Law Office Technology

Advanced Search in Windows Vista

I had a client tell me today that he preferred searching in XP to Vista.  In XP he could search by modified date and in vista, he would have to first type a query and then click advanced options to choose the date modified.  There is a keyboard shortcut in Vista that allows you to skip this step.  If you click on the Windows Button and F  you can open up search and clicking advanced search will allow you to set parameters, like date modified and file size without typing in an actual query.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/75451-advanced-search.html

Microsoft Across America CLE

On August 1st, Law Office Technology along with Tom O' Conner from the Gulf Coast Technology Center, Digital Legal, and the Louisiana State Bar Association put on a seminar on how Law Firms could use Microsoft products in their practice.  Law Office Technology was able to get Microsoft to send down the Microsoft Across America Truck which was full of Microsoft Technology.  Attendees listened to three presentations and received CLE credit.  The first presentation dealt with Essential Technology a new firm would need to purchase.  The second, which in my opinion stole the show, was attorney Hector Lopez who described how his firm used Microsoft Hosted SharePoint and Hosted Exchange, along with a VOIP system to create a virtual office with none of the  limitations of a traditional brick and mortars Law Firm.  In my opinion, this is the future, today.  The last presentation, by me, described how Outlook with Business Contact Manager could be turned into a Case Management System. 

 

The Microsoft truck was filled with Smartphones, Servers, Tablet PCs, Projectors, Conferencing equipment, and an Xbox with Halo.  After each presentation Attorneys were able to file into the truck and see the technology in action.  With the success of this event, we hope to have the truck back in the spring.    

Microsoft Vista, Is it all psychological?

 

Microsoft setup an experiment where they asked users their opinions on Vista and then showed them the "new" Microsoft Operating System, which it seems most of the users were pretty impressed with.  Then Microsoft revealed that they were just showing people Windows Vista. 

"The average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4.  After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave an average of 8.5."

You can view the experiment here: "http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/"

Vista 1 Year / 6 Months out

My Personal Experience (Using Vista for 1 Year)

I have been now using Microsoft Vista for 1 year now.  I purchased a brand new Dell Latitude Laptop last July.  It had a core duo 2 processor and 4 gigabytes of ram.  Here are some observations:

• It has only crashed once and that was because NetGear storage drivers were causing issues.  I put in the Vista disk and did a system restore and it resolved this problem
• I have not gotten any viruses and spyware is a minimum (I run trendmicro)
• Outlook 2007 is the most problematic program I run and I do have Autotask, Skype, Gotomeeting, Anagram,  NewsGator, and Adobe hooked into it.  Outlook does crash occasionally
• I like the sidebar
• It has not slowed down like XP would have.  I wiped my XP Machines twice a year
• SP1 noticeably sped the system up
• As the year went on, 3rd party applications became more reliable

My Clients Experience (Using Vista for 6 Months)

I have Vista installed at two client sites and those were sites that I junked everything they had and bought all new equipment.  All Clients are running Vista Business with SP1.  They are also using SBS Server 2003 R2 with Quad Core Xeon Processor and 4gbs of Ram, Dell Optiplex with dual core processors, 2gb of ram, gigabyte switches, ScanSnap Scanners, ect.

• Clients complain less about Vista then they did about XP
• They love the sidebar
• No Virus outbreaks (Again they also use TrendMicro)
• Some Printer Drivers issues, especially when sharing printers.
• It is for me to maintain (Meaning I charge my clients less for support)
• 3rd Party Support has gotten better as time has gone on
• Could not get Palm Hotsync to work

Conclusions

• Speed -  If you were to run two boxes that were exactly the same next to each other, one with vista, one with xp, the XP Machine would run faster.  And if you were to run and XP and Windows 98 Machine machines next to each other, the Windows 98 would probably be faster.  New software usually requires better hardware.  That is usually all the case.
• Security - Everyone bitched about security in Windows XP.  Microsoft came out with Vista, which in my experience is very secure.  I rarely here Vista critics bring up the security argument anymore.
• Software - 3rd Party software was problematic on Vista at first and it got better.  That is not Microsoft's fault.  It is going to take awhile for  
• Service Pack - Any VAR worth his salt always tells their clients to wait to SP1 comes out and then install the products.  Amicus 2008 SP1 really stabilized the products as did TimeMatters SP1.  That is a fact of life.  With a few exceptions I  did not install Vista until SP1 was about to come out and did not run into problems a lot of the earlier adopters did.

Legal Software:

I / My Clients have run Amicus Attorney 2008 PE, Amicus Small Firm, TimeMatters 8, PCLaw 9, HotDocs 2008, without and significant problems on Vista Machines.

