Affinity Law Office Technology Blog

Nano beater at new low price

Another bargain for music loving lawyers.  The SanDisk Sansa e250 2 GB digital audio player is now available for half the price of the less capable Apple iPod Nano 2GB player.  At Buy.com, the e250 is only $99 after a $20 mail-in rebate.  The e250 has an FM tuner and video playback capabilities, both of which the Nano lacks, and it doesn't lock you into using iTunes like the Nano.  Is 2 GB's enough?  Yes, for most of us.  It will hold approximately 32 hours of music at normal compression rates.  When you've exhausted the songs on the player, plug it into your PC and transfer more.  It can use Windows Media Player to transfer and synchronize songs.     

Law office tech deals for week of August 20-26

Our first stop on the bargain trail this week is Office Depot.  As we see nearly every afternoon here in Florida, it is storm season.  Lightning and power spikes and outages are common.  Protect your computer, router, and cable/DSL modem with an uninterruptible power supple (UPS).  The APC Back-UPS ES BE750BB Battery Backup is on sale for $84.99.  Office Depot also has what I think is the first sub-$100 17" LCD flat panel monitor I've seem from a major retailer.  The Acer 17" LCD flat panel monitor is $99.99 after $80 in combined mail-in rebates. 

For music lovers, Target has the truly tiny Samsung YP-U2 digital music player for only $89.99.  This player is the size of a standard USB flash memory drive, yet it contains 1 GB of storage for music, an FM tuner, and a (very small) LCD screen.  It has it own integrated USB connector, so there is no need to carry a USB cable.  The entire unit plugs directly into a USB port.

The bargain of the week may be at Best Buy.  The Samsung 940BW 19" wide-screen LCD monitor is only $199.99 after instant savings.

Our final stop this week is Circuit City where you can pick up the Kensington PilotMouse Wireless Mini for your notebook PC.  It is only $9.99 after mail-in rebates.

Universal Web Email Service

If you use Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird or another email program to retrieve your messages on your home computer or notebook PC, you may not be familiar with where or how you log into your email provider's Web mail service.  If you find that you are stuck without your PC, but have a need to check your message and send replies, all you need to remember is www.mail2web.com.  From the home page at mail2web, you simply type in your email address and password.  The mail2web service does the rest, for free!.  Within a few seconds, your inbox will appear on screen.  From there you can read, reply, compose, and delete messages.  mail2web is designed to work with standard POP email accounts. 

Voice recognition - are you ready?

As hardware has improved, so has the ability of software to change the way you practice.  One example is voice recognition (now sometimes called "speech recognition" - probably a more accurate term).  I've used Dragon software since the original "discrete speech" engines of the early 1990's.  In the early days, you had to insert an unnatural pause after each word.  The software, and the hardware on which it ran, were not yet powerful enough to based recognition on the context of a word.

When Dragon first released Naturally Speaking, it promised much greater accuracy without the need for an unnatural dictation style (hence the name "Naturally Speaking").  But computers are very hostile places for analog audio signals, and the quality of the microphone and sound card, as well as the speed of the processor and the amount of system RAM, made a huge difference in usability.  Many lawyers who tried Naturally Speaking gave up on the concept (often because their hardware was not up to the task).

The next major advance was the use of high-quality noise-canceling USB microphones that bypassed inadequate sound cards (especially in notebook PC's).  Switching from an old-style "mini-plug into the sound card" microphone to a USB microphone usually made a noticeable difference in accuracy.

All the while, the software has improved too.  Naturally Speaking is now on version 9, and it appears to be the best ever.  Because a powerful computer is now so cheap, this is a good time to revisit speech recognition technology.  One of the best places to do that is a Web site called KnowBrainer.  They sell the Naturally Speaking software, their own software add-in's for lawyers (and doctors) and a selection of microphones known to perform well with Naturally Speaking.  They also host a forum with much information on using Naturally Speaking.

If you tried speech recognition in the past and gave up, this might be the time to revisit this promising technology.  It could be ready to change the way you produce documents.          

Law office tech bargains for week of August 13-19

I won't bore you with another missive about the usefulness of USB flash memory drives.  If you need one that isn't likely to run out of space, head to Best Buy for the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2 GB USB 2.0 flash drive.  It has a retractable USB connector to prevent damage if you carry the drive in your pocket with your keys, changes, and who knows what else.  It is on sale for $44.99.  While at Best Buy, if you don't yet have a PDA, consider the Palm Tungsten E2 for $199.99 with a free 512 MB SD memory expansion card (by mail after purchase).

Not usually a stop for technology buyers, take at look at your local Target for an interesting collection of stylish USB flash drives from Dane-Elec.  Ranging in price from $13 to $30 and in capacity from 256 MB to 1 GB, you will find nearly any shape, color, and style you want - proving that technology can also be a fashion statement. 

The price war on LCD flat panel monitors continues unabated (perhaps the U.N. needs to look into this?).  Circuit City has the excellent Samsung SyncMaster 931B 19" monitor for $199 after $100 in mail-in rebates.  Also at Circuit City is the highly-reviewed Creative Live! Cam Notebook Pro for only $14.99 after $35 in mail-in rebates.  It comes with a wireless headset for use when video conferencing.

The new coolest digital audio player is sale at Sears.  So while you are browsing through the hardware section for Craftsman wrenches and screwdrivers, take some time out to visit the electronics department.  The Sansa Sansa e250 is on sale for $129.99 after a $20 mail-in rebate.  The Sansa is $80 less than the 2 GB iPod Nano, yet in includes an FM tuner and video playback capability.  Plus, it is compatible with a wider variety of file formats and you are not locked into using Apple's iTunes software.

