50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily

There are literally tons of books published on increasing your productivity and improving your time management skills. There are numerous classes, blogs, (I noted 100 of them not long ago.) websites, coaches and other resources to give advice in this area. 50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily is a quick treatment of much of the advice you would learn from these other resources. You can't try all of these at once or you'd overdose on productivity. But you can pick three or four that you willing to try and save the link for future reference.

100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs

Just as there are many self-help books on the shelves of book stores, there are a growing number of blogs dedicated to doing things better. I think you will enjoy looking through this list of 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs compiled by a website promoting online college degrees. I can't really completely agree with their rankings as they omitted Lifehacker from the most popular and stuck it at the end of the list. It is typically ranked in the top (or second) spot in this category and as one of the five most popular blogs on the entire Internet. (It's also my personal favorite.) But one can find some really great productivity resources here like 43 Folders, Dumb Little Man and Zen Habits.

I Just Need an Answer to a Simple Question

People often encourage audience participation by saying "Ask any question. There is no such thing as a dumb question!" Experience, of course, sometimes tells us otherwise. J

But it is true that if one asks the question, they do need an answer. We all have questions that we need answered. We can search for answers or ask friends or trusted colleagues. In the Internet age, there are now online communities of interest where people share information and answer each other's questions. Some of these online groups are huge, like slashdot.org. Others are smaller. A group may consist of an electronic mailing list rather than an Internet site. It may even as informal as saving the last e-mail to "the group" and using Reply All when you want to ask a question or convery information to "the group."

These online communities face challenges. Internet trolls try to disrupt the group. New users pay no attention to the exisiting culture and quickly break either written or unwritten rules. In larger groups, long-term users become frustrated by newbies asking the same questions over and over again. People argue or do veer way off-topic.

My particular frustration is people who ask a question of the group in a detailed e-mail when they could easily find the answer themselves in less time than it takes to type the e-mail. Why not get the answer now? And what if the person who first answers your question is wrong? We don't want just any answer. We want the right answer. I have concluded that the explanation must be that many people don't know how to find the answer online. Well, I can help with that! And so, submitted for your approval, is this tutorial, "I Just Need an Answer to a Simple Question."

It is Good to Pay Attention

Two recent articles caught my eye. A New York law firm has instituted a policy banning mobile phone and Blackberrys from major meetings. The University of Chicago Law School has shut down Internet access for most of its classrooms because of an "epidemic" of distracting Internet use. Dean Saul Levmore told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, "several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes and, within 20 minutes, an entire row is shoe shopping."

As a technology guy, you might think I am appalled at these trends, but I'm not. Now I can work up some rage at the Luddite professors who want to ban laptops from the classroom. Sorry, but that is how today's students take notes-- get over it! How great it would be for the new lawyer to have all of her law school notes preserved in searchable text files.

But snubbing a group of people you are with to attend to an electronic device is generally a very negative thing. We've all seen it happen. A meeting is going well and then someone gets a call or gets distracted by an IM or e-mail. Not only is the attention of that person lost, but everyone is distracted. The others make eye contact and frown. Some may reach for their own devices. If it is a decision maker who has checked out of the meeting, the entire momentum of the meeting stalls.

With a classroom setting, it may be less distracting to others, but more to the laptop web user. I'll admit I have checked my e-mail on my laptop from the back rows of seminar presentations. But I'll also admit that I more than once I have been lost in an e-mail and suddenly jerked back to reality by hearing the end of something that sounded interesting. But I missed it. So, as hard as it can be, we all need to work on focusing on the speaker and the subject.

I like the idea of banning the devices from major or short meetings. If you really want to have a short meeting, remove all of the chairs from the room, too.

Now this is not to say that I'll never check e-mail from a meeting again. Sometimes I have to go to meetings where the only thing I am interested in is item #8 on the agenda. That's when wireless Internet access is a really positive thing in my books.

Both stories were noted on ABAJournal.com, which provided links to the more detailed stories cited above.

"16 Things I Wish They Had Taught Me in School"

OK, this one isn't about lawyering or technology. It is about all of life. One of the really great things about the Interactive Web is how other online users can direct your attention to wisdom in places that you would normally have missed. "16 Things I Wish They Had Taught Me in School" is a brief essay full of great observations on life. In fact I predict that you will want to forward the link to someone you know.

Improving Your Skills With Your Practice Management Software

An absolutely critical aspect of law firm success in the 21st Century is using practice management software. But is it really easy to bog down on purchasing a product since there are so many considerations. After one installs a product, it is also easy to quickly learn the basics and then "get back to work" and never harness the full power of the software. Storm Evans gives us some pointers on how to gradually continue to build your skills with your practice management software in her article Practice Makes Management Perfect.

Ten More Favorite Software Programs from Ed Bott

Last week I highlighted Ed Bott's Ten Favorite Windows Programs of All Time.

Well, lots of people read and responded to his story. So now he has compiled an additional set of Ten Favorite Windows Programs from his readers. And, again, there are some real jewels included here. Interestingly, while Ed orginally focused on mostly free programs, many of his readers' suggestions carry a modest price tag. Still, to have a total of 20 of the very best Windows software programs listed and explained is a very good thing. Enjoy!

30+ Really Useful Websites AND 11 Time Management Skills

My "Tips Lists" theme week is drawing to a close, so I'm doubling up today.

30+ Useful Websites You Probably Didn't Know About is a nice, recently-posted collection of useful links. The author says, "[w]e are talking about pure, no nonsense, get something done now, kind of sites." Take it from someone who has seen and prepared hundreds of link sets. It is a collection worth visiting.

11 Solid Ways to Improve Your Time Management Skills is a short article that is great for lawyers (or anyone else.) As most of us understand, the trick to good time management isn't so much learning about new time management tools as having the self-discipline to use the simple techniques you already know every day. (Well, OK, let's just shoot for most days.) You can save the money and time to read a book on time management if you just start using some of these methods.

Now why would I group this two totally different topics in one post? Well, these two were both found at a site I just discovered called Dumb Little Man, which focuses on providing tips for all aspects of life.

How About "10 Killer Firefox Extensions That You Probably Don’t Know About?"

Warning: I have it on "Good Authority" that adding too many extensions to your FireFox browser may slow it down or make it unstable. I also see where number 10 could really cost you some billable hours.

Neverthless, let me be a little cutting edge today by linking you to "10 Killer Firefox Extensions That You Probably Don’t Know About"

Staying in Sync

• Dear Jim: I sometimes find I have many versions of the same document and don't know which is the latest. Is ZZZAgreement(ver3a).doc newer than ZZZAgreement(ver2)Fredscomments.doc? Help me! Signed, Out of Sync

Dear Out of Sync:

            Don't worry. Despite our best efforts, we all find ourselves in this situation from time to time. When you are collaborating with others, you may just have to give them a little training or set up some rules of the game, like an agreed way to name the revised documents, e.g. including initials and dates in the file name rather than version numbers. You may have to train everyone on how to use Microsoft Word's Track Changes. And, for non-confidential documents that are being jointly prepared by several people, nothing beats Google Docs.