Vista SP1 Recognizes 4.00GB of Ram in 32-bit Operating Systems

I have to thank Charles C. Hocker from Dog River Business Solutions for tipping me off that Vista SP1 fixes the issues of not recognizing all 4gb of ram in the operating system.  I was about to wipe my laptop and install Server 2003. 

 

SP1 defiantly makes Vista more stable and faster.

Vista Dictation - How to Setup and Use

First off, how do you find it?  Most people don't even know that Vista has dictation.  In windows speak, dictation is known as Windows Speech Recognition.  To find it: Click on Start and in the search area type in the word "speech".  At the top you will see Windows Speech Recognition.  Click on it. 

Windows will now want to setup your listening device. 

It is very import to have a good USB headset.  I highly recommend the Plantronics 400 DSP.  It costs 79.95.

Microphone Setup

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speech Recognition Options

 

Take the Speech Tutorial and Train your computer to better understand you.  It will take less then an hour of your time and is well worth it.

 

 

Steps for dictating a document

1. In the Start Menu, choose All Programs, Accessories, Accessibility. Select the Speech Recognition option

2. Proceed through the initial set up screens to configure your microphone. The Speech tutorial will then be launched

3. Complete the Speech tutorial

Create, dictate, and save a document

1. Say "Start Listening."

2. Say "Open WordPad."

3. Say "This is a test of speech recognition period."

4. To correct mistakes, say "correct" and the word that the computer typed by mistake, and then pick the correct word from the list offered by Speech Recognition, repeat the correct word again. For example, if the computer mis-recognized "speech" as "peach," say "correct peach," and then choose the right word from the list, or say the word "speech" again.

5. To save the document, say "File", then say "Save As."

6. Say "Test document."

7. Say "Save."

Compatible and Incompatible Programs

• Speech Recognition dictation will work in a limited set of applications that support a technology called the Text Services Framework. This set of applications includes:

• Microsoft Word and Outlook

• Virtually all applications that are part of Windows Vista

• Dictation will not work in many applications. These include, but are not limited to:

• Microsoft PowerPoint

• Excel

• WordPerfect

• Eudora

• Lotus Notes

Vista: The Sidebar is Pretty Cool

I know you have been bombarded with article after article on how Vista sucks.  I have been running Vista since July and love it.  One of the nice new features is the Side Bar.  I have customized my Side Bar to show my Outlook Tasks that are due Today, My Appointments, a Clock,  and how much of my processor and ram I am using.  The Side Bar sits on the right hand side of my screen.  When I hook up to multiple monitors, it has no problem moving to the right side of the screen.

 

There are many different applications (Microsoft calls them gadgets) you can setup with your Vista Side Bar, including Ebay Auction Reminders, Calculators, and links to Gmail.   Check out a list here:  http://vista.gallery.microsoft.com/vista/SideBar.aspx?mkt=en-us

Vista and User Account Control - It Solves most Vista Issues

I walked into a law firm last week to install Amicus Attorney on a new Vista Machine.  As I entered the attorney's office, I noticed that he was on the phone with Microsoft Tech Support.  He told me that he installed Adobe Professional 8 earlier that morning on his machine and when he tried to register it, Vista gave a fit and it crashed Adobe.  He was on the phone with Adobe Tech Support for an hour and a half before they transferred him to Microsoft Tech Support which he had wasted another hour. 

As we were waiting for tech support the attorney asked if I knew how to fix the problem.  My response was, shut off User Account Control in Vista, register Adobe and turn it back on.  He tried this and it worked.  It took about 5 minutes.  I am shocked that neither Adobe or Microsoft thought of this solution as in my experience it is the first thing to try when you have a vista issue.  Warning, when you shut off User Account Control you must restart your workstation. I have posted directions on how to do this below. 

Start --> Control Panel --> User Accounts --> Turn User Account Control on or off

Uncheck Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer

Restart the workstation

Antivirus Woes

My perfect record of not having a virus affect a client's office has been broken.  I have maintained this record for so long for two reasons:

1. Always made sure all computers were always patched with the latest windows updates.

2. Have up to date Antivirus software running on all machines. 

I have 10 seat law firm using Trend Micro Client Server Messaging Security, which I believe is better then Norton Antivirus.  One workstation stopped downloading and installing Windows Updates and got a virus.  Trend Micro did not recognize this virus and did not delete or quarantine it.  The virus began spamming and the result is my client is now blacklisted on several sites and their email productivity is shot.  The virus was extremely hard to remove and we ended up having to unplug the machine and wiping it.

Windows Vista and Small Business Server R2 will make it more easier to manage updates and this will be a big help.  As of now, I have to manually check to make sure that each machine is up-to-date, which I do, about once a month.  It will be much better when I can log into a server and see what machines did not update.

Vista article from LifeHacker

Life Hacker has a great article on Vista.