.  The Lexmark Productivity Studio handles all of this.   

Printing:  I rarely ever print color and even less pictures.  That being said, the quality for black and white and color was pretty good. I have not had to replace the print cartridges yet which is another good sign.  If your digital camera supports PictBridge you can hook it directly to the printer or you can just plug in a memory card.

WiFi:  I hate wires and the WiFi printing works great.  Every printer in my house connects to this printer wirelessly.  If I did not have WiFi, I also have the option of using a usb cable or a network cable.  That gives you 3 ways to connect the printer. 

Cost:  $249.99.    Printing, Scanning, Faxing, with WiFi capablities all for $249.99.  That is pretty cheap.

Additional

Remote Printing:  I use terminal services all the time and the terminal server had no problem connecting to this printer.  LogMeIn also had no issues recognizing this printer. 

Printer Cartridges:  43XL (Color and Photo) is 29.99 and 44XL (Black) is 24.95

LexMark Description:  Website

LexMark Productive Studio:  This is what allows you to convert documents to pdf and use the ocr.  I have screen shot a picture below.  The interface is pretty self explanatory.

 

In conclusion the Lexmark X9575 is cheap, feature rich, and very easy to use.  It is great for home offices and can solo and small firm offices. 

Great USB Hard Drive For Backup

160 GB Rugged All-Terrain USB 2.0 Hard Drive from LaCie

160 GB for $139.00.

Width     3.5 in

Depth     5.7 in

Height     1 in

Weight     8.8 oz

I have been pushing this hard drive on all my clients.  It is great for backup purposes, especially if you are accident prone and tend to drop things.  Buy two or three of these and have them start rotating in and out of your backup cycle.

Fujitsu ScanSnap

Its a scanner with a small imprint that duplexes (double sided scanning) at 18 pages per minute.  I used to recommend the Visioneer Documate Series which actually had a faster scan time.  What makes the ScanSnap so good is that it scans directly into Adobe Acrobat unlike the Documate which goes into paperport and then allows you to save the document as a pdf.  When you scan your documents in the ScanSnap, it will open them up in Adobe for you to review.  Anyone who uses Timematters or Worldox can appreciate how this helps create a paperless office, because most document and practice management programs hook directly into Adobe.  What is even better is that the ScanSnap comes with Adobe Standard which would cost you an additional $299.00 if you were to purchase it new . The scanner also comes with ScanSnap Organizer which OCRs the pdfs so they are text searchable.  You always want to make your documents text searchable, so they are easier to find.  If you have not been using OCR, wait to my post in a couple of days about ABBYY Recognition Server.  The ScanSnap also comes with ABBYY FineReader which allows you to scan directly into Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.  The S500 is out right now and you can get of for 479.99 from CDW.  I know they have a version that can be powered directly by two usb cables which makes this scanner ideal for road warriors.  You can scan under 200 dpi which is required for some e-filing.  We hope to get one soon to start doing demos with it.

Outlook 2007 and DualHard2Go

There is a problem if you are running Outlook 2007 and are using DualHard2Go to add two monitors to your laptop.  Outlook 2007 will open copies of Word 2007 all over your screen and you can't close them.  Matrox has come out with an updated driver to fix this problem and you can download it here.

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.

Best of: Hardrive Configuration

If money is not an option, and are purchasing a new server, we recommend that you buy 5 hard drives.  The first two would be the software partition (The C: drive), and would be configured in a Raid 1 configuration.  Raid 1 means that the two hard drives would be mirrored.  The other 3 hard drives would be setup in a Raid 5 configuration, which means the data would be stripped along all the hard drives.

A setup like this means that even if one of your hard drives fails,you would still be up and running. 

Cheapest Digital Cameras

A couple of lawyers have been asking me about digital cameras, some for personal use, some for the firm.  Abes of Maine is the cheapest, best place, to buy cameras on the internet. 

Reinstalling Windows

I was reinstalling windows on a brand new Dell Workstation this weekend.  I put the Windows CD in the machine and hit f12 to boot from the CD.  The installer went through all the motions  and then warned me that it could not find a hard drive.  After much hair pulling, I finally figured it out.  With SATA drives, you need to go into BIOS and then to SATA Operations.  Change it to Combination.  Then, Windows will see the Hard drive when doing the reinstall.