My problem (that should be easy to fix) is that I can't even stay in sync with myself. When you use different computers to work on a project, it is easy to get out of sync. That's before we even discuss mobile devices. (On a side note, one of the things I really like about my new Treo 750 is the ability to sync over the air with Exchange Active Sync rather than being forced to use the cradle to sync. See a Treo 750 Review here.)  Plus I know I'm not the only one who has saved a Favorite in my browser on one computer and been briefly puzzled when I couldn't find it in my browser on a different computer.

Anyway, check out 10 Sync Tools Every Office Worker Should Know About. These aren't all about work and documents. I personally wouldn't use number 3 unless I didn't keep client documents in the My Documents folder. But, it is an interesting list and a jump start to thinking about how you stay in sync.

Bott's 10 Favorite Windows Programs of All Time

When I'm back from ABA TECHSHOW, I always have a conflict between a lot of new ideas I want to share with my readers and a pile of work that has accumulated at the office. So this week, I'm going to try a theme on Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips. I'm going to pass along some great Tips articles online each and every day. Then on Friday, I'll share something about where I located them. I really like this idea because I'm assigning all of you readers a lot of work and me not so much. (Other trying to do some of the things in the Tips articles I haven't been doing.) But I also like this idea because if you read all of the articles I am giving you this week and do several of these things, it could be very, very big for your productivity. Trust me.

Ed Bott is a well-known technology writer with a couple of decades of experience. This month on ZDNet, he published My 10 Favorite Windows Programs of All Time. Having someone with his experience give you his top ten utilities, ones that he has relied on for years in most cases, is pretty huge. The article is fairly long and detailed, containing some of my favorite utility programs and several I'm been meaning to try out for some time. The article has already proven to be very popular online, so try to finish the main article before looking at what looks like hundreds of posted comments with applause, kudos and other suggestions that the posters think should have made the list. Then try out the program that looks most useful to you.

Back from ABA TECHSHOW (and working on Sunday)

Back from ABA TECHSHOW and glad to be home. I'm inspired and I'm going to do a series of posts every day this week. Sadly due to a quirk in TypePad, the RSS subscribers may have gotten last post in the series before the others. But the rest of you will just have to wait for the series in order. It was a great ABA TECHSHOW. Congratulations to Tom Mighell and the rest of the TECHSHOW planning board, staff and speakers who worked so hard on this event.

ABA TECHSHOW 2008 Wrap Up

ABA TECHSHOW 2008 is now over. I did a nice little live blog post during the TECHSHOW grande finale' 60 Sites in 60 Minutes. Unfortunately near the end of the program, my browser froze and Typepad has no recovery options other than the ability to save a post or partial post as a draft before the lockup. But it appears that airport bordom and the browser history will allow me to recreate the post. The 60 Sites Stars this year were ABA TECHSHOW Chair Tom Mighell, Reid Trautz and Craig Ball.

Travel was on the minds of our panelists to start the program. They discussed finding the least problematic flight routes on FlightStats.com, the best seats on the plane with SeatGuru.com and then how to forward all of your confirmation e-mails for travel and lodging to TripIt.com where an itinerary will be prepared for you at no cost. They also noted my current favorite site to search for airline bookings, Kayak.com. I love the way you mark the Favorites on Kayak and then go back to sort through them.

An important site for online shoppers is RetailMeNot.com. Often when shopping online one will place an order and see a space to enter a coupon or discount code, if you have it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has taken that as an invitation to open a new browser window and do a few quick Google searches to see if I can find a valid coupon code online. (And, boy, is that a sweet $5.38 savings if you do score!) So now this site is going to try and collect that information.

The Chargepod from Callpod makes my list of "things I'm going to try and convice my wife we need post-TECHSHOW."

When i need to send someone a large digital file, I typically use YouSendIt instead of sending a too-large e-mail attachment. But Tom Mighell makes a pretty good case that drop.io is a better way to share or transmit files. Lifehacker likes this one, too. Check it out.

Crossloop is a free utility site to allow you to connect to another person's computer over the Internet (with permission, of course.) If a friend or relative needs help with their PC, sometimes it is easier to use something like this to take control over their machine and fix it yourself remotely instead of trying to talk them through instructions.

60 Sites in 60 Minutes is an ABA TECHSHOW tradition. After two and a half days of a torrent of information about technology in the law office, the key with 60 Sites is to blend in a lot of humor with a fair amount of interesting online material. Each year the TECHSHOW planning board will receive two completed evaluations from attendees earnestly pleading that the program should focus entirely on useful material and forgo the humor. While I no longer have any decision-making authority about TECHSHOW, I predict you will be outvoted on this by everyone to two. The program was quite entertaining and drew a lot of laughs. And, there were lots of useful sites, as you can see above. The entire collection of sites will be posted soon to the ABA TECHSHOW website.

LexBlog conducted several Live from TECHSHOW interviews. You can read the transcript of the interview with me here. You can also read the transcript of the interview with my good friend, Laura Calloway, who is my counterpart at the Alabama State Bar, here. Congratulations to Laura Calloway on being named Chair of ABA TECHSHOW 2009!!!!

More Law Practice Tips From ABA TECHSHOW 2008

Day Two of ABA TECHSHOW 2008

Microsoft's OneNote is definitely not just for tablet PC's. At $99 it may be the best purchase bargain from Microsoft. See Nerino Petro's recent post Microsoft OneNote is No One Trick Pony.

I love YouSendIt.com for sending large files to others rather than attaching them to e-mails. But ABA TECHSHOW 2008 chair Tom Mighell points out that Drop.io does that and a lot more, also at no charge. LifeHacker likes it too!

Another Web service I learned about at the collaboration presentation by Tom and Dennis Kennedy was Crossloop, a simple way to connect two computers over the Internet. If your friend or relative is having a computer problem, it may be easier for you to use this to take over their computer and fix it yourself rather than trying to diagnose and repair it by asking questions and telling them what to do.

Barron Henley tells us ink jet printers are not worth using any more due to the ridiculously high cost of the ink cartridges. He got a good laugh showing a chart demonstrating that ink jet ink is much more expensive than any other precious liquid, including human blood.

This year's entry in the "Things I'm going to try to convince my wife that we need to buy post-TECHSHOW" category is the ChargePod from CallPod.

I'm pretty hard on technology. As the presenters were discussing the IronKey flash drive, John Simek pulled his out and let me examine this extra tough flash drive with extra security features built it. Lawyers take note. If you are carrying confidential client data around on a flash drive, these security features may be what you need.

