60 Tips in 60 Minutes
Written and presented by Barron Henley Natalie Kelly Reba Nance Dan Pinnington
60 Tips in 60 Minutes
Presenters:
Barron K. Henley, Esq., Partner Affinity Consulting Group 1550 Old Henderson Rd., Suite S-150 Columbus, OH 43220 Main: 614.340.3444 Direct: 614.602.5561 www.affinityconsulting.com
Natalie R. Kelly Director, Law Practice Management Program State Bar of Georgia PH: (404) 527-8770 or (800) 334-6865 Ext. 770 E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @NatalieRKelly - Blog: www.gapracticeadvisor.com
Reba J. Nance Director of Law Practice and Risk Management Colorado Bar Association 1900 Grant Street, Ninth Floor Denver, CO 80203 (303) 824-5320 - Direct (303) 860-1115 - Main [email protected] www.cobar.org
Dan Pinnington Vice President, Claims Prevention & Stakeholder Relations Lawyers' Professional Indemnity Company (LAWPRO®) 250 Yonge Street, Suite 3101, P.O. Box 3 Toronto, Ontario M5B 2L7 T: (416) 598-5863 or 1 (800) 410-1013 Email: [email protected] Blog: www.avoidaclaim.com and www.slaw.ca Twitter: @DanPinnington Web: www.practicepro.ca and www.lawpro.ca Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/danpinnington Google+: https://plus.google.com/111346185766871761394/posts Twitter: http://twitter.com/DanPinnington
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Table of contents
Barron’s Tips ...... 1 1. Acrobat Integration with Outlook ...... 1 2. Outlook Distribution Lists & Contact Groups ...... 1 3. Outlook Delegated Mail Rule ...... 2 4. Remove Redundant Messages in Outlook 2010 and 2013 ...... 2 5. Outlook Mailbox Clean Up (Outlook 2007 & 2010) ...... 3 6. Open Multiple Time Zones in Your Outlook Calendar ...... 3 7. Stop Creating New Documents From Old Ones ...... 4 8. Fujitsu's New ScanSnap iX500 Scanner ...... 5 9. Using Acrobat's Redaction Tool as an Eraser ...... 5 10. Signature Stamps Using The Stamp Tool In Adobe Acrobat ...... 7 11. Flattening PDFs with Adobe Acrobat: ...... 8 12. Shrinking PDF File Sizes Using Acrobat...... 10 13. Using Microsoft Word's Format Painter ...... 10 14. Protect Yourself Against Lost Files with Word 2010 ...... 11 15. Create Icons on the Windows 8 Desktop ...... 13
Natalie’ Tips ...... 15 1. Cloud Backup ...... 15 2. Voice Command Cheat Sheets: ...... 15 3. The Ultimate Tech Guide for Travelers, ed. 2 by Anil Polat ...... 16 4. PC management via mobile devices with PC Monitor: ...... 16 5. Mobile Marketing: ...... 16 6. Client Satisfaction Surveys ...... 16 7. Quick Distractions ...... 16 8. Retreat!!! ...... 16 9. Don't Neglect Your Financials ...... 16 10. Master Your Practice Manager ...... 16 11. CodeTwo Outlook Attachment Reminder ...... 16 12. Health Insurance Options ...... 17 13. Don’t Let Them See What You’re Doing ...... 17 14. Monitor Social Media...... 17 15. Put It In The Bank! ...... 17
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Reba’s Tips ...... 17 1. Keeping Track of Requests in a Folder Called @Waiting For ...... 17 2. Changing Size of Font While Viewing Pages ...... 18 3. Another way to change the size of the font is to go up to the toolbar and: ...... 18 4. How to Get the Full E-mail Address When There’s Only the Name ...... 18 5. Outlook - Disabling Forwarding and Reply to All ...... 19 6. A Little Privacy, Please! ...... 19 7. Get An E-Mail Address to Use Just for Clients/The Office ...... 19 8. Sending E-Mail on the Fly - Preaddress Them! ...... 20 9. How to Recover Items That You Have Permanently Deleted ...... 20 10. Save an Outlook E-Mail Message and the Attachment Together ...... 21 11. Paste Special - How To Cut And Paste And Leave The Formatting Behind! ...... 21 12. Create a Blank Calendar in Outlook You Can Print Out and Write on “The Old Fashioned Way” ...... 21 13. Free Alternative to WebEx and GoToMeeting ...... 22 14. Document Assembly For the Rest of Us – On the Cheap! ...... 23 15. Using Multiple Outlook Windows ...... 23 16. Print a List of E-Mails in Outlook ...... 23 17. Shortcut for Adding Contacts Who Are With the Same Company ...... 24 18. Let Outlook Save You Time When You Type in Phone Numbers for Contacts ...... 24 19. Save a Document with an Outlook Contact, Calendar, or Task Entry ...... 25
Dan’s Tips ...... 25 1. Is Facebook Secretly Sharing What You Are Reading and Watching? ...... 25 2. MyPermissions: A Great Tool to Help You Protect Your Privacy ...... 26 3. Install or Update Multiple Computer Apps in Minutes With Ninite ...... 26 4. Amazing MS Outlook Tip: Sort Your Inbox by Multiple Columns ...... 27 5. Use HTTPS to Make Your Facebook and Twitter Accounts More Secure ...... 27 6. Who’s Looking at You in LinkedIn?...... 28 7. LifeHacker’s Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy ...... 29 8. Google’s Amazing New “Search by Image” Functionality...... 29 9. Deciphering Meaningless Computer Error Messages ...... 30 10. Use PC Decrapifier to Remove Unwanted Software From a New or Old PC...... 31 11. Use F2 and Tab to Quickly Rename Lots of Files in Windows Explorer ...... 31 12. Easily View Two Windows Side-by-Side on Your PC Desktop ...... 31 13. Dealing With DOCX, XLSX and PPTX Files if You Use an Older Version of Office ...... 32
