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Me and My Scanner: How to Create a Successful Paperless Office

By Sara Skiff | Friday, April 28, 2006

Coming May 2, 2006 to TechnoFeature: Have you ever thought about converting your paper files to digital documents? Attorney Jeffrey Allen elected to do just that in his office in Oakland, California. In this article, he discusses how to go paperless, and provides suggestions for scanning equipment and software. Learn how such a conversion can boost your efficiency both in and out of the office while simultaneously providing a backup solution for your paper files.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Tuesdays, TechnoFeature is a weekly newsletter that contains in-depth articles written by leading legal technology and practice management experts. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | Coming Attractions | Copiers/Scanners/Printers | Document Management | TechnoFeature

Train in Vain; Earphone Reviews; Data Destruction; Etiquette; Mobile Video

By Sara Skiff | Friday, April 28, 2006

Coming May 5, 2006 to Fat Friday: James Sayre shares his thoughts on software training (plus a rebuttal by our publisher), Abe Arceo reviews two earphones for your iPod, Gil Marquez reviews Darik's Boot and Nuke for destroying data, Thomas McDow explains why he doesn't like bluetooth headsets, and Chris Albert offers his two cents on why law firms won't embrace online or mobile video. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | CLE/News/References | Coming Attractions | Email/Messaging/Telephony | Entertainment/Hobbies/Recreation | Fat Friday | Gadgets/Shredders/Office Gear | Law Firm Marketing/Publications/Web Sites

Eraser: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Sara Skiff | Wednesday, April 26, 2006

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a security utility that will nuke files for good, a discrete wireless Bluetooth headset, and a free tool for storing and sharing your bookmarks, Web clippings, and other information. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Hasta La Vista, You've Been Erased
By Jill Bauerle
Gone but not forgotten, remnants of old files can remain on your hard drive long after you've moved them to the recycle bin. The next time you have confidential documents to delete, try Eraser 5.8 from Heidi Computers. An advanced security utility, Eraser "shreds" magnetic remnants embedded in your hard drive by overwriting it numerous times in different patterns using Peter Gutmann's method. Without such a tool, deleted files sit on your hard drive until written over. Even then, forensic experts can reconstruct them, making you and your confidential files vulnerable. Eraser not only scrubs existing or "deleted" files and folders individually, it erases entire hard drives using the software's "Boot and Nuke" feature, and prevents file recovery applications from functioning. Eraser can also eradicate indexed, encrypted and compressed files, caches, cookies, Norton Unerase files, and more. If you're in a hurry, you can instead erase the first and last 2KB of a file, rendering it unusable. Once you download the freeware, Eraser's simple interface enables you to pick and choose your action on the spot or set up a schedule. Eraser is free and supports Windows 95 and higher as well as DOS. Learn more about Eraser.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | Collaboration/Knowledge Management | Email/Messaging/Telephony | Online/Cloud | Privacy/Security | TL NewsWire | Utilities

Document Collaboration; QuickBooks for Legal Billing; Acrobat Professional; PDF Bates Stamp Tip

By Sara Skiff | Friday, April 21, 2006

Coming April 27, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Olivier Oosterbaan reviews several document collaboration tools including Google's new acquisition, Writely, Caren Schwartz reviews QuickBooks for legal billing as does Christian Connell, CaseSoft CEO Greg Krehel discusses the benefits of Adobe Acrobat Professional versus the Standard version, and Clint Pullin offers up an Acrobat Bates stamping tip. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Accounting/Billing/Time Capture | Business Productivity/Word Processing | Collaboration/Knowledge Management | Coming Attractions | Litigation/Discovery/Trials | Online/Cloud | TL Answers

Age Discrimination Among Law Firms; The Case for and Against Multiple Monitors; WordPerfect Not Perfect; Word Not Perfect