Law Practice Tips From ABA TECHSHOW 2008

Here are a few quick tips from ABA TECHSHOW 2008, now headquartered at its new location at the Chicago Hilton.

For a small powerful scanner with a small footprint, Paul Unger loves the Fujitsu 6140c which scans at at blazing 60 ppm in monochrome and sells in the $1500 -$2000 range.

As we move more to using digital documents rather than paper documents, we need to think about how users will be reading them. If you have a document with attachments, you will, of course, want to have a hyperlink within the document that takes you to each attachment. But also, you should add a hyperlink at the top of each attachment labeled "BACK" that takes the reader back to their original location.

Google Calendar can now automatically synchronize with Outlook.

If your office does a lot of shredding, here's a new reason to consider one of those companies that places secure bins in your office and sends a truck to shred them when they get full. Freeing your workplace from "the constant drone of shredders in the office" may be a quality of workplace life issue, according to Debbie Foster.

There's more. But there's more ABA TECHSHOW 2008 about to start downstairs. I make no pretence about being objective about ABA TECHSHOW. It's the greatest! For more live updates from ABA TECHSHOW, check out the new TECHSHOW Buzz.

What’s in My Electronic Toolbox?

When my hard drive crashed, I ultimately lost no data. But it was a real pain because I was under a number of tight deadlines. The interesting thing was how much I missed all of the little utilities, tweaks and customizations that were on my old PC as I borrowed a non-customized standard PC. So I put my first story idea on hold and wrote What’s in My Electronic Toolbox?  Long-time followers of my Law Practice Tips blog will have heard of some of these products. I knew I used some of these tools a lot, but the combination of losing both Dragon Dictate Naturally Speaking ver 9 Preferred and X1 desktop search at the same time suddenly made it impossible to keep up with my e-mail!  Who knew? So what are you taking for granted in your electronic tool box? I'm happy to give you a peek into mine.

The American Bar Association Midyear Meeting 2008

The American Bar Association Midyear Meeting in early February in Beverly Hills had some aspects that might be of interest to readers. The ABA Midyear Meeting is a working meeting, so I spent a fair amount of time in committee meetings and workships.

I attended several good presentations, including a motivational talk from sports figure Terry Bowden.

Daniel J. Siegel, Havertown, PA lawyer and law office technology consultant, gave a technology tips presention to bar executives that was very good. He started with a discussion of scanning and moved on to several other areas. One of his suggestions was one I had heard before. But this time I think he convinced me. He advocates moving the Windows taskbar from the bottom of your desktop to the left side. After watching his use of it in that position, I think he may have something. You have to turn on auto-hide, so it doesn't cover up icons; but you can read a lot more about the open apps and docs that way. Here's a brief tutorial on how you can set it up that way. I think I'll give it a try when I get my new computer.

Another good speaker/entertainer was Sean Carter, humorist at law. I've talked with Sean at other bar events and I introduced him to Nerino Petro at a reception. We three had an entertaining conversation and  I figured some of Sean's funny observations were from his presentation the next day. But, no, his program was all original and different from what I've heard him do previously. The group of assembled bar executives greatly enjoyed Sean's program and lined up afterwards for autographed books. You can have a few laughs and see about booking Sean for your bar event by visiting his website, Lawpsided.

The presentations I gave at ABA Midyear were about bar associations better serving lawyers. I was on a panel entitled Cutting-Edge Electronic Communications: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with Mark A. Tarasiewicz, the Director of Communications for the Philadelphia Bar Association and John Sirman who is Manager, TexasBar.com, and Technology Editor, Texas Bar Journal. The preliminary version of the slide show can still be downloaded here if you are interested. Given that title, I had to invest $.99 with iTunes for some appropriate mood music to start the program. Texas has started the first bar association-sponsored members only social networking site for lawyers, TexasBarCircle. (Although Oklahoma Bar's OBA-NET tends to have a lot of social networking as a by-product.) I also did a solo program for the National Council of Bar Presidents entitled Continuing Legal Education Technology Trends and Barriers. (Yeah, I'm sure you are sorry you had to miss that one.)

As noted, there were lots of other committee meetings I attended and I serve on the ABA Law Practice Management Section's Council, which also met. But I wanted to give a special nod to Dan Siegel and Sean Carter for jobs well done.

Paperless Home and Paperless Office

A New York Times article, Pushing Paper Out the Door, suggests that it may be much easier to convert to a paperless home than at the office and you may be much closer to being able to do this at home than you think. No one at home sues you for malpractice if you can't find a receipt. If you often can't find things under the present system anyway, what's the risk for trying something new at home?

On the office front, here's a paper by Catherine Sanders Reach, the Director of the American Bar Association Legal Technology Resource Center, Paperless Office Hardware and Software. I don't think this is a recent paper, but it puts forth the basics nicely.

Here's a recent blog post, Moving Toward Paperless, from John Heckman's Does It Compute? blog. John covers the main points and outlines the three major document management systems. I do have to note that a lot of lawyers in smaller firm settings are avoiding the DMS entirely and just using their practice management systems or Adobe Acrobat to organize their scanned images. It does depend on how many images you have and whether they need to be OCR'd or not. John also mentioned Ross Kodner. If you have time go to Ross's website here to scroll down to download his latest set of PaperLESS(tm) materials.

Site of the Week: KeyXL

OK, I admit I do like keyboard shortcuts most than most lawyers (in spite of the fact that I've probably forgotten more of them than I retain.) It is almost always quicker to hit a key combination than to grab the mouse and start aiming for your target. Memorize and use the keyboard shortcuts for tasks you do several times a day or week. The mouse clicks are for things used less frequently.

KeyXL.com claims to be "the largest online database of keyboard shortcuts in the world." After a few experimental searches I didn't find anything to make me doubt that. You can get long printable lists of shortcuts for many programs. Hat tip to Tom Mighell for the link to KeyXL.

An Outlook Keyboard Shortcut You Should Use Every Day

You have just finished typing an e-mail. You look it over and make sure there are no errors and it is addressed to the right person. It's ready to go. So you grab your mouse and ........  Well, wait there's a better way. The mouse is great when you want to choose between several options. But when you consider how many e-mails you send each day, you can save a little time by using the keyboard shortcut for Send E-mail in Outlook. The next time you you are ready to send an e-mail, try holding down the Control key while hitting Enter. Try this one a few times this week. (I know this one is on the drop down menu and should be obvious, but few seem to use it.)

Non-Outlook users, look at your drop down menu for Send to see if your shortcut is the same or not.