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14. Use join.me to Get on the Same Page Across the Web ...... 32 15. Privacy Commissioner Launches Handbook to Help Lawyers Apply Privacy Law to Their Practices ...... 33 16. Bypass the Windows Recycle Bin With Shift+Del ...... 33 17. Minimize That Darn Office Ribbon for More Room on Your Desktop ...... 33 18. Four Tricks for Working With Tables in Microsoft Word ...... 34 19. Keyboard Shortcuts for Easily Changing Line Spacing in MS Word ...... 34 20. Change the Style of Your Gmail Inbox to Make Finding Messages Easier ...... 35 21. Have Some Fun and Teleport to a Random Place in the World With MapCrunch.com ...... 35 22. MS Outlook Tip: Drag and Drop Items of One Type to Create Another ...... 36 23. An Easy Way to Access Multiple Printer Format Settings ...... 36 24. Use Application Groups to Organize Apps on Your Ipad or Iphone ...... 37 25. Do You Have a Startup Repair Disc? ...... 37 26. Google Will Tell You the Time of the Next Local Sunrise or Sunset ...... 38 27. How Come My iPad Won’t Charge When It Is Plugged Into My Computer? ...... 38 28. Four Tips for Easy Navigation of PowerPoint Slide Deck ...... 38 29. Banish the new e-mail pop-up ...... 39 30. Virtual Meetings ...... 39 31. Training ...... 39 32. Your best source of LPM advice and info: (ABA) Law Practice Management Section books and publications ...... 40 33. Alt+Tab for switching between programs ...... 40 34. The Miraculous Undo ...... 40 35. Second Monitor ...... 41 36. Organize your Outlook ...... 41 37. Adobe Acrobat Professional ...... 41 38. iPhone J.D...... 41 39. Translations With Google Translate ...... 41 40. Use Google Alerts So You Aren’t the Last to Know ...... 42 41. Search Tips That Will Get You Better Google Results ...... 42 42. Don’t be a dupe: That’s the advice from those who were fooled ...... 43
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Barron’s Tips
1. Acrobat Integration with Outlook
Adobe Acrobat has an incredible integration with Outlook which makes it easy to create PDFs from email you would like to file electronically. Even better, the resulting PDF will also capture any attachments to the email you converted to PDF.
A. Create PDFs from Outlook With Acrobat Integration: Acrobat also installs a few buttons and one additional menu in Microsoft Outlook. For those that wish they had a good way to archive and store emails and attachments, this integration can be a life- saver. The Outlook 2003 & 2007 integrations create new menus in Outlook:
In Outlook 2010, the integration creates a new tab that looks like this:
B. Creating PDFs from Individual Emails or Entire Folders: With Acrobat 9, simply select individual emails (Ctrl+left click) or select entire folders; then click the Adobe PDF menu Convert to Adobe PDF and then the appropriate sub item. With the combination of Acrobat X and Outlook 2010, select the appropriate emails or entire folders, then click the Selected Messages or Selected Folders button from the Adobe ribbon in Outlook. This will create a single PDF which contains all of the emails you’ve selected and all of the attachments thereto.
C. Adding Subsequent Emails to Existing PDFs: If you receive additional emails which need to be added to an existing PDF archive, simply choose Convert and Append to Existing Adobe PDF.
2. Outlook Distribution Lists & Contact Groups
If you routinely send email to a group of people, you can create a distribution list or contact group which will make it much easier. For example, I have a Contact Group called Affinity which automatically sends the email to 5 other people. All I have to type in the TO box is Affinity. To create one in Outlook 2007, just click the File menu New Distribution List name the distribution list and add the email addresses of the people you want to include. In Outlook 2010,
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go to your Contacts in Outlook New Contact Group button (Home ribbon) name the group and add the appropriate email addresses.
3. Outlook Delegated Mail Rule
I often receive emailed requests which I delegate to someone else. The problem was that I would usually forget who I delegated the task to within five minutes of delegating it. This would often result in something falling through the cracks and me getting blamed because I failed to follow up. Here's the solution to that problem - create a rule that automatically keeps a copy of every email you sent to someone else for action in a folder called Delegated Mail. Just follow these steps:
A. First, create a folder in Outlook called Delegated Email.
B. In Outlook 2007, click the Tools menu Rules and Alerts. In Outlook 2010, click the File menu Info Rules and Alerts.
C. Click the New Rule button.
D. Under "start from a blank rule," choose "check messages when they arrive" and click Next at the bottom of the dialog.
E. Under "check which conditions do you want to check," check BOTH "from people or distribution list" and "where my name is in the CC box." At the bottom of the dialog, click the hyperlink for "people or distribution list" and add your email address. We're basically creating a rule that will look for emails from you and copied to you. Click Next.
F. Under "what do you want to do with the message," choose "move it to the specified folder." Make the specified folder your Delegated Mail folder. Click Next and add any exceptions. Click Next, name it and click Finish.
4. Remove Redundant Messages in Outlook 2010 and 2013
This is a feature only present in Outlook 2010 and 2013. An email conversation is also known as a thread. Many people have multiple emails in their Outlook folders which are earlier pieces of the same thread. The last email in time contains the entirety of the conversation so the older ones aren't needed. Outlook now has a great feature for cleaning up such messes. Just follow these steps:
A. On the home ribbon, click the Clean Up button in the Delete group.
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B. Click one of the following:
i. Clean Up Conversation: The current Conversation is reviewed, and redundant messages are deleted.
ii. Clean Up Folder: All Conversations in the selected folder are reviewed, and redundant messages are deleted.
iii. Clean Up Folder & Subfolders: All Conversations in the selected folder and any folder that it contains are reviewed, and redundant messages are deleted.
