Affinity Law Office Technology Blog

PC World's 100 Best Products of the Year

PC World Magazine announced its 100 best products for 2008.  Some of these products will be of interest to tech-oriented lawyers.  Depending on the nature of your practice, your hours may be irregular or require working at night while your favorite TV show is playing.  We all know about time-shifting via VCR (old-school) or DVR (newer tech).  But the newest tech is web-based video streaming of TV shows and movies via sites like Hulu, the number 1 tech product for 2008.  Hulu is a free site sponsored by NBC Universal and News Corporation.  The selection is wide, varied, and growing.

You are almost out of time to order a new PC with the Number 4 pick this year, the Windows XP operating system.  Microsoft officially stops selling Windows XP Pro (the version most lawyers will want) on June 30, but many PC makers are setting earlier order cut-offs.  The partly good news is that XP Home will continue to be available on a number of low-price Ultra Mobile PC's (UMPC's) for the next couple of years.  There may also be options to buy Vista and "downgrade" to XP Pro.   

If you or a family member is into digital photography, you know that the least enjoyable part of the process is transferring images from the camera to your computer or photo storage/sharing web site.  Number 7 on the list is a marvel of miniaturization, the Eye-Fi.  The Eye-Fi comes in three different versions ranging from $80 to $130 depending on the extend of web-based services you desire.  It combines a 2GB SD storage card with a Wi-Fi radio.  Amazing and convenient.  Your photos can be up on a photo sharing site like Flickr before you have moved on to your next destination. 

Lawyers need to be well-informed, but what news sources can you trust.  Cable news networks all seem to have an agenda.  The answer may be Number 23 on the list, NPR.org.  It is the online home of NPR's lauded national news coverage and commentary, special reports, and documentaries. NPR's site has done a lot in a short time to convey its rich content in compelling digital formats such as podcasts and live and recorded streams.

If you are a solo or very small firm without an Exchange Server to host your own email, you may be stuck with a woefully inadequate free email account from your ISP.  Some of these accounts have Inbox storage limits of as little as 10 MB.  If you receive a couple of large file attachments (PDF scans, images, etc.), your Inbox will be full and your incoming mail will start bouncing back to the sender.  Not a good thing is you depend on email (as most of us do).  A solution is at Number 41, Google's free Gmail service.  It has tons of storage, works with desktop email clients like Outlook and Thunderbird, and now has IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) to keep your email in sync between your office PC, your notebook PC, your home PC, and your mobile phone.  It is not quite as seamless as Exchange, but a whole lot better than regular POP email. 

Speaking of Outlook, if you are tired of the bloat and expense of this Microsoft offering, Mozilla's free Thunderbird email client does just about everything Outlook does (except directly sync with certain practice management programs), especially when you install some of the many free add-ons available on the Web.  Thunderbird is Number 43 on the best of 2008 list.

If you need to add storage to your small firm network, Number 57 on the list may be the right choice.  The NetGear ReadyNAS Duo has room for a second hard drive to create a duplicate copy of all your data in case the primary drive fails.  It connects directly to your network and works with Windows and Mac computers.

If you are tempted to make the switch to a Mac, but have Windows software you need to run, Number 79 on the list will solve the problem.  VMWare Fusion is rated the simplest and easiest way to run Windows programs on a Mac.

Finally, at Number 99 is a continuous source of time-management tricks, productivity downloads, and easier ways to get done what needs to get done.  Yes, we are talking about the Lifehacker blog.  And not all of the tips are tech-related.       

Speed-up tricks

If you have an older desktop or notebook PC that just isn't cutting it anymore, performance-wise, you can squeeze a bit more life out of it with Actual Booster.  It works by boosting the priority of whatever program is running in the foreground window.  Whatever program you are currently using gets a bigger slice of your computer's resources and will run faster.  If you are currently using Word then Word will run faster. If you switch to an Outlook window then Outlook will run faster.  The trade-off is that Word will then slow down. But it doesn’t matter if Word slows down because you are not currently using it. 

If you have a new Vista PC, but are disappointed in its performance (a common complaint), the slowness may be due to Vista's built-in Indexer that constantly catalogs the content of your hard drive(s).  The good news is that you can disable the Indexer.  Go to Add/Remove Programs, click Add/Remove Windows Components in the left panel.  Then deselect Indexing services.  Finally, click Next.  If you need indexing, select any number of independent indexing tools.  One of the higher-rated indexing tools is Copernic Desktop Search. 