Voice-Activated Technology for Lawyers

Voice-Activated Technology for Lawyers is the subject of my column in the Oklahoma Bar Journal this month. It is a farily short treatment of a big topic, but it includes links to my previous articles on speech recognition software and digital dictation devices. Regular readers of this blog have already learned of my infatuation with the new speech-to-text service, Jott, so that part of the article should come as no surprise to you.

I do confess that I find truly amazing the improvements that have occurred in in voice-activated technology in just the last few years. Maybe we will reach the day where we can do most anything with our computers via voice commands.

The e-zine Law Practice Today this month republished the materials that Laura Calloway, Director of the Alabama State Bar’s Law Office Management Assistance Program, and I did for our ABA TECHSHOW 2007 presentation "Talking to Yourself: Your Voice as Your Assistant." With all of these articles you should have a fairly good overview of this broad topic.

Thirty Dirty Tricks for Adobe Acrobat

I listened to a great webinar the other day and almost forgot to share the quite useful materials with you. Adobe's Rick Borstein and Tim Huff did 30 Dirty Tips for Acrobat 8 and I certainly learned some new tips.  If you have Adobe Acrobat 7 or 8, this is worth your time. As regular readers of my blog know, I have now come to the conclusion that Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is a "must have" tool for the modern law office. Here's Rick's blog post with the link to download their materials, in PDF format, of course. The file is pretty big  (1.83 MB) and so I'd suggest that when you get to the blog post you use "Right click- Save target as .. " rather than opening in a browser window.

Unfortunately, I was not able to be one of the 337 people who listened to the Creating Acrobat Forms for Legal Professionals seminar by Rick Borstein and Mark Middleton a few days ago. But you can go here to download the seminar materials, links to lots of good information on the topic and some samples. In particular, the sample document with buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons and electronic signature fields is interesting. Gee, Rick, I wish I already knew how to do all of that.

101 "Law Hacks" Featured

ABA Journal staff writer Jason Krause wrote the cover story for the July 2007 ABA Journal. His story was titled "Law Hacks - 101 tips, tricks and tools to make you a more productive, less stressed-out lawyer."  Jason is a very good writer and he has covered a wide range of sources to compile his list of hacks-- from ABA TECHSHOW to the Lifehacker blog. ABA members probably have already checked these out, but I'm sure you will find something of use to you with the 101.

Top Ten Tips from ABA TECHSHOW

I noticed that Mark Kuiack, editor of the Canadian Bar Association's PracticeLink, posted his Top 10 Tips from ABA TECHSHOW and I thought some of you might like to read his favorites.

How do you stay organized?

I just received my copy of the ABA eReport.  One interesting feature this week was the regular Answers of the Week which featured responses from lawyers about best tips for getting and staying organized. Some answers are very useful and others were very entertaining. (One person advocates using grocery bags for organization.) You can read the selected responses here, whether or not you are not an ABA member.

One noteworthy thing is that little attention was given in these responses to the most important method of a law practice being organized, which is practice management software. I don't know if few responded with that idea or if the editors didn't publish them because presumably these responses would have mentioned specific products. Have fun reading these responses, but don't forget practice management software as a great organizational tool.

Signing Adobe Documents

With e-filing many lawyers are now "signing" pleadings without physically signing them. We're going to see more of that in the future. So Adobe's Rick Borstein has a nice post on how to build a transparent signature stamp in Adobe Acrobat, The signature with transparent background is much more appealing on a document than one with a white background. He also adds a reminder that you can "add simple usage restriction security to prevent copying the signature from the document."

My Report About ABA TECHSHOW 2007

ABA TECHSHOW 2007 is over. Congratulations to my friend TECHSHOW chair Dan Pinnington and the TECHSHOW Planning Board (and the great faculty) for another superb event. I’m far from unbiased, but TECHSHOW is my favorite annual event and this year’s edition was one of the best I’ve attended. Both the speakers and the attendees were well versed in legal technology and eager to share their knowledge.

Here are my short take observations:

1. As usual, there was good chemistry between the speakers and the attendees. A Taste of Techshow featured pairs of speakers hosting small dinner gatherings which led to an even more collegial atmosphere. See Adriana Linares’s list of the dinners.
2. Electronic discovery and electronic evidence management remain as the hottest of topics. Some law firms sent several lawyers to these sessions. Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, author of the Zubulake opinions, gave an impressive and engaging keynote address about ED issues. Her remarks will be available as a podcast from the TS website soon.
3. Tips programs are hot. There were four different 60 Tips sessions and a Best of the Tips session. The last session was still packed, even at the end of a long day. These Tips programs are popular everywhere. I think it is because attendees always get a tip or two that they can put to use immediately. I think there’s a lesson for law firm trainers and IT departments here. The minimum training session need not be an hour or 50 minutes. Ten or fifteen minutes of training before or after a staff meeting may have more impact in terms of what is retained and used.
4. Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is hot. Several sessions on various aspects of Adobe were well attended. Adobe’s Rick Borstein spoke to a standing room only group.
5. For fun and education, the 2007 60 Sites in 60 Minutes list is now online!

If you wait a week to comment, then you can link to lots of blog posts and articles from others.

Brett Burney did a great TECHSHOW round up for law.com. A must read!

Dan Pinnington posted post-show comments on the TS blog.

Kevin O’Keefe didn’t attend, but noted the lack of live blogging from TS and got Bob Ambrogi to agree. I’ll stay with Bob’s former position that sometimes there are more important things to do at TS than blog. I have done some live blogging from TS before, but this year I was too busy. I didn’t get to spend all the time I wanted at the vendor’s floor this year. I did note one blog post from a speaker during his time at the podium and one first post for a new blog live from TS.

This blog hosted a recapitulation of the 60 marketing tips panel I moderated. (Personally I am more impressed with analysis of and reporting on a presentation than reposting so much of the content of a program.)

Nerino Petro liked my tip about what to do with the TS materials CD. Read this carefully. It could be big for a few of you.

Matt Homann posted his Web 2.0 TS materials in a Google Doc.

Kevin Thompson only attended one day of TS, but gave an extensive review.

Among the new people I met at TS this year was Dominic Jaar, who writes the Wines and Information Management Blog. (Only one of those during working hours, please.) He reported on the presentation Laura Calloway and I gave on speech recognition software and several other presentations. He was a first time attendee and I’m confident he will be back.

Here’s one lawyer’s booth-by-booth trek through the TS Exhibit Hall.

Don’t forget that if you missed ABA TECHSHOW, you can soon purchase the TS materials CD. (Well, I assume you can.)

But ABA TECHSHOW 2008 will be bigger and better than ever, maybe the best ever. It starts with a better hotel. Mark your calendar now for March 13 -15, 2008 at the Chicago Hilton. But even more significant is that Tom Mighell has been named ABA TECHSHOW 2008 chair and so we know that it will be a great show! (No pressure, Tom.) Congratulations to Tom.