5. Outlook Mailbox Clean Up (Outlook 2007 & 2010)
This is an extremely useful tool. In Outlook 2007, you access it by clicking Tools menu Mailbox Cleanup. In Outlook 2010, you access it by clicking File menu Info tab (left side) Cleanup Tools button. See below for all of the options it provides:
6. Open Multiple Time Zones in Your Outlook Calendar
I'm often trying to schedule phone conferences with people in time zones other than the one I live in (eastern). Outlook has a great way to make this easier on you by opening another time zone adjacent to yours. Just follow these steps:
A. Open your calendar in Outlook.
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B. Right-click the vertical time bar on the left side of the calendar and choose Change Time Zone.
C. Check the Show a second time zone box and choose the time zone you want to show, add a label, and click OK.
D. Now you'll have two zones side-by-side!
7. Stop Creating New Documents From Old Ones
Lawyers rarely start with a blank page when it comes to drafting new documents. For example, assume a real estate lawyer meets with a new client who owns a strip-mall. If the client requests a lease for a prospective new tenant in the strip mall, the lawyer is likely to try locating a lease she previously drafted for a landlord. If she finds the appropriate document, she'll begin making changes so that the document works for this transaction.
A. Problems With This Approach: Although this is unquestionably the most common approach for creating new documents in law firms, there are multiple problems with it.
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i. Errors of Omission: It is very easy to leave language out which should have been added but was missing from the starting-point document.
ii. Errors of Inclusion: Likewise, it's easy to inadvertently leave something in the lease which should have been removed.
iii. Typographical Errors: The word processor's search-and-replace function doesn't always catch everything. It's very common to miss pronouns, party names and other items which are spelled correctly, but which are the incorrect words.
iv. Original Document Flawed: The biggest problem with this approach is that it's likely that the starting-point document was negotiated in the prior transaction and compromises were made which the drafting lawyer doesn't remember. For example, I never drafted a lease for a transaction in which the prospective tenant wasn't represented. By the time the negotiation was over and the terms of the lease were agreed upon, the lease often looked much different than it did when we started. The point is that it's nearly impossible to remember what was changed in any particular document and as a result, it's definitely not a good idea to use compromised or negotiated instruments as a starting point for a new, unrelated transaction.
B. A Better Approach: This is best illustrated through the foregoing example about the real estate lawyer. What she should have done was build a "gold-standard" lease for transactions where she represents the landlord and another one for transactions in which she represents the tenant. Those two leases are likely to be very different from one another since she'll be trying to protect one side or the other. If the lawyer works with other real estate lawyers, they should all work together as a team to encapsulate the best of what they collectively know into the document. All changeable text and optional provisions should be identified and annotated. Thereafter, every time the lawyer is asked to draft another lease, she should go back to the appropriate gold-standard starting-point document because doing so ensures that no compromises have been made in the document and the errors mentioned above are much less likely to occur.
8. Fujitsu's New ScanSnap iX500 Scanner
The iX500 is the successor to the S1500 and it has several improvements over the outgoing model. First, the new model works for Windows or Mac (there is no longer separate models for each OS). However, the scanner only comes with Acrobat X Standard for Windows and does not include a Mac version of Acrobat (the S1500M came with Acrobat Professional). Also note that Acrobat X is not the current version (XI is current). Second, the scanner is 25% faster (25 ppm simplex/50 ppm duplex). Third, the iX500 has wireless connectivity and a new app which allows you to scan a PDF or JPG file directly to your iOS or Android phone or tablet. For a great video illustrating this function, see this (http://tinyurl.com/9wqy9x6). Fourth, the scanner has a "GI" processor built-in which performs "intelligent image enhancement." So the images look better and related to this, they have increased the speed with which the scanner creates searchable PDFs. Finally, they've re-designed the paper feeder to minimize jams and multi-feeds. You can read more about the scanner here (http://tinyurl.com/bk9rcx4).
9. Using Acrobat's Redaction Tool as an Eraser
You may be aware that Acrobat 9, 10 and 11 Professional contains a redaction feature. By default, the feature will place a black square over redacted text (see screen shot below):
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However, you can also use this feature as an eraser by changing the redaction properties so that the redacted text has "no color" rather than being black. Just follow these steps:
In Acrobat 8 or 9, if you click the Advanced menu Redaction Redaction Properties (see below), you can change the Redacted Area Fill Color to No Color. Assuming the background of your PDF is white, this will effectively erase whatever you redact (in other words, it won’t black it out). You can get to the same menu in Acrobat X by clicking the Tools button Protection Redaction Properties.
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10. Signature Stamps Using The Stamp Tool In Adobe Acrobat
This is a way to add your signature to a PDF as an image.
A. Steps for Using a JPG File: This is easy because almost any scanner can produce JPG files. However, there is a drawback with JPG files in that your stamp will have a white, square background. Therefore, it will obscure anything behind it. There is a way to avoid this problem, but it’s a little more complicated (see paragraph 10.B. below).
i. Sign your name to a blank sheet of paper. Scan it and save it as a JPG. Open it in Microsoft Picture Manager. Select Picture and Crop. Reduce the size of the JPG to be as small as possible and still include your signature. Click OK and then Save. Note the location.
ii. From the Stamp Tool in the Comment and Markup Toolbar select the drop-down menu and Create Custom Stamp.
iii. Browse to the location of your saved signature from step one and change the “Files of type” designation at the bottom of the screen to JPG files. Open it and click OK. Create a new category called Attorney Signatures or My Signatures and enter your name in the Name field. Click OK.
