Law Office Technology

Blocking Myspace, Facebook and Youtube

I am starting to use a free Internet tool called OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com/)  to block Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube.  The only firms I will not do this for is Family Law, which need to view the sites for legitimate business reasons.  I have found it is the easiest way to block these sites in the small firm environment. 

ABATECH SHOW 2007

I got back from the ABA TECH SHOW in Chicago on Sunday and I am still trying to recover.  Besides working Gavel and Gown's Amicus Booth and hanging out with LexisNexis, especially the PCLaw people, I got a chance to look at a lot of other products.  I will probably write about one a day until I am finished.

Here is a partial or maybe a complete list.

Fujitsu ScanSnap

Newsgator (Feed Demon)

Abbyy Recognition Server

CaseLogistixs

CMS Backup Systems

Compulaw

Dual Monitor Help

My productivity has gone up a lot since moving to three monitors, but some things are hard to do.  For Example, getting my wallpaper to stretch correctly has been a problem.   

One of the sites that has been helping me out is: http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/faq.asp

They have some great articles on working with different programs. 

This site recommends a program called UltraMon, which is fantastic.  It is basically written for people who use multiple monitors.  Here are some of its features:

• efficiently move windows and maximize windows across the desktop 
• manage more applications with the Smart Taskbar 
• control application positioning with UltraMon Shortcuts 
• multi-monitor support for desktop wallpapers and screen savers 
• mirror your main monitor to secondary monitors for a presentation

A single license costs $39.95.  I can now extend the Task Bar across all three screens which is great because I usually have 15 programs open at once.

Online Backups, Best Practices

I have setup online backups for many clients.  Our company has partnered with BackupmyBusiness to setup these backup services.  BackupmyBusiness is pretty reliable and it works.  The best backup  scenario would be to use Backup My Business and also tape/usb hard drives to protect your data.  The USB drives can keep multiple backup copies.  This is particularly good if a user deletes a file, and does not realize it until five days later.  We can then pull that day's backup and restore it.  I did some inquiring and found out that Backup My Business will keep a file that was deleted for 7 days.  So, if Joe deletes a file on Tuesday, and 6 backups have run since then, we should still be able to restore it Monday night.  After Monday, the file will be purged from Backup My Business and we will be left to rely on the USB/Tape Hard drives. 

To be totally protected, you need to have determine how many backups your USB/Tape Drives can hold.  I try to get about 2 weeks work and then archive the last backup and start all over again.

Technolawyer - Word vs Wordperfect

I had an article in Technolawyer last week on why I think Word is a better choice than Wordperfect.  You might want to check it out.

Brainkeeper is the Bomb

I wrote about Brainkeeper a couple of weeks ago.  It is a wiki enterprise software solution that our firm began to implement in December.  It is one of several reasons why 2007 is going to be a great year for us.  Most people use Wiki's to collaborate on projects because it is so easy to add and change information.  Law Office Technology has basically added all of our tech support documentation to Brainkeeper. 

I go to a client's office and need to install a fresh copy of Amicus Attorney.  Depending on their Billing/Accounting Software, DMS Software, Email Client, Smartphone, and Word Processor, there are probably around 30 different settings for me to configure.  I can log in to our Firm's Brainkeeper site and look at the Amicus Install Checklist, which details all of these.  If I have a problem installing because the client is running a unique program, I can easily make a note of it in Brainkeeper, so everyone in the future will be aware of this issue.   

Besides benefiting us, we have added some other legal consulting firms with different strengths to our Brainkeeper account.  Now we have several firms around the country collaborating on the use of legal software and support.  Our knowledge capital is going way up.

I know this post is mainly for how I use a wiki, being a technology firm, but I think any knowledge based industry can benefit from Brainkeeper, or a wiki like it. 

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.

TechSupport at a Wiki

I had a great idea while swimming laps today.  Our company has amassed a large database of technical support knowledge and best practices for the legal environment.  When we go into the field, we need access to these white papers.  We also need to be able to update them with new information.  Our company uses Worldox Web to achieve this goal.  The only problem with Worldox Web is that you have to download these white papers in a document form and hope the client has MS Word to view them, which a lot of law firms do not.  I could convert all our tech support documents to pdf, but then our consultants could not edit them and re-upload them.  To be honest no one really uploads them with new information anyway. 

Every tech support issue is usually unique and I would like our consultants to add comments each time an issue occurs.  It would also be nice if they could create new tech support issues and solutions on site, using actual screen shots.  Usually we create these when we get back to the office and try and replicate the problem, which sometimes is impossible to do.  This has been an issue for a while, and it finally hit me today.  We should setup our Tech Support at a wiki,a web interface that is easy to make changes to and upload screen shots and documents.  This will also be a great way to enable collaboration with other Legal Consulting Firms we have formed alliances with.  I know I am not the first person, and frankly I should have come up with it before.  We are currently testing out Brainkeeper Beta and I will let everyone know how it goes. 

Skype 3.0 in now avaliable

For all you Skype users out there, Skype 3.0 is now available. 

Go Back in Time on the web

I have a client who had a falling out with their local ISP, who also hosted their website.  Their response was to delete the website.  They came to me to build them a new website, since they did not have any of the old websites files.  Before deciding to start from scratch, I decided to use the Way Back Machine, which has tons of caches of old websites.  I was able to find the website, download it, and re-upload.  What a great service.