Excel Tips and Tricks Roundup

We are having ABA TECHSHOW 2007 Chair Dan Pinnington as a speaker at our OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference June 21-23. (Oklahoma lawyers, look for information on the Conference in the March 10th Oklahoma Bar Journal.) One of his topics will  be "Accounting for Lawyers: Excel with Excel."

So, to get warmed up, from that great blog LifeHacker, here is an Excel Tips and Tricks Roundup.

Outlook Signatures Can Double as Quick Macros

We are all familiar with how Microsoft Outlook can be used to insert different signature blocks into the e-mails you write. Your signature blocks might vary depending on the individual who is to receive the e-mail. Within an open e-mail you are preparing, just select Insert, Signature and the name of the signature you wish inserted. But there is no requirement that this signature function has to be used only for creating true signatures. For example, one could create a signature called "office directions" with several paragraphs of office directions and parking information. Then any time one wanted to include that information in an e-mail, you would simply click Insert – Signature – office directions and all of that text would be pasted into the body of an e-mail. When you think about it, you may come up with several uses for this technique. This likely works in other e-mail clients as well.

( I was at a meeting with several other state bar practice management advisors when we learned others used this method. I told them I was going to blog it right then, but didn't finish and Nerino Petro beat me to it here.)

Top Ten Lists You Don’t Want To Miss

Everyone loves a Top Ten list. After posting about the Top Ten Flicker Hacks a few days ago, I decided I’d spend some time looking for some more Top Ten lists. It has been several weeks since I had time for any semi-pointless Web surfing and it turned out to be fun. There are countless “Top” lists on the WWW, so I decided to limit my collection to lists of either recent vintage or great usefulness (or strangeness.)

Warning: The following links carry lots of useful information, but also the potential for the wasting of a significant number of billable hours. I also have not carefully reviewed all of the linked sites and some may feature content objectionable to some readers. I found so much material that I haven’t had time to read it all myself.

So let’s start with the Top Ten Essential Travel Gadgets. This is great reading for the road warriors. I don’t own most of these, but I do carry a multi-tool in my shave kit and I use it frequently. This is followed by 10 Top Ten Gadget lists, ranging from the ten strangest clocks to the ten strangest keyboards.

Top Ten Largest Databases in the World is from BusinessIntelligenceLowdown.com. I’d never heard of this site before. But they had another interesting feature, How to Be a Manager that Your Employees Respect: 73 Surefire Tips. This is great material for anyone with employees. (I will definitely visit this site again or subscribe to its RSS, but I have to note that a website offering tips to the business community probably shouldn’t have Google ads. It makes it look amateurish.)

PC World has many top ten features, like The Top 10 Tech Stories of 2006. I also must note The 15 Best Places to Waste Time on the Web. (OK, maybe you are better off not knowing of these.) Here are many more PC World Top Ten lists generated by searching the site.

Even though you may have all of the degrees you want, you may still appreciate the Top Web Tools for College Students. If you want to spend way too much time contemplating how to improve the Google ranking for your web site, here are Ten Top Ten Search Engine Optimization lists.

As a dedicated Gmail user, I can’t skip Top 10 Gmail Tips and Hacks. Some of these are at the expert level, but some are for everyone, like “A recent and quietly introduced Gmail feature is Mail Fetcher, which can check up to five other e-mail accounts and download all that mail into your Gmail. To help keep things organized, Mail Fetcher can automatically label and archive all this incoming mail.”

Ten Effective Workplace Habits is maybe a bit mislabeled. It is more about career planning and development than actually getting work done.

OK, I’ve got to stop now. But I’ve accumulated more material. So I will do a follow up next week. I’ve got top 50 and top 25 lists, along with more top 10 lists. But feel free to e-mail more list suggestions to me (except for lawyer jokes.)

Bless This Messy Desk

Some of you have no doubt been criticized by others for the messy condition of your desk. Perhaps you will find some solace in the observations in my latest essay, Bless This Messy Desk. It seems a messy desk isn't always as bad as some people think. Of course, the piece ends with a few comments on having a less messy desk.

A Tip For Using TinyURL in Practice Management Software

OK, I'm back. I survived the holidays and the Great Ice Storm of 2007. We never lost power but our hearts go out to our friends in places like Muskogee and McAlester, who have been without power for days and have more days ahead.

A brief bit of background about this great tip is required here. I've posted before about the benefits of using TinyURL to shorten links for pasting into e-mails. in our state, OSCN provides docket sheets for pending cases in many of our counties. Here's an e-mail from Noble, Oklahoma attorney Cheryl Clayton who learned about TinyUrl at one of my "30 Tips" programs.

"After learning about tinyurl from you, I put it to use. To keep an eye on the court dockets in my cases, I wanted a quick link that would instantly pull up the case without having to click my way through OSCN. In TimeMatters, I used or created a web field. I then went to OSCN, found my case, and used tinyurl to create a short link that would fit within the size of the Timematters field. Now I can check my case within seconds with one simple click. I did the same for Cindee Pichot in the program she uses - Time and Chaos. I don't use Amicus but I am sure the same thing can be used done in it. For lawyers, a nifty and practical application of tinyurl."

Oklahoma Bar Journal's Management and Technology Theme Issue Offers Lots of Great Reading

The November issue of the Oklahoma Bar Journal was a special Management and Technology-themed issue and I was the guest editor. As events unfolded, I ended up writing a lot of it myself.

A Lawyer's Guide to Mobile Computer Security was co-authored by Ellen Freedman, Reid Trautz and myself. Did you know that a personal computer is lost or stolen every 12 seconds? We cover some important points about protecting sensitive client information in these days when so many lawyers are carrying laptop computers or USB flash drives containing client information. This article will also be published (maybe with some additions) in the Pennsylvania Lawyer and American Immigration Lawyers Association magazine. I regret that we didn't have time to review some interesting security tools that I received. Maybe we will do a follow up or update in the future. But for the present, feel free to pass along this link (or the permalink to this blog post) to laptop-packing lawyers you know.

E-Discovery: The New Federal Rules by Jerry Green and Susan K. Carns covers the all of the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure relating to electronically stored information (ESI) that go into effective December 1, 2006. Even lawyers who never handle litigation or venture inside a courtroom should be aware of these changes. It is critical information for those who advise businesses.

Maximizing Your E-Potential is by Jacob Williams. I believe this is his first article published in the Bar Journal and I predict you will hear more from him. He notes, "Three of the Internet’s resources offered for free that I adopted were RSS feeds, electronic monitoring (e-monitoring) and electronic alerts (e-alerts). They have now established themselves as the wave of the future. If you do not employ them in your practice, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage."