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B. Steps for Using a PNG File: The steps here are similar, but we’re using a PNG file rather than a JPG. The benefit of doing this is that you can open a PNG file in Adobe Photoshop and remove the white background, thereby creating a signature stamp of the ink lines only. As such, you can drop it on a PDF and it won’t obscure anything in the background with a big white square.
i. Sign your name to a blank sheet of paper. Scan it and save it as a JPG. Now you need Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements or Gimp1. Assuming you have Photoshop Elements, open Elements and crop it (reduce its dimensions) and then save it as PNG2 file. Select the white background and delete it, then save the file (note the location).
ii. From the Stamp Tool in the Comment and Markup Toolbar in Acrobat, select the drop-down menu and Create Custom Stamp.
iii. Browse to the location of your saved signature from step one and change the “Files of type” designation at the bottom of the screen to PNG files. Open it and click OK. Create a new category called Attorney Signtures or My Signatures and enter your name in the Name field. Click OK.
11. Flattening PDFs with Adobe Acrobat:
If in a PDF you use the Typewriter tool, electronic signatures or any annotation tools, those items can be moved or deleted by anyone else who has Adobe Acrobat. Flattening a PDF means to move these annotations into the main layer of the PDF so that they will always print and cannot be selected, deleted or moved. There are two ways to flatten PDFs:
A. Flatten By Printing to PDF Again: If I have a PDF and have dropped my signature stamp onto it, I can flatten the signature by opening the PDF in Acrobat, clicking File menu Print choosing the Adobe PDF printer and creating another PDF from the PDF I just added my signature to. Of course, this is creating multiple copies of the same PDF.
1 Gimp is a free image editor program you can download from www.gimp.org. 2 For more information on PNG files, see http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/png.
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B. Acrobat 9 - Flatten By Adding a Menu Item To Do This in Acrobat: This works only in Acrobat 9 and requires a bit more work, but is much easier to use once it is completed. For a full explanation of how this works, see Rick Borstein’s blog article on the subject at http://tinyurl.com/2eld56u. Anyway, here are the steps:
i. Exit Acrobat.
ii. Download the file flatten.js file from the foregoing blog article at http://tinyurl.com/2d3ptwx (see Step 2 of the instructions on that site).
iii. Store the file in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Javascripts.
iv. Re-launch Acrobat. Under the Document menu, you should now see:
C. Acrobat X: Flatten Form Fields and Comments Using Acrobat X Actions: This works only in Acrobat X. You can read the instructions here: http://tinyurl.com/7h7nx8s. The steps are as follows:
i. Download the Action (there is a link at the foregoing web site).
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ii. Open the resulting PDF. On the left side, you'll see an "attachment" called Flatten Fields and Comments.sequ. Right click and save it on your desktop (don't rename it).
iii. Double click the attachment and click the Import button. That's it.
iv. To use the feature, click on Tools Action Wizard and you'll see an option to Flatten Fields and Comments.
12. Shrinking PDF File Sizes Using Acrobat
Most likely you've created a PDF at some point that was too large (in terms of bytes) to email to someone. Furthermore, working with large PDFs can cause your computer to perform sluggishly. If this happens to you, try shrinking the PDF using Acrobat's built in tools.
A. Shrinking the File Size of an Existing PDF in Acrobat 8 and 9: There are two easy ways to reduce the size of an existing PDF, both of which are accessed under the Document menu in Acrobat 8 and 9.
i. Reduce File Size Option: Click Document menu Reduce File Size. This command resamples and recompresses images, removes embedded fonts, compresses document structure, and cleans up elements such as invalid bookmarks. In the drop-down adjacent to "Compatible with:", choose Acrobat 7.0 and later unless you’re certain someone will be trying to open it using an earlier version. If you’re certain that everyone accessing the PDF will be using Acrobat 7 or later, then choose that.
• If the file size is already as small as possible, this command has no effect.
• Reducing the file size of a digitally signed document removes the signature.
ii. Optimizing Scanned PDF Option: Scanned documents can often be made much smaller. The Optimization Options dialog box for image settings controls how scanned images are filtered and compressed for the PDF. Default settings are suitable for a wide range of document pages, but you can also customize the settings for higher quality images, smaller file sizes, or other scanning issues. Just open the PDF you want to optimize, click the Document menu Optimize Scanned PDF.
B. Shrinking the File Size of an Existing PDF in Acrobat X:
i. Reduced Size PDF: Open the PDF you want to shrink File menu Save As Reduced Size PDF choose compatibility (recommend version 7) OK.
ii. Optimizing Scanned PDF: This is the same option outlined above for Acrobat 8 and 9. You get to it by clicking the Tools button Document Processing Optimize Scanned PDF.
13. Using Microsoft Word's Format Painter
If you find text formatted the way you like in a document, you can easily replicate it elsewhere using the Format Painter button in the Clipboard group on the Home ribbon. This is particularly
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useful when you have some rogue paragraphs which are formatted incorrectly. To use this feature, follow these steps:
A. Click anywhere in the text which is formatted the way you would like. In the example below, paragraph 4 is formatted correctly and paragraph 3 is not. Put your cursor somewhere in the middle of paragraph 4. Do not select anything.
B. Single click the Format Painter button on the Home ribbon - . You'll notice that your mouse pointer turns into a brush.
C. Apply the same formatting to other text by left-clicking, holding down the left mouse button and dragging the mouse pointer over the text (i.e., select the entire paragraph). Make sure you include the hard return at the end of the target paragraph. In the example referenced above, select paragraph 3. Now it looks like this:
After you release the mouse button, the Format Painter automatically turns off. If you want to turn on the Format Painter and keep it on until you're done selecting multiple sections of text, double-click the Format Painter button. When you're done, single click the button and it will turn off again.