Waterproof MP3 player for walking (or running) in the rain

Target has the Freestyle 2GB waterproof MP3 player with FM radio on sale for $49.99.  Even the earbud headphones are waterproof.

 

Hig-tech clock for your desk

If you are a tech-savvy lawyer, you may cringe every time you look at the antiquated clock sitting on your desk and wonder what it says about you.  Target has temporarily reduced the price on the Philips clock radio photo frame that will make your desk clock as high-tech as your practice.  For $89.99, you get a combination stereo clock radio and digital photo frame with the following features:

• Clock Radio
• Digital Tuner
• Additional Functions: Alarm Clock, Built-In Digital Clock
• Stereo Speakers
• Features Sleep Timer, Photo Viewing with Music/Radio, 20 Station Presets, Backlit Display, Dual Wake
This device has 7 inch LCD screen, SD memory card and USB slots for photos or digital music.  With a quick glance, you will be able to monitor the time and also see photos of your family (and perhaps remember for whom you are working so hard at the office).

Great alternative to Google Earth

Google Earth has many practical uses for lawyers and law firms (such as measuring the radial distance between any two points to determine whether particular contract or statutory provisions apply, real estate searches and litigation, etc.).  However, Google Earth can be slow to load and is fairly resource intensive, especially on an older PC.  And what if you are using a borrowed computer on which the software has not been installed?

Try Flash Earth instead.  It provided the aerial views of Google Earth, Microsoft Earth, and others in a Flash-based web page that loads instantly, and you can toggle from Google Earth to Microsoft Earth to determine which view is preferable (or more current).   It also works perfectly on the Xandros Linux powered Asus Eee mini-notebook PC.      

Something else to worry about

As if we didn't worry enough about computer viruses coming at us from emails or web sites.  Now we have to be concerned about peripheral devices such as digital photo frames that connect to our PC's via USB.  The Associated Press is reporting on virus-laden digital photo frames being shipped to the U.S. from China that can infect your PC when you connect them via USB cable to transfer your photos to the device.  According to the story:

Recent cases reviewed by The Associated Press include some of the most widely used tech devices: Apple iPods, digital picture frames sold by Target and Best Buy stores and TomTom navigation gear.

In most cases, Chinese factories - where many companies have turned to keep prices low - are the source.

This is yet another excellent reason to use a good anti-virus program and make sure it is always current. 

Shredder is essential office or home item

Protecting our clients and ourselves isn't easy in an era of rampant identity theft.  Nothing with identifying or potentially confidential information should go directly into the trash.  For big jobs (such as destruction of multiple old paper files) there are commercial services available - most of which are mobile and will come to your home or office.

But for the smaller daily destruction jobs, you will want a shredder at home and at the office.  Currently (through February 9) Staples is running a sale on shredders ranging in price from $15 to $200.  At the top end of that range, the shredders micro-cut the documents and also shreds CD's, DVD's, and credit cards. 

One Laptop Per Child - Give One, Get One Starts 11/12

The One Laptop Per Child project gets underway on Monday, November 12.  Starting that day, you can donate one laptop and receive one laptop for $399.  For that donation, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home.  Additionally, T-Mobile is offering donors one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations throughout the United States, which can be used from any Wi-Fi-capable device, including the XO laptop.

The XO laptop is a reasonably capable portable machine.  For a full review by Laptop Magazine, click here.  Although the outward appearance of the XO may not be especially lawyerly, it is possible that a lawyer could use an XO laptop for remote access to the office, to check and send email, do legal research on the Web, etc.   

Don't touch that mouse!

Windows is very mouse-centric.  But computer users from the pre-Windows era know that the keyboard is faster than the mightiest mouse.  There are a ton of useful Windows and application-based keyboard shortcuts you can and should use to speed your work.  PC World Magazine compiled many of them on their web site.  There is also a list specifically for MS Office, including Word. 

Strangest USB flash drive yet

We've seen USB flash memory drives combined with MP3 players, pens, and other useful tech-oriented gadgets.  But here is a combo USB flash drive and bottle opener from Cyberguys, one of my favorite sources for cables, connectors, and other tech parts.  A 1GB USB flash drive and bottle opener, appropriately called the Popdrive, will set you back $24.95.