He outlines how Oklahoma lawyers whose case dockets are online with the OCIS docketing system can set up a system so that they are immediately notified every time a document is filed or a docket entry made. This only costs $20 a year by using WatchThatPage.com. He does note a needed tweak to do for each of these pages so that you don't get a notice every day as the date changes.

My article, Conflict Checking Systems from A to Z, turned out to be much longer and more comprehensive than I originally anticipated. Although I think the time for paper-based conflict check systems has passed us by, outlining implementation of a paper-based system seemed to be the best way to go through all of the requirements before moving on to software applications. So I'll immodestly suggest that every lawyer should read this one, whether they use computers or file cards and ledgers.

Motivating Law Firm Staff is a brief Top Ten List from me for small firm lawyers who have to serve as their own Director of Human Relations. But lawyers who work in larger firms can read it, too.

Websites Worth a Visit was the title of my regular Law Practice Tips column in the Oklahoma Bar Journal. I think that is self-explanatory. Some of you will be familiar with most of these. (By now, my colleagues may have figured out why I was complaining about being so overloaded this fall.)

Addiction and the Law: How Dependency Issues Continue to Affect the Legal Profession is a condensed version of an article By Cliff Collins which was originally published in the August/September 2006 issue of the Oregon State Bar Bulletin. We don't normally do reprints, but this is an important issue.

You can download the entire copy of this Bar Journal in PDF format from this link. That might be a better option if you want to print several of these articles to stick in your briefcase. The above link is for the current Oklahoma Bar Journal issue. When the December Bar Journal is posted, this issue will be archived here, which is not a valid link until then.

C|NET's Top Ten Research Tools

The folks at C|NET may have trouble counting (they included 11 in their Top Ten), but they know their research tools. It is brief, so I am labeling C|NET's Top Ten Research Tools a "must read." Picking a new one from the list to try is a worthwhile idea, too.

Solo and Small Firm Conferences from Milwaukee to Maryland

In my prior post I mentioned the ABA GP/Solo Division. The division sponsored a National Solo and Small Firm Conference last week. Ross Kodner and I co-chaired the event. Ponca City, Oklahoma attorney Brian Hermanson was a speaker. Ross and I spent a lot of time working on this and it was a pleasure. Ross has done a nice blog post about the conference if you want more details. At this time the plan is to do it again next fall in Stowe, Vermont. I have to make special note of ABA staffer Laura Ramirez. Imagine having a huge project dumped in your lap when it was already one of your three or four busiest times of the year. And then imagine having to deal with me and Ross almost every day for weeks! Thanks also to the GP/Solo division leadership for supporting the venture and Alexandria, VA attorney, Deb Matthews for serving not only as a track leader, but generally filling in when we needed help.

But right around the corner is the Maryland Bar's 8th Annual Solo and Small Firm Practice Conference on November 11, 2006.  They have some nationally known speakers like Sharon D. Nelson, John Simek, Carolyn Elefant and the ABA's tech guru, Catherine Sanders Reach of the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. My friend, Pat Yevics of the Maryland State Bar, organizes the conference. Fellow conference organizers, I do see another idea really worth stealing -- a "Sanity" track. I like it. For more information, look over the conference schedule.

The "My Library" Folder

I want to share something with you that has been working very well for me for the last several weeks. I'm not suggesting it for all of you as it deals with both my needs and my failings.

Let me start out by saying that I am not one of those hyper-organized types that make for good legal secretaries and administrative assistants. I think that I'm pretty well organized, for a lawyer, but I have to watch myself to avoid lapsing back into the old habits of using piles of paper to organize.

When I was in private practice and used paper systems, I always thought that organizing brief banks or form banks was a challenge as it was always difficult to figure out the appropriate level of categorization and subfiles.  I've created a folder on my computer called "My Library." I still use other folders for specific projects, but this folder is for things written by others that I decided to save for any reason. It is all articles and essays. Some are scanned, but most are printed from web pages with Adobe Acrobat. I can use desktop search to locate things in the folder and am building quite a collection which all can be full text searched. It also allows me to stay focused when working on an online project. If I stumble across something interesting, I do not stop to read it, but grab it for later use and return to the present matter.

Here's my method. It is quite simple. When I find a great article online (or one I don't have time to read now, but might want to later) I carefully look to see if there is a printer-friendly version. Often there is. Then I print it to PDF using Adobe Acrobat. I give it a name like "PowerPoint Woes by Bob Smith August 2006" which is often not the name of the article.

If I have a spare moment, I might check to see if there are any recently saved articles I haven't read. But, even if I haven't read them yet, I am building a collection and because it is a digital file, I may find something there months from now as a result of a desktop search.

Bottom line is that I now save articles to My Library every week. My rate of saving articles is more than it used to be when I tried to organize by topic. I may delete an article after reading it weeks later. Many lawyers may not have a need to read many online articles. But it works for me and might work for some of you. Save the digital info today and figure out the details later. Some of you might be able to use this to organize your online reading of recreational topics, too.

Dragon Dictate Naturally Speaking's New Edition is STUNNING

OK, as a less than speedy typist, I've yearned for voice recognition. I've tried it before and the results were impressive, but not enough to incorporate it into my daily life. A local lawyer demonstrated Dragon Dictate NaturallySpeaking Preferred version 8 for me and I purchased it to try this product once again.  But before I could do so, the new version of Dragon Dictate NaturallySpeaking Preferred (Version 9) was released. So, of course, I upgraded. After using the software for only one day, I can tell this is going to be a major part of my professional life.

Here's my formula for success in case anyone is interested:

1. I purchased the Preferred Edition because of the price ($199).  I am told that the more expensive Legal Edition is not particularly worth the extra cost.  I have had those I respect say that the Professional Edition is worth the extra cost, but frankly I can't see how at this moment.
2. A lot of memory is very important.  Before I took this step I upgraded my computer's memory to 1.25 GB.  One of my colleagues tells me that 2 GB would be better.
3. Get a good USB microphone, not one that plugs into the computer's soundcard.  I was unable to find the quality of microphone that I desired shopping in Oklahoma City yesterday.  So I ended up buying a $29.95 microphone from Staples.  It seems to work quite well. But I'll probably want to get a wireless headset at some point.
4. Do the training even though it says you don't have to train.  Then go to the trouble of using the software to make any corrections so that it learns about your voice and your dictation style.

I recognize that this is not for everyone. If you are a speedy typist is probably not worth the effort.  However, for many lawyers who are already dictating lots of material or for lawyers who are typing at a less than adequate speed, this may be the most important software application of 2006.

You don't just have to rely on me for the recommendation.  It was featured on National Public Radio this morning and profiled by David Pogue in the New York Times last week.

And, in case you were wondering, yes, I dictated this blog post using the software with a very few corrections.