14. Protect Yourself Against Lost Files with Word 2010
You meant to save that document. You thought you saved that document. However, the document is no longer open in Word and you can't find it anywhere. This occasionally happens
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to even the most careful users. Believe it or not, Office 2010 introduced a feature which can protect you against this.
A. Check Your Settings: Open Word click the File menu Options (left side) Save (left side), and make sure both boxes identified in the screen-shot below are checked. The default setting for AutoRecover is 10 minutes and you may want to reduce it to correspond with your level of paranoia about this issue. However, note that reducing the time interval will cause your computer to save all open documents more frequently and its performance may suffer. After you're done making adjustments, make sure you click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog.
B. Recovering Lost Documents: If a document goes missing because you forgot to save it, click the File menu in Word Info (left side) Manage Versions button Recover Unsaved Documents. This will open the folder where Word saves such things and you will be able to see the names and dates Word saved the documents. To open one, simply select it and click the Open button at the bottom of the dialog. Even if you aren't looking for a lost document, you may find it interesting to see what documents Word has saved for you.
C. Recovering Previous Versions: While you're working, Word is also making version copies of your open documents. If you want to open a prior version you've saved over, click the File menu in Word Info (left side) click the prior version you want to open.
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15. Create Icons on the Windows 8 Desktop
I mostly like Windows 8, but with Windows 7, I had a lot of icons on my desktop and liked to launch programs from there. Windows 8 makes it easy to "pin" icons to your taskbar at the bottom of the Windows 8 desktop. However, I don't like adding a bunch of icons to my taskbar because I prefer that the taskbar show me only applications which are running. If you would like to add an icon to your desktop, follow these steps. To make it easier to follow, I'll use an example.
A. I installed a program called GoodSync on my Windows 8 laptop. First, I need to find the icon that was installed in the Windows 8 Start Screen. Press the Windows key on your keyboard to get to the Start Screen if you're not already there.
B. Right-click the Start Screen and choose All Apps (bottom, right corner).
C. Locate the application for which you want to add a desktop icon (or just start typing its name) right-click the icon (it will be checked now) click the Open file location button at the bottom of the screen.
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D. The shortcut for the program will now appear in a browse window. Right click the shortcut Send to Desktop (create shortcut). Go to your desktop and you'll see that you now have an icon for the program you chose.
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Natalie’ Tips
1. Cloud Backup
Backing up files online in the cloud is just one answer to the need to keep layered levels of backup of your law firm’s data. Use checklists for checking to make sure you understand how the backups are being done and how you go about accessing your information if there is ever a problem. I love www.backupreview.info for keeping up with the best options. The site has reviews and a Top 100 ranking that is kept up to date.
2. Voice Command Cheat Sheets:
With the voice taking over, check out cheat sheets for your mobile devices and voice recognition software to keep them just a “word” away! http://www.nuance.com/ucmprod/groups/corporate/@web- enus/documents/collateral/nc_025696.pdf for Dragon Commands; http://atmac.org/iphone- voice- commands for iPhone/iPod Touch Commands; https://plus.google.com/102648429021828386272/posts/EwTzTNZZ7uK#102648429 021828386
272/posts/EwTzTNZZ7uK for Jelly Bean Commands.
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3. The Ultimate Tech Guide for Travelers, ed. 2 by Anil Polat
4. PC management via mobile devices with PC Monitor:
Free up to 3 computers – www.mobilepcmonitor.com
5. Mobile Marketing:
Up your mobile marketing with QR Codes, SMS Call-to-Action and a firm Mobile URL. Considered Shazam-ming for law firm commercials.
6. Client Satisfaction Surveys
Revamp your client satisfaction surveys using mobile sites and other social media tools. K.I.S.S. works with client surveys, too!
7. Quick Distractions
Find a quick distraction site or app and use it when you get too wound up or beat up. I like Daily Laugh – www.dailylaugh.com or you can get an app like Android QuickLaughs.
8. Retreat!!!
Get back to law firm retreats. Even if there are only a few hours available in a year to have everyone gather to discuss the future of the practice, it’s a good idea to go ahead with a retreat for the benefit of the practice. Set your agenda to cover marketing, technology and financial concerns.
9. Don't Neglect Your Financials
Do billing and reports each month to get a clear picture of your financial status. This information is also helpful for planning and budgeting at the firm and client levels. Calculate your book of business and track personal productivity to stay on top of your practice. Whether you are a firm member or solo, knowing how much you and your practice are worth can be valuable on many levels.
10. Master Your Practice Manager
Master your practice manager to move beyond simply using it in a glorified fashion for your calendar and contacts. Learn the advance features and work to master them to make your office more efficient. Document assembly and document management are areas that you can exploit and get your firm to the next level with a practice management software system.
11. CodeTwo Outlook Attachment Reminder
Never forget to attach the attachment in Outlook again with this Outlook Add-In. The system scans for terms indicating there may be an attachment and brings up a reminder that you wanted to include an item. You can then add the attachment or simply send the message without the attachment.
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12. Health Insurance Options
Explore health insurance options for yourself, your family and firm at healthcare.gov and through your local bar associations. At healthcare.gov you also can learn about the new healthcare laws and applicable tax credits.
13. Don’t Let Them See What You’re Doing
Get PrivateEye security software. www.privateeyesoftware.com. Also, checkout their upcoming Chameleon screen scrambling technology at www.oculislabs.com.
14. Monitor Social Media
Monitor your social media campaigns with monitoring software tools and services. A good list of 20 free services can be found at http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/09/20-free-social-media- monitoring-tools.html.
15. Put It In The Bank!
We gave ’em to you. Now use ‘em! - Keep a personal tips bank! You can add them as content to blog posts or send them out in digital marketing pieces to clients as an easy and free giveaway!