By Sara Skiff | Friday, April 14, 2006

Coming April 21, 2006 to Fat Friday: Steven McNichols recounts his experience entering the legal profession at age 49, Robert Browning shares the details of his dual-monitor setup while Bernard Mac Arthur discusses alternatives to multiple monitors, Stephen Hayes discusses WordPerfect from a security perspective and explains the safest way to transmit a document, and Bob Walsh says what few dare to say about Word. In addition, this issue features links to 7 additional Posts in the TechnoLawyer Archive. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | Coming Attractions | Fat Friday | Law Office Management | Monitors | Privacy/Security

PDF Bates Stamp Tip from Adobe; QuickBooks 2006 for Time-Billing; Dragon Tip and Rant

By Sara Skiff | Friday, April 14, 2006

Coming April 20, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Business Development Manger for Adobe Legal Rick Borstein offers up a hot tip for bates stamping PDF files, solos Mark Rosen and Larry Vollintine review QuickBooks (Premier and Pro Editions, respectively) for time-billing, Geoff Ormrod suggests a fix for those having problems upgrading Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and Thomas Shigo challenges technology resellers to provide some straight talk about Dragon NaturallySpeaking (and other legal technology solutions). Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Accounting/Billing/Time Capture | Business Productivity/Word Processing | Coming Attractions | Dictation/OCR/Speech Recognition | Litigation/Discovery/Trials | Technology Industry/Legal Profession | TL Answers

Clipmarks: Read Our Exclusive Report

By Sara Skiff | Wednesday, April 12, 2006

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a Web-based utility that stores and organizes your Web clippings, an eBay search engine for smarter and safer shopping, and an all-inclusive Web-based calendar and contact application to keep you and your world in sync. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Bye Bye Bookmarks
By Jill Bauerle
Too many bookmarks in your browser? Forgot why half of them are even there? Time for an account with Clipmarks. Whether you're researching a case, comparison shopping, or keeping track of celebrity gossip, Clipmarks is a Web-based utility that provides a permanent URL for storing and organizing Web clippings. Unlike a bookmark, which just takes you back to an entire page, a Clipmark enables you to "clip" a certain portion of a page and apply "tags" to that clip for easy retrieval. In short, it enables you to create a searchable database of everything you find on the Web. After creating your account and installing the required Firefox extension or Internet Explorer toolbar, the Clipmarks editing symbols appear in your browser. As you mouse over text on a Web page, just click on the paperclip symbol embedded in your toolbar and automatically enter editing mode. This tool actually "clips" text by copying paragraphs or photos into a Clipmarks folder once you click on the "Save" button. You can keep multiple clippings in one file. Each folder contains a link to the original Web page (in case you need to refer to the original source) plus searchable title, tags, and comments. Other tools include an e-mail button to share your clips, a bookmark button that sends your clips to services such as del.icio.us or BlinkList, and "cliprolling" (an RSS feed of your clip tags). On Clipmarks' home page, a "word cloud" shows the most popular topics in real time. Clipmarks offers four views: "Mine," "Public," "Board," or "Hot." For each clip you create, you have the option of marking it public or private. Check out what everyone else is clipping in "Public." See who's commenting on your clips in "Board." Or look at popular clips in "Hot." One possible use for Clipmarks is to draw attention to articles you've published on the Web. Who knows, maybe your clips will become the next hot topic! Clipmarks is free. Learn more about Clipmarks.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | Collaboration/Knowledge Management | Online/Cloud | TL NewsWire | Utilities

How to Monitor Blawgs on a Daily Basis

By Neil J. Squillante | Monday, April 3, 2006

BlawgWorld 2006, our popular eBook (25,000+ downloads), features 51 of the best blawg Posts from 2005.

Like all books, it captures a moment in time. In fact, BushWorld, the best-selling collection of New York Times columns, inspired us to create BlawgWorld (we didn't actually read BushWorld, we just noticed its success). Clearly, people like the convenience of such collections.

But what happens if you want to monitor a blawg or group of blawgs daily in addition to reading the best selections annually? Several options exist.

If you just want to monitor a handful of blawgs, you can use browser bookmarks and check them every day. If you use Firefox, you can open each bookmark in its own tab simultaneously. Even better, you can use Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature to alert you when these blawgs have new content.