"E-mail Overload" Redux

Well, we had 120 or so for the "Overcoming E-mail Overload" seminar Thursday. That's a lot larger than average crowd. So if you are struggling with the problem, you can see that you are not alone. Here's one more thought along this line.

Try this technique. Get one project completed in the morning before you even open your e-mail client. Time management experts tell us that we should try to get the most important thing we have to do that day done first. So complete your most important job before you open your e-mail, even if you are like me and a lot of your "real work" is done via e-mail. This is not an original thought by any means. I'd encourage all of you to read "Geek to Live: Control Your Workday" by LifeHacker's Gina Trapani. But this makes so much sense because reading your e-mail puts you in the reactive mode. Getting an accomplishment under your belt first thing may make the day go better.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of adhering to this practice is that you will hopefully never again find yourself working after 5 p.m. (with your family holding dinner for you) on what should have been a short project when you've known all day that it had to be completed today. At first I thought this was a good idea that wouldn't work for me because always check my e-mail from home before I leave for work in case I want to contemplate anything on the commute. But then I thought that is why it should really work for me once I arrive.

Dual Monitors Make Your Life Easier

One of my "30 Tech Tips in 30 Minutes" given to the Cleveland County Bar Association Meeting in Norman last week was about the benefits of using two monitors. Law practice technology consultant Hank Ryan was in the audience and he actually gave the best quote, "It's like power windows. Once you use dual monitors, you'll never go back."

Two monitors are an incredible productivity tool. Don't just take my word for it, read this New York Times article on the topic. Windows XP is programmed to accept more than one monitor. Copying and pasting between two documents goes much more quickly when you can have one document on one screen and one on another. Leaving Outlook open on one monitor allows you to glance up to check while waiting on an important e-mail while doing document drafting on the other. There are lots of other benefits.

If you've converted to a laptop for your main computer like me, setup is a breeze. Just plug a monitor into the video outlet on the back of the computer (or hopefully the docking station you are glad you purchased) and go to Control Panel, Display to set it up.  If you have a desktop computer then you either need to install a second video card or a sophisticated video card with two connectors. Well, that's what I thought until recently, anyway.

Edmond, Oklahoma lawyer Dana L. Murphy contacted me after hearing this tip at the OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. She asked if I had ever heard of the Tritton See2 USB 2.0 SVGA Adapter, which I hadn't. It is an SGVA adaptor that plugs into a USB port. Well, she decided to risk the $89.95 and, after installing the accompanying software, it worked like a charm for her. She noted "I am not a techno-nerd and I figure if I can get it to work, anyone can."

So for all of you who wanted dual monitors, but recoiled at taking a screwdriver to your computer or installing a card, here you are. Try it, you'll like it.

Oh, and speaking of Norman, Oklahoma, my home town was named #40 in Money Magazine's Best 100 Places to Live

Overcoming E-Mail Overload

On July 20th, I am one of several panelists for an American Bar Association seminar titled "Overcoming E-Mail Overload: Techniques and Tips for Avoiding Malpractice, Streamlining, and Improving Effectiveness." It is presented by teleconference and also live audio webcast and is sponsored by the ABA Law Practice Management Section. You can click on the link in the program title to enroll or for more information. The other panelists are Emily J. Eichenhorn, Director, Lawyers' Risk Management, CNA Global Specialty Lines, West Bloomfield, MI; Richard G. Ferguson, Lynass, Ferguson & Shoctor, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and Adriana Linares, Legal Technology Trainer and Consultant, Orlando, FL. This should be a worthwhile seminar.

However, in my role as citizen-journalist blogger, I also have to inform my readers that the ABA LPM Section has also seen fit to publish a really nice free article titled "Your Inbox Spilleth Over? E-mail Management Strategies that Work" by Debbie Foster in its Law Practice Today webzine. LPT is going to regularly feature "Best of ABA TECHSHOW" article it seems. My readers know I am all for free practice management content on the Internet, but I can't help but be bemused at the timing of publishing this article a few days before the teleconference. Don't worry. We have quite a few additional things to say and the online seminar has been submitted for MCLE ethics credit in the various states. Read the LPT article, and then attend the seminar, and you should be up to speed on the latest e-mail management techniques and tools.

Fun with Outlook Autocomplete

Microsoft Outlook's autocomplete feature is handy. You type in a few letters of an e-mail address and the rest is filled in for you. But there's more to the feature than first meets the eye. Noted legal technologist Ross Kodner believes the feature is so dangerous it should be disabled in all law firms. (I'll link you to the instructions to do that in a moment.) His theory is that you can used to typing in "Mar" and hitting enter to send it to your secretary, Mary. Then suddenly you do it with a e-mail containing a critical confidential file attachment and it mysteriously goes to another Mary, the opposing counsel on the case. While Ross may have a point, I think we should first understand how this works.

Outlook Autocomplete "guesses" the name or e-mail address you are beginning to enter. But if you assume it is guessing from your Contacts list, you'd be wrong. Instead it compiles a list of Nicknames from recently sent e-mails (and maybe sometimes from your Contacts.) That's why Mary A-something can suddenly replace trusted Mary your legal assistant in Autocomplete. So you can easily send something to the wrong person without realizing you did, or even worse, just as you realize what is happening. (Ross Kodner also defined a time unit called the oh-no-second, which is the time period when it registers with your brain that you should not click the mouse or hit enter and at that instant the unstoppable finger does so anyway. You then follow by saying "Oh, no." Well, oh, something anyway!)

So anyway, here are some autocomplete tips:

1. Here is a page explaining how to disable autocomplete that I Googled up.
2. Alternatively, you can easily prune dangerous entries from the Nicknames list. When a list of autocomplete entries appears as you type, use the down arrow key to select names or addresses you use only rarely (or are opposing law firms) and delete them from Nicknames with the Delete key. This cab be quite helpful when someone you only send one e-mail to suddenly is in the way of your frequently used Nicknames.
3. If you are e-mailing someone who is in your address book, the key combination Ctrl + K will search your Outlook Contacts (but not Nicknames) for the text you have typed so far. If only one match is found, it completes the address. If there are several, you are given a list from which to make a selection. This works whether or not autocomplete had been disabled.
4. Finally, sometimes the Nickname list will become corrupted and have to be reset. Microsoft tells how here.

Now no one tell Ross I was being a Nicknames enabler, OK?

Give Yourself a Photographic Memory

Tom Mighell and I were discussing digital cameras at the recent New Orleans technology conference. He mentioned something that I at first thought was more of a humorous story than a true tech tip, but after thinking about it and sharing it with others, I have been encouraged to post it here. (Maybe they just want to make fun of me.)

Now that many of us own phones with cameras included, have you thought of the idea of "temporary pictures" could be taken by your camera phone, held for awhile and then deleted. Here are a few ideas:

You travel a lot and have trouble remembering your hotel room number, take a picture of the door (with number visible)  the first time you see it and delete it when you check out.