Reba’s Tips
1. Keeping Track of Requests in a Folder Called @Waiting For
We often use e-mail to request something from someone, or to tell someone that we will do something for them. By using the tip below, you won't have to worry ever again about forgetting to remind them if they don't respond. This tip will save an additional copy of your e-mail in a special folder called @Waiting For. That way, you can check that folder every so often to make sure the person got back to you. If they haven't, you simply go to @Waiting For, open the e-mail, click on Forward, and send it back to them as a new e-mail. You can say something like—“I know you're swamped, but I'm checking in to see if you've had a chance to [whatever you originally asked them to do]?” That way, they get a reminder which includes the original e-mail (text, date, etc.)! Because the new e-mail already had “wff” in it, a copy will automatically be put into @Waiting For again and you will have a record of what you asked for and your follow-up efforts to get it.
A. Create a new folder in your Inbox called @Waiting For (by putting the @ symbol in front, it will appear at the top of the list of folders
B. Click on Tools > Rules and Alerts
C. Click the New Rule button
D. At the top of the next box, select “Start from a blank rule”
E. Highlight “Check messages after sending”, then click Next
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F. Check off “With specific words in the body”. Then click on “where specific words is underlined” and choose a unique keyword for your rule, such as *wff* (for “waiting for folder”) Click Add, then OK, then Next
G. Check off “Move a copy to the specified folder.” Then click on the “where specific Folder is underlined” and choose the @Waiting For folder
H. Click Finish
The next time you send an e-mail that you might have to follow up on, type wff as the last line of the e-mail, and this tip will automatically work for you!
2. Changing Size of Font While Viewing Pages
If your mouse has a wheel on top for scrolling, you can change the font size on the fly while viewing a page. Here’s how:
A. Press and Hold the
B. While holding down the
i. Scroll down (or towards you) to make the font larger
ii. Scroll up (or away from you) to make the font smaller
C. Each click of the scroll button changes the font size slightly — so you have almost unlimited control over the font size. When you decide to change the font size back to the default, go up to the toolbar and:
i. Choose View
ii. Choose Zoom
iii. Choose 100%
3. Another way to change the size of the font is to go up to the toolbar and:
A. Choose View
B. Choose Text Size
C. Choose from among the choices of Smallest to Largest
The disadvantage to increasing the size of the font is you will see less text on your screen. But that may be made up by the fact that you can actually read what’s on the page.
4. How to Get the Full E-mail Address When There’s Only the Name
We often receive e-mails that are sent to groups of people. Sometimes the “To” field will have a complete e-mail address, and sometimes you will only see the name but no e-mail address. You might want to respond to a particular individual privately. The problem is all you can see is their name – and not their e-mail address. If their name is in the header area (To or CC) there’s an easy way to get their address, too.
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A. Open the e-mail and go to the header area (the header is at the top where you see “To” “CC” and “Subject”)
B. Put your cursor over the person’s name.
C. Right click and Choose “Outlook Properties”
Their complete e-mail address will be shown.
Note – this will not work if the person’s name is in the text of the e-mail, or anywhere other than the header area.
5. Outlook - Disabling Forwarding and Reply to All
Outlook 2003 and 2007 both allow you to set up an e-mail form that will prevent recipients from forwarding your e-mails to anyone else as long as the sender and recipient both use Outlook. This is done through IRM (Information Rights Management). Although there are ways of getting around this - the recipient could cut and paste the content of your e-mail into another e-mail and then forward that - this isn’t as easy as simply hitting "Forward." Plus, the cut-and-pasted e-mail would not have your "header" information on it, such as your name, your e-mail address, the time and date you sent the original message, etc.
The two links below contain detailed instructions to set this up. Even easier, click on the "Show Me" link and you will see a step-by-step video, with audio, that walks you through this. Note that the instructions show you how to prevent "Forwarding" and also prevent "Reply to All." You can set up a form that does both, or simply create one to prevent "Forwarding" and one to prevent "Reply to All." The instructions are very straight-forward.
A. Here’s how to do it in Outlook 2007
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/prevent-e-mail-message-recipients-from- using-reply-all-or-forward-HA010131687.aspx?CTT=1
B. Here’s how to do it in Outlook 2003
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/prevent-e-mail-message-recipients-from- using-reply-all-or-forward-HA001114224.aspx?CTT=1
6. A Little Privacy, Please!
We all know how cramped airplanes are. If you want to work on client documents in public areas (like your airline seat), seriously consider getting a privacy screen. This one from www.pcconnection.com is advertised as follows: "The 3M Notebook Privacy Computer Filter - Excellent for open, high-traffic environments where on-screen data needs to be kept private. These screens are easily attached and removed and the filter stays in place even when the notebook is closed. The on-screen data is visible only to persons directly in front of the monitor; will not blur or distort images. Passersby can only see a dark, blank screen.” These are pretty inexpensive –starting at as little as $40, depending upon the screen size.
7. Get An E-Mail Address to Use Just for Clients/The Office
If you are like everyone else, you get a slew of e-mails every single day. Based on the sheer number, it is easy for an important e-mail to get lost. Think about setting up an email box just for
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client-related e-mails. This is an e-mail address that you only give out to clients. Never use it for surfing the Internet, buying things online, etc. Although it may be a little more trouble to have to check an additional e-mail box, you’ll know that everything in it is important!
8. Sending E-Mail on the Fly - Preaddress Them!
If there are people to whom you often send e-mail, you can easily create desktop shortcuts that will start your e-mail program and automatically address messages to your frequent e-mail recipients. Here's how:
A. Right-click on the Windows desktop (the screen you get when you first start your computer) and select "New" from the pop-up menu
B. Select "Shortcut" from the fly-out menu
C. In the "Command Line" text box, type mail to: followed by an e-mail address
D. Click "Next" and type a name for the shortcut - such as Bob e-mail
E. Click "Finish" and your new shortcut will appear on your desktop
Go to the Desktop and click on that shortcut and you'll have an e-mail dialogue box open with a pre-addressed e-mail message.