To track a larger group of blawgs, your best bet is to use an RSS newsreader. Personally, I recommend NewsGator's solutions, all of which I consider best of breed — FeedDemon (a standalone Windows application), NetNewsWire (a standalone Mac application), NewsGator Inbox (an Outlook plugin), and NewsGator Online.

If you have a Google or Yahoo account, you may want to use their free newsreaders — Google Reader and MyYahoo. I do not recommend Bloglines, which has a confusing interface.

If instead of tracking a group of blawgs, you instead want to track what all blawgs say about a topic you care about (e.g., e-discovery), you can use blog search engines such as Google Blog Search, Yahoo Blog Search, Feedster, and Technorati. Although you can save your searches, these search engines do not send e-mail alerts. Instead, you must use a newsreader to monitor your saved searches.

Finally, if you don't have a group of favorite blawgs or don't want to deal with newsreaders, but would like to stay in the loop (and don't mind spending some money), PinHawk recently began publishing Law on the Blogs NewzDigest, a daily e-mail newsletter with headlines and links to new content from about 50 blawgs (including TechnoLawyer Blog). This service comes at a price — $199/year. You can view a sample newsletter before subscribing, and try it for free for two weeks.

About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | CLE/News/References | Collaboration/Knowledge Management | Entertainment/Hobbies/Recreation | Law Firm Marketing/Publications/Web Sites | Online/Cloud | TL Editorial

Review: Copernic Desktop Search

By Sara Skiff | Monday, March 27, 2006

John Dorst, Review: Copernic Desktop Search

TechnoLawyer member Benjamin Martin asks:
"Many times, some of our lawyers will come across a name, place or event knowing they researched it once before. However, they can't jog their memory to recall exactly which case it was a part.

"This is where a nice program that can search their folder on the server by keyword. Unfortunately, I can't find a program that suits my needs, however, I may just not be looking in the right place.

"This search program must be able to search within file formats as.txt,.doc, .wpd, .html and .pdf. The hard part, I feel, is the fact that many of our pdf files that are scanned are simply image files that have not been OCR'd to editable text. I know it's still possible to search those types of pdf files, though.

"Can anyone recommend a program that already does this or a direction I can possibly go? I've already gotten a quote from a coder in Russia for $3,000 and well, that's way over our price limit on this.

"Any help would be appreciated.
"

There are several good search programs, Google probably being the most recognizable one. We've taken up Copernicus Desktop Search by Copernic Technologies, Inc. and we love it. It is one of those tools that you can't take away from our attorneys now that they have it. Those familiar with the Mac and the heralded Spotlight in OS X 10.4 (Tiger), this is a similar program, though probably more limited in the number of types of files it can index. The version we're using indexes Word, Excel, WordPerfect, pdf, txt, html, Outlook and PowerPoint files (plus many other types) including the text within each document, though a newer version may cover more file types. One advantage over Spotlight is that it will also index networked drives should you choose. By default it excludes directories such as cache and cookies. Give it a look.

John Dorst
Business Manager
Serving The People Who Build America
HERRIG, VOGT & STOLL, LLP
Granite Bay, CA
www.hvslaw.com

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | Document Management | Post

The Economics of Word; Training Rooms; LaserJet 4345xmfp; Outlook Discovery Tool; VPN

By Sara Skiff | Monday, March 27, 2006

Coming March 30, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Barron Henley revisits the debate on the economics of switching from WordPerfect to Word, Norman Van Treeck offers some helpful suggestions for setting up a training room, Mark Sargis reviews his experience with the HP LaserJet 4345xmfp, Kelly Lupo reviews a free Outlook reader to help with e-discovery, and Gerry Trottier explains the secret to a robust VPN. In addition, this issue features links to 10 additional Posts in the TechnoLawyer Archive. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Topics: Business Productivity/Word Processing | Coming Attractions | Copiers/Scanners/Printers | Email/Messaging/Telephony | Law Office Management | Litigation/Discovery/Trials | Networking/Operating Systems | Presentations/Projectors | TL Answers
 
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