Look up a number in a phone book you just need for a while, take a picture of the page to hold until you don't need it. You want to have a cab take your back to a hard-to-find address the next day

You need to remember a large dollar amount or any number you are viewing for a temporary basis.

There are many others, but you get the idea. The idea of using the phone to take a quick image for recall when I don't have pen or paper handy is an interesting one.

A Few Tips to Improve Your Note-taking

From LifeHacker, here's a really interesting post on how to improve your note-taking.
I really like LifeHacker and featured the site at as one of my 60 Sites in 60 Minutes at ABA TECHSHOW.

Not all of these ideas may apply to lawyers, but I really liked the idea of symbolizing your note taking, e.g.
[ ] A square checkbox denotes a "to do" item
( ) A circle indicates a task to be assigned to someone else
* An asterisk is an important fact
? A question mark goes next to items to research or ask about

Some of the free notepad template generators noted in the post are really great. They create a PDF and then you print out as many as you need.

Calculating a Date With Outlook

Did you know that Microsoft Outlook will calculate future dates for you easily? In a new Appointment or Task, you can type 30d and when you hit tab, the date displayed is 30 days from today. Even more interesting is that you can type phrases like "45 days from April 25th" and it will calculate those dates as well. A tip of the hat to both Adriana Linares and Brian Peterson who posted a comment to her post on the topic.

And, of course I just have to say it, you really should be using a legal specific practice management program for calendaring rather than Outlook.

Five Practice Tips from the Practice Management Advisors

My fellow bar practice management advisors are providing a tip of the week to our members and various other bar associations. You may see them pop up on your state or local bar's web pages soon. So to restart that project in grand style, here are five (count 'em, five) PMA practice tips.

1. Quickly Zooming Fonts for Easier Reading

When you are reading a document or a webpage and the font is a bit too small to comfortably read, here's a quick solution. Hold down the control key and use the scroll wheel on your mouse to easily enlarge the text, zooming in. This doesn't work with everything. But since it works with True Type fonts, it will work most of the time.

2. Return Receipts for E-mails

Many lawyers never use return receipts for e-mails because they generally are not that useful as evidence in court. But when you are e-mailing important time-sensitive documents to clients or other lawyers, it is often helpful for you to know they received the document. Spam filters are one of many reasons an e-mail may not be received, but no "bounce message" is returned to you. Show your clients you care that they received a document and save yourself the aggravation of calling someone just to see if they got your e-mail by using the return receipt option. It is located under View, then Options in our version of Microsoft Outlook and can be located using the Help files if you use a different e-mail client.

3. A/R Aging Priorities Tip

Once a month lawyers should take a financial snapshot of the practice. The main purpose of this practice is to give lawyers a clear picture, on a monthly basis, of where the money is. This snapshot should tell them how much money is going out and how much is coming in. An important part of the money “coming in” is actually what should have come in, but hasn’t yet. This is the accounts receivable (A/R) aging report. This report shows unpaid accounts, their amounts and how old they are. Any collection efforts should look at the largest amounts first. If you are going to spend 30 minutes dealing with an unpaid account, do it on one worth $1000 instead of one worth $10.

4. WiFi vs Cellular Access

There is a lot of hype about the availability of WiFi but the fact is that there is not enough coverage, free or otherwise, to count on it being there in a pinch. If you have to be mobile and you have to be connected, either spend the money for a cellular broadband card for your PC or spend the time learning how to use your cell phone as a cellular modem. Depending on the phone type and the capabilities of your PC you have you may require a cable to connect to your PC or you may connect via Bluetooth. It will not be as fast as WiFi but you will get a signal where no WiFi is available. You can learn more by visiting http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usingyourphone/a/cellmodem.htm

5. USB Flash Drives: Use with Care

USB flash drives, sometimes called jump drives, have become very popular with lawyers. What lawyer wouldn't be interested in being able to carry thousands of documents in his pocket? They are very convenient for the lawyer on the go. The problem is that they are so small that they are easy to lose. Therefore you need to take care with any documents containing confidential client communications on them. You may password protect those document, use a zipping utility to compress them while adding a password or maybe just buy a more expensive flash drive with encryption software as a part of the package. Keeping the flash drive on your key ring makes loss less likely as well.

The PMA Practice Tip of the Week is a service of the Practice Management Advisors Committee of the ABA Law Practice Management Section. The PMA tips are not meant as legal advice, nor binding on any bar association or law society.

Today's Lesson: Bookmarklets

Here's an article I found on LifeHacker entitled Ten "Must Have " Bookmarklets. Bookmarklets are small bits of javascript that you can save in your Favorites. But instead of just taking your browser to a favorite Web page, they can perform other actions. If you don't get bookmarklets, let me give you an example you may appreciate. Readers of this blog know I really like services like TinyURL to make shorter links to web pages for e-mailing or even communicating verbally over the phone.

The Tiny URL bookmarklet is here:
http://tinyurl.com/#toolbar 

After going to that page, right click on the link to the bookmarklet and save it to your Favorites. (Some of you may want to put it on the Links Toolbar in IE as they suggested, but mine is full with higher priorities.) Then I opened my Favorites and moved this new one from the bottom to near the top of the list. Just drag and drop it higher on the list.

It looks just like a normal Favorite, but here's the benefit.

Assume that I am already at a webpage and want to create a tiny URL for it to paste into an e-mail or for some other purpose.

Old method:
Copy the URL from the webpage to my clipboard
Surf to TinyURL.com
Paste it it into the data window in Tinyurl
Click the button to create the Tiny URL
(Tiny URL has improved to automatically copy the new URL to your clipboard and save that additional step.)

New method:
Click Favorites and Select the TinyUrl Bookmarklet (which looks like the
other favorites)
As I see the TinyURL Web Page appear, I know that the task is done and
the new URL has already been copied to my clipboard.

For more bookmarklets, see Bookmarklets.com. One bookmarklet I like that wasn't mentioned in the article referenced above was page freshness, which allows you to see when a Web page you are viewing was last updated. It is here.

Desktop Search is a Hot Topic

"A Desktop Search Primer" was the title of my Oklahoma Bar Journal story this month. I generally outlined what desktop search is and noted several of the leading products. An important point was that you should make sure the product indexes the files you need to search. For example, some products do not index WordPerfect files. Google is so pervasive that many plug-ins have been developed by third parties to enhance its capabilities, including Larry's WordPerfect Indexer for Google. Go check out the Google plug-ins page. While Google disclaims responsibility for these third party plug-ins, I have the feeling they would remove those where they had received many trouble reports. Tweak GDS, Google Desktop Extreme and gdTunes all look interesting. But, I'm