9. How to Recover Items That You Have Permanently Deleted
You probably already know that “deleted” doesn’t mean it’s gone. If you have deleted an item, you can generally retrieve it from the Deleted Items folder. But what if you have emptied your Deleted Items folder, or permanently deleted the item directly from your Inbox so it never went to the Deleted Items folder? Permanently deleted items (meaning it’s no longer in your “Deleted Items” folder) can usually be retrieved for a two-week period from the date you deleted it. The sooner you do it, however, the better. Here’s how to recover it:
A. Go to Tools.
B. Choose Recover Deleted Items.
C. Your deleted items will be displayed in a list with the following headings:
D. Subject
E. Deleted On
F. From
Click on any heading and you can reorder the list by that criteria. For instance, click on Subject and the list will be in alphabetical order by the Subject line. Click Subject again, and the list will be reordered in reverse alphabetical order. Click on Deleted On if you know the date you permanently deleted the item. Again, this list can be reordered from most current date to the oldest date. Click on From and the list orders itself based on the name of original sender of the e- mail.
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10. Save an Outlook E-Mail Message and the Attachment Together
We all receive emails with attachments. As you know, you can save the attachment to your hard drive and access it later. But what about the email message that transmitted the document? A message such as “This is the version that was approved by Bill” can be critical information to have and it would be great if you could somehow keep that message with the attachment. You can! Outlook allows you to save a message and the attachment on your hard drive (just as you do with all your other documents). Here’s all you have to do:
A. Open the message with the attachment. Go up to the toolbar and click on the Office Button (in the upper left-hand corner).
B. Choose “Save As,” and then “Save As” again. A dialog box will pop up and you can choose where you want to put the message and attachment.
C. Pick a name for the message and then click on the down arrow to the right of “Save as Type.”
D. Choose “Outlook Message Format” and then select “Save.” This will automatically save the message and attachment together as an Outlook message.
E. Then you can go back into Explorer, find the file, open it, and you will have the attached document, along with the original message!
11. Paste Special - How To Cut And Paste And Leave The Formatting Behind!
This is an INCREDIBLY handy feature that has saved me tons of time. There are lots of occasions when I cut and paste text from one application to another (Word to WordPerfect, text from a web site to a Word document, etc.) Cutting and pasting is the easy part. The hard part comes when the new text is now in a different font! Or the formatting is now incorrect. If you’ve ever had this problem, try this. Highlight the text you want to copy by pressing Ctrl + c ( the c stands for “copy” or “clipboard.”) Open the new document and place your cursor where you want the copied text to appear. Now go up to the Toolbar and select Edit and then Paste Special. A dialog box will appear with choices (which will depend on your particular situation.) Choose Unformatted Text. This works for me about 95% of the time.
LAST FIVE TIPS! 12. Create a Blank Calendar in Outlook You Can Print Out and Write on “The Old Fashioned Way”
We’ve all had an occasion where we need a blank calendar. Here’s how you can set up a template to print a blank calendar any time you want — and it only takes a few clicks!
A. Open Outlook.
B. On the “File” menu, point to “Folder” and then click “New Folder.”
C. Type a name for the folder, such as Blank Calendar.
D. In the “Folder contains” list, click “Calendar Items.”
E. Under “Select where to place the folder,” click “Calendar,” and then click “OK.”
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F. In the list of My Calendars Folder List, click on the box to the left of the new blank calendar you just created.
G. On the “File” menu, click “Print” and then under “Print style” select the type of calendar you want.
H. Under “Print range” select the start and end dates, and then click OK.
I. Now you have a blank calendar!
J. Once you set this up, the next time you want a blank calendar, simply go to the folder where you put “Blank calendar,” click on it, and print it!
13. Free Alternative to WebEx and GoToMeeting
You may have heard of WebEx and GoToMeeting or even participated in a session where these tools were used. Both of these allow you to see someone else’s screen while you’re all on the Internet and are used for document review and collaboration, demonstrations of anything that can be displayed on a computer screen, training on software, remote tech support, and more. You may never have checked these out because you assumed you couldn’t afford them.
Now there’s a free service that is amazingly full-featured. Check out Join.me at http://join.me. Click on Take a Tour and watch a short video which outlines the features of the free version. There is a paid version as well, but I’d suggest starting with the free version – it may be all you’ll need.
A. The free version includes:
i. Internet calling
ii. Screen sharing
iii. 250 viewers
iv. Share control
v. Multi-monitor
vi. Chat
vii. Send files
viii. Viewer: iPad/iPhone or Android
B. The paid version (join.me pro) includes: Everything in the free version, plus
i. Unified audio
ii. Presenter swap
iii. Pro desktop app
iv. Personal link & background
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v. Meeting scheduler
vi. Meeting lock
vii. User management
viii. International conference lines
ix. I would encourage you to take a look at Join.Me – I guarantee you’ll love it – and free is good!
14. Document Assembly For the Rest of Us – On the Cheap!
Studies show the average law firm spends upwards of 30% of its time creating documents, most of which are repetitive. This area should be low hanging fruit for improving productivity. The problem has been that most solutions have been expensive, complex and time consuming to install, learn and program.
TheFormTool at www.theformtool.com has changed all that. There is an extremely powerful free version, and an $89 “full” version that incorporates sophisticated math, pronouns and more. It installs in less than a minute. (Open the zip file; click on TheFormTool document; review the four steps; close Word; open Word; look for TheFormTool in Word’s menu bar. You’re done.) The website has a very short video that shows you how to take your own forms and convert them in literally minutes. If you’re not sure you want to shell out $89, try the free version first. I’m convinced you’ll see how easy it is to use and you’ll want the more powerful full version. I’m told you can install the full version right on top of the free version with no problem.
