Law Office Technology

I never have to check my Voice Mail again!

I was lucky enough to go to the BCS National Championship this past week.  As with all LSU games I attend, Cell Phone service becomes a major issue.  It is impossible to check your voicemail when you have 100,000 people making calls and sending text messages.  By the next day I had over 15 messages and my voicemail was full.  As I was leaving New Orleans, it was very hard to listen to my messages and take notes.  I figured there had to be a way to get my voice messages sent to me as emails.

SimulScribe takes over your cell phones voice mail, transcribes the messages, and then emails them to you.  If there was a problem with the transcription, you can play the wave file attached to your email and listen to it.  You have unlimited voicemail storage and can print out a report of all your voice messages. 

This is one of those I cannot live without products.  I am never going to have to check my voicemail again.  I also never have to write anything down because it is in my outlook ready to be turned into a to do.

Check it out here

Treo 750 Update to fix Audio Alerts

Occasionally the Treo 750 can enter a state where sounds are lost for phone calls and notifications. This can result in missed calls and notifications.

Please read below to find out how to upgrade your device to help eliminate the occurrence of this scenario on your Treo 750.

A knowledge base article describing how to troubleshoot the Loss of Audio Alerts and notifications can be found here.

 

http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/audio_alert_update.html

TomTom

I finally got GPS back into my life.  I had been using TomTom Navigator 5 with my Treo 650 and 680.  When I made the switch to the Treo 750 this software would no longer work.  I had to purchase Navigator 6 which  I was not sure was going to work because it was not listed as a supported device.  Here are several things I love about having GPS on my phone.

• It is extremely portable so when I need to travel and rent a car, I can  bring it with me.
  
• It tells me the exact time that I will arrive at an appointment.
  
• It gives me traffic reports and alternative routes.
  
• I can install and use it on my laptop.

Windows Mobile Bliss

After finally playing around with different programs and settings I have finally configured my windows mobile device so it is complete efficient and effective. 

My first big project was to clear up the Today Screen to avoid the clutter  and just show important information.  I hid the look up field which save a line(Menu --> Preferences --> Hide Lookup Field).  When I start typing a name in, the line comes back to search for the contacts names.  I download hidelogocab11.cab which allows me hide the bluetooth icon and the AT&T Symbol.  I installed Spb Mobile Shell which adds a most used programs shortcut, my speed dial for work and pleasure, weather updates, and an alarm clock

To top it off I added my email, text messages and calendar to complete my Today Screen View.

Application that I use on my Windows Mobile Phone

I have had my Windows Mobile Treo 750 for a little over two months now and have gotten pretty used to it.  The first thing that sold me on this device over the Palm's, is the Push Synchronization, which has already improved my productivity.  When someone in my office creates an appointment, contact, or task, it automatically updates on my phone.  (This feature can be setup on Palm OS using Versamail). 

SPB Mobile Shell is a product that allows me to customize my Windows Mobile Desktop.  This way I can add my most used programs to my start menu.

SPB Diary is a feature-rich Today plug-in for your Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Notes and Messages. It enhances Pocket Outlook by gathering all of your PIM information in one place. With Spb Diary, the Today screen will soon become your favorite since you will need to leave it less and less.

Airtime automatically captures time associated with wireless calls and emails and delivers billable hours directly to the accounting system. Our related application, A4P-TimeNote provides the mobile user with a simple data entry form. These applications are designed for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and some Palm devices.  I have it export into PCLaw.

Spb Backup is an application for creating reserve copies of data on your Pocket PC. It creates self-extracting compressed executables, thus making backup and restore processes very simple and intuitive. Backup scheduling supported.  Palm would automatically backup when you did a hotsync.  Have not been able to do this with Windows mobile, so I had to go to a separate application.

Pocket Quicken places your financial activity at your fingertips making it easy to keep your financial information complete, accurate and up-to-date wherever you go.
Effortless data entry coupled with instant access to account balances, transactions, credit limits, budgets and more, adds up to financial clarity in the palm of your hand.

PDANET - Get Wireless Internet on your laptop through the Treo phone - The PdaNet software allows your computer to go online by connecting to your Treo smartphone through the Hotsync USB cable or Bluetooth. If you own a Treo phone with a data plan subscription from any carriers, PdaNet will make it your wireless Internet Connection for your laptop/desktop computer instantly - no extra hardware or setup necessary.

Airtime for Windows Mobile

I read about the product Airtime around a year ago in Technolawyer.  I immediately asked my assistant to try and get me a copy.  She was unsuccessful because Airtime did not have a version that worked on Palm based Smart Phones.

One of the first things I did when got my Windows Treo 750 was to call Airtime and get a demo.   Airtime provides automated time-capturing solutions for Smart Phones.  Before Airtime, at the end of every month, I would print out a copy of my phone call log, and look for the long calls that I could bill for.  I really had no way of tracking emails.  This is not a very effective system and a lot of billable time and money was lost.  Airtime promised to solve this problem. 

The installation was fairly simple.  You have to download Microsoft SQL Version for mobile phones and then the product itself.  Once I set it up on my phone, I exported a client and matter list from PCLaw and imported it into Airtime.  (Expect a White Paper detailing this very soon.) 

It is a very easy product to use and their support team is more then willing to help train you on the product.  After a phone call or email, Airtime comes up and asks me to choose a Client, Matter, Explanation and Task Code for the phone call or email.  I can also type in a description.   This information is then sent to the Airtime server where you can export it into a CSV file and import it into PCLaw. 

Airtime has settings that allow you to specify thresholds that will open the billing screen if the phone call or email is a certain amount of minutes long.  It also has a stopwatch feature that allows you to track time that is not a phone call or email. 

PCLaw TE is not available for the Windows Smart Phone and frankly Airtime is a superior product.

The iPhone

Personally, I have never gotten the hype over the iPhone.  It's a phone and a 6 Gigabyte MP3 player.  Great, I have an 80 gigabyte IPOD, so the 6 gigabyte MP3 player is not a good selling point.  If I took my iPhone running with me and it started ringing I would probably chunk it into the lake.  Anyway, I have been getting a lot of questions about the iPhone and Scott Basset, over at the Affinity Law Office Blog, has a pretty good post about why it is not a good choice for a law practice.

Here is the link:  http://intouchlegal.typepad.com/intouch_law_office_techno/2007/06/dont-get-caught.html

Bye Bye Palm

Today I bit the bullet and purchased a Treo 750.  I have been using the Treo 680 since Christmas and it was the worst smart phone I ever purchased.  Battery life would not get me through the day and it always had trouble calling and receiving calls.  I will let you know how the switch goes.

Do not buy the Treo 680

The Treo 650 is vastley superior to the 680 for 2 reasons, one big and one small.  The first is that the battery life on the Treo 680 is horrible.  My Treo 650 could go the entire day without a charge.  The 680 can maybe go 10 hours and that is if you don't talk on it that much.  Why would you come out with a new version of a phone that has a worse battery life.  You would have to be Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!  The other minor issue is that the 680 has only one menu page where the Treo 650 had five.  You do have the option of buying a longer lasting battery from Sedio but this will increase the size of the phone to fit the battery.  The 680 is smaller, but with the sacrifice of the battery life, it is not worth it.

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.