Office Depot has the larger capacity (4 GB) Sansa e260 for $159.99 after $65 in mail-in rebates.  Office Depot also has a very pocketable USB backup hard drive, the Memorex 8GB Mega TravelDrive.  It is on sale for $99.99 after instant savings and mail-in rebates.  If you need a larger capacity backup drive, but still want portability, the I/O Magic 40 GB USB 2.0 portable hard drive is on sale for $69.99 after instant savings and rebates.

Our final stop on this week's bargain tour is Staples (my personal favorite).  Staples has the Maxtor OneTouch III 60 GB USB portable hard drive for $79.99 after instant savings.  This may be the best deal on a portable backup drive of the current sale items.  They also have the Envision 19" widescreen LCD monitor for only $189.98, again without a rebate.               

   

Another reason to add Bluetooth to your notebook

If your notebook has built-in Bluetooth networking, you can use it to synchronizing your Palm or other PDA, use your cell phone as a wireless modem, and connected certain peripherals such as keyboards and mice.  One of the coolest Bluetooth peripherals is the MoGo Mouse Bluetooth.  It lists for $69.95, which is on the high side for a portable mouse.  But this one is unique.  It is packaged in PC Card format so it slides into your notebook's PC Card slot for storage and charging of its battery.  When you need to use it, pop it out of the slot, fold down the retractable "kickstand" and press any of the mouse buttons to connect it wirelessly to your computer.  Very slick!

TV on your notebook

You can turn your notebook PC into a TV set (assuming you think that is a good idea) easily by adding a TV tuner adapter.  This could be handy when you travel.  The easiest way to do this is with a USB TV tuner module.  ADS Tech makes its MiniTV USB for just this purpose.  It isn't much larger than a USB flash drive.  It has a standard coax connector where you can plug in a cable or antenna feed.  It also comes with software that lets you turn your notebook into a PVR (personal video recorder) and edit recorded TV shows by removing commercials, etc.  You can then burn your recorded TV shows to DVD (if your notebook has a DVD burner, of course). The MiniTV USB lists for $80. 

Universal port replicator fills the gap

We usually recommend that you purchase one or two port replicators (formerly known as docking stations) when you buy a new notebook computer.  Use one at the office and the other at home.  It is convenient to be able to connect your notebook to the network all of your peripherals (mouse, keyboard, monitor, printer, scanner) with a single connection.

However, some notebook PC's don't have matching port replicators from the notebook manufacturer.  And if you delay your purchase until after your notebook model is replaced, the port replicator may no longer be available (except perhaps on ebay).  Of if you frequently switch computers or work for a firm that has a notebook pool from which you check out a machine when needed, no single port replicator will work for you.

There are several after-market port replicators available.  They have a single USB connector that plugs into your notebook.  But they don't offer a video connection for an external monitor, so you need to make that connection manually each time your move your notebook.  Now Kensington offers its Notebook Expansion Dock with Video.  From a single USB connection, this dock provides the following connections:

• 1 Video Connection - supports up to 19" panel; 1280 x 1084
• 4 USB Ports
• Ethernet connection
• Microphone In, Stereo Headset Out

This dock lists for $179.99 and is available at many large technology retailers and also widely on the Web.  If you don't have the manufacturer's docking station designed for your notebook, this is the best alternative. 

Comcast email blacklisting creates problems

Recently I've been contacted by two law firms in states separated by well over 1000 miles experiencing the same problem with their email.  Both use Comcast as their ISP, and both lack servers they can use as a platform for MS Exchange.  Therefore, they use Comcast's POP email system.  Apparently Comcast adopted some time earlier this year an overactive spam filtering program.  As a result, mail from legitimate senders are inaccurately flagged as spam and can't get through to Comcast subscribers.  This happens most often when the mail is from an IP address used by domain forwarding services such as My Domain and Go Daddy, but it can also affect other legitimate email users as well. 

Fortunately, Comcast provides an email link in its rejection message so that senders whose email is blocked as spam can request that their email server's IP address be removed from the Comcast blacklist.  Unfortunately, even if they remove the senders IP address from the blacklist, there is a good chance that it will be automatically added back onto the list by Comcast's software (and sooner rather than later).

So why not just dump Comcast's email service?  A firm can still use Comcast as their ISP, but use an email service that won't cause the problems associated with Comcast's hyper-vigilant spam filter.  One possibility is to switch to Google's Gmail service.  At its core, it is a Web mail service (and one of the better Web-based email interfaces in my view), but it can also function much like a POP account.  You can configure most major email clients such as Microsoft Outlook to receive and send email using the Gmail servers much like it can do with a traditional POP email system like Comcast's.

Fortunately, Gmail accounts are free (and provide 2.5 GB of storage).  You can sign up by having Google send a text message with an invitation code to your cell phone.  On a trial basis, I set up one of the firms having a Comcast problem with enough Gmail accounts for all of its users.  I then set up Outlook to use Gmail's email servers instead of Comcast's servers.    So far the Comcast-related problems have disappeared.  If you are in Comcast email h_ll, let Gmail come to your rescue.                  

Terrific earbud headphones at a reasonable price

If you have a new digital music player (like the terrific SanDisk Sansa e200 series), but you are not satisfied with the sound, it may be caused by the cheap headphones packaged with the player.  There are some great after-market headphones out there, but who wants to pay $200 plus for headphones when you've just dumped two or three bills on a player?

How about $50 for nearly state-of-the-art sound (well, as state-of-the-art as compressed audio can be given the lossy compression used to create MP3 and similar files)?  PC World rated the Sennheiser MX 55 VC Street almost as high as a Shure pair costing $500.