TheFormTool handles pronoun/verb/gender/singular/plural agreement, conditions and choices, dates and offsets, lists and boolean logic. TheFormTool PRO 2.0 added 24 math functions, including payments. They have an update scheduled next week which will add complex conditional linking and the ability to compare text and math answers when deciding whether or not to include specific language.
The website and community Forum are customer-focused and the Service Desk is committed to two hour response times. In fact, when I suggested an improvement to the installation process, the service team promised to include my idea in the next update.
15. Using Multiple Outlook Windows
Have you ever been looking at mail in your Inbox, then wanted to jump to your calendar without losing your place in the Inbox? Outlook makes it possible through the use of multiple windows.
To open multiple windows, right click on an icon in the Outlook bar (say the Calendar) and pick "Open in New Window". Now you can see your calendar and your inbox at the same time!
16. Print a List of E-Mails in Outlook
While most of us know how to print an individual e-mail, what if you want to print a list of e-mails in your Inbox or in a folder? Chances are if you ever have tried, you ended up with a copy of an individual e-mail instead of the list you wanted.
Here's how to print a list:
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A. Open Outlook and be sure your Inbox is displayed. You should see a list of your e-mails.
B. Select the list of e-mails you wish to print:
i. Click on the first e-mail in the list so it is highlighted
ii. Scroll down (or up) to the last e-mail
iii. Press the
iv. All of the e-mails should now be highlighted
(If you want to select multiple e-mails that are not in contiguous order, press the
C. Go to the toolbar on top and select "File" and then "Print" (just as you would if you wanted to print a document).
D. The default is typically "Memo Style" (in blue). Change that to "Table Style." Now click on "Only Selected Rows" and finally click "OK." If you want to see a preview of what it will look like before you print, click "Preview" before you click "OK" and you'll see exactly what will print!
17. Shortcut for Adding Contacts Who Are With the Same Company
When you're in Microsoft Outlook 2007 and you're adding contacts that work at the same company (or you're adding an additional contact with the same company), you can save yourself the steps of re-entering the company's name, address, phone number and fax number, etc., each time you create a new contact. Here's how:
A. Open Contacts and select a contact that works for the same company as the new contact you'd like to create.
B. Click on the Contact tab (on the ribbon) and click on the down arrow to the right of Save & New
C. Select New Contact From Same Company from the drop-down menu. When you do, Outlook opens a new contact form and automatically populates the Company, Address, Business Phone Number, Fax number (etc.) fields with the information contained in the existing contact.
D. Enter or revise the information specific to the new contact you are adding.
E. Click Save & Close and you're finished!
18. Let Outlook Save You Time When You Type in Phone Numbers for Contacts
In my book, anything that saves time is a good thing. Outlook has a nifty feature that most people don’t know about. The next time you have a contact open and you’re adding a phone number, try this. Simply type all the numbers together such as 3038245320 – i.e., no parentheses around the area code, no space between the area code and the number, no hyphen. When you get out of the field as you normally would by pressing the TAB key or you use your cursor to get to another
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field, Outlook will magically put in the number with all the correct marks like this: (303) 824-5320. Wouldn’t it be great if more applications would do this!
19. Save a Document with an Outlook Contact, Calendar, or Task Entry
There are times when it would be helpful to “imbed” a document in a contact, calendar or task in Outlook. For example, you might have a reception on your calendar and want to imbed a pdf copy of the invitation in your calendar entry for the reception so you have it handy. Or you might have a copy of a list of errands you want to run on Saturday and you’d like to imbed that list in your calendar entry for that day. Maybe you’re trying to help a friend get a job and you’d like to imbed a copy of his resume in your friend’s contact entry in Outlook. Perhaps you have a conference call with a client and you’d like to have a copy of the document to review. I’m sure you can think of other instances where this would be helpful.
Here’s how to easily imbed a file/document in a calendar, contact or task entry in Outlook:
A. Go to the folder that contains the document you want to imbed
B. Right click on the name of the document and choose Copy
C. Open a contact, calendar item, or email in Outlook. In the Notes area, right click in a blank space near the top and choose Paste
Your document will now be imbedded in your Outlook entry!
Dan’s Tips
1. Is Facebook Secretly Sharing What You Are Reading and Watching?
During a recent phone call, my colleague Catherine Reach and I had a bit of a chuckle over a rather risqué and NSFW (not suitable for work) article that one of our mutual friends had apparently just read online. Think clothing-optional antics by a celebrity in a bedroom in Vegas. As it happened, a few minutes before our call, we had both seen a Facebook update telling us that our friend has just read this particular article.
The critical fact here is not what happened in Vegas, but rather that our friend likely had no idea that the articles he was reading were being shared with the world via Facebook. And our friend is certainly not the only person unknowingly embarrassing themselves in front of all their Facebook friends and acquaintances. Catherine and I have both noticed recently that more and more people seem to be sharing embarrassing information about what they are reading and watching on Facebook.
Please remember, some sites will automatically share what you are doing with your Facebook friends. Some of these sites may warn you the first time you visit them (usually when you look at an article that someone you know has shared). There will be vague warning or checkbox to click on before the article you want to read loads. In most cases, this will be the one and only warning you get. From that point forward they will automatically share a description and link to every item you watch or read. Yikes!!
This is called “frictionless” sharing. Read more about it in this CNET article (How Facebook is ruining sharing).
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The number of sites using frictionless” sharing is growing very quickly. At first it was the mainstream media and sites like Netflix and Spotify, but now there are many more, and the list is growing longer on a daily basis. See this Mashable post for a list of 60 apps that will share information on Facebook.
Do any of