Legal Technology

Watching the news unfold

I'm spending a late night watching the news unfold of Justice Souter's retirement. I first saw Nina Totenberg's lines on it at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103694193 and then I saw a short blip on the AP wire, and more lines at the Huffington Post. Then it started spreading like wildfire: L.A. Times Blog, MSNBC, etc. Then my RSS feeds caught fire. As for Twitter, not so many tweets. I guess birds do sleep, sometimes.

Avvocating the importance of SEO name ranking

"That which we call a rose ... ": SEO and the importance of the ranking for your name.

By Conrad Saam
Special to the Legal Technology blog

If you are an attorney and trying to be found on the Internet, your name becomes very important. An increasing number of potential clients are spending more and more time mining the Web for information on individual lawyers. This is true for consumer focused attorneys (divorce, DUI, etc.) as well as those serving businesses. Think your corporate client isn't checking out the name of the new junior associate on his BigLaw legal team? Think again. Read more.

Review: HP Scanjet 7000

By Sean Doherty
Law.com

After moving my office from California to New York in 1996, and back again in 2007, I have learned the value of living with less paper by converting it to digital format. There is less paper to store, maintain and move; and it is easier to find information in digital format. If you find either of those values important, you will need a scanner to realize them.

The first, and most important step in living with less paper is to choose a good scanner to convert paper into a digital format. Look for a scanner that fits into the office without a forklift; that is easy to load; that does not suffer from unnecessary, intermittent paper jams; and that offers quality, duplex scanning with output to a variety of formats, including PDF and TIFF. And of course, it would be nice if it was bundled with feature-rich software that integrates the scanner with other desktop applications.

With the above requirements in mind, I reviewed Hewlett Packard's successor to the Scanjet 7710, the new Scanjet 7000 -- and I was not disappointed by its performance. As a home-office, work-group scanner, the Scanjet 7000 fit right next to my desk, integrated with my desktop applications (Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat), provided excellent scanning quality, and handled a variety of paper of varying quality and size without a paper jam. Here's how it worked in my home office.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Beta

I was so busy filing my taxes earlier this week that I did not notice that Microsoft released Exchange 2010 Beta on April 15 (go here for a product overview). The Beta version boasts support for: an integrated e-mail archive that will allow users to seamlessly move from their online inbox to an archived PST file; text preview of voice mails in Outlook; the ability to delegate administrative tasks to roles, e.g., an e-discovery manager; and up to 50 percent reduction in IO operations -- and that is in addition to the IO reductions introduced in Exchange Server 2007. The new features will also be available in beta later this year in Microsoft Exchange Online. For those lawyers in law firms that don't see much outside of Outlook, it's never to early to start kicking the tires on the new version.

Productivity, cost control and time management

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

I spoke yesterday with Nate Pruitt, VP of Sales and Marketing for Netsimplicity, the maker of Meeting Room Manager room scheduling software.  We discussed the legal industry's increased emphasis on productivity, cost control and time management.

Listen to the interview here.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Legal technology writer and author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008). Learn more at  TheOpportunityMaker.com.

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

I spoke yesterday with Nate Pruitt, VP of Sales and Marketing for Netsimplicity, the maker of Meeting Room Manager room scheduling software.  We discussed the legal industry's increased emphasis on productivity, cost control and time management.

Listen to the interview here.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Legal technology writer and author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008). Learn more at  TheOpportunityMaker.com.

Mac meets botnet

Every so often, I come across a news item or post that heats up the old Mac vs. PC war. But I'm not going to name names or point to posts. Besides, now that Mac is using PC (i.e., Intel) architecture, the war should move on to its logical conclusion: old news. Lawyers should use the operating system that they are most comfortable with that can accomplish their work. But realize that no OS is secure.

Computer appliance?

We hear a lot about computer appliances. But they aren't like other appliances, such as a refrigerator, freezer, washer, or dryer. If they were, they may last beyond the 3 or 5 years we earmark them for depreciation. Computers can, however, be more than a computer. For example, IGMproducts.com has announced the availability of infrared, heated computer accessories to help those who suffer with arthritis or other hand pain.

If your hands become cold and numb after prolong computer use, I would say it's time to see a doctor. But you may want to discuss with your doctor the availability of computer peripherals from IGMproducts.com, who say they can deliver infrared heat to your hands to warm them and restore blood flow. IGMproducts.com further claim that it's infrared keyboard and mice can alleviate the pain associated with carpal tunnel syndrome and many hand-related pains associated with computer use.

Quite frankly, one has to learn to "know when to fold em, Known when to walk away" from the computer when it becomes painful. But if you can't do that on demand, IGMproducts.com may be worth a visit.

    

Regulators ramping up

In the regulatory world, it's very important to "watch what they do, not what they say." In that vein, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently selected Nexidia for audio review. CFTC has entered into an agreement to install Nexidia's Enterprise Speech Intelligence software for reviewing audio content produced in its investigations of trading activities.

Foxmarks is Xmarks with multiple browser support

I found Foxmarks to be an excellent tool to synchronize my FireFox bookmarks between the multiple computers that I use. It would be hard to think otherwise of a project with Mitch Kapor at the helm. In fact, I was preferring FF over Internet Explorer solely because I could easily share my bookmarks on different computers.

If I remember right, an early iteration of Microsoft's Live tools featured a mechanism to share Favorites over multiple computers. But either I, or Microsoft, lost it -- or, I just dreamed that up. Anyway,  Foxmarks is now Xmarks and has support for FF, IE, and Safari. So I might have to rethink my browser of choice.

Now, just when I started to do that, I ran into some other FF add-ons that may help my re-rethinking on my next browser.

Targeted Ads on FTC Radar

Targeted advertising has become so prominent it is no longer flying below government radar, says attorney David Bender. The Federal Trade Commission has indicated that if the industry fails to impose reasonable self-regulation, Congress may act on the FTC's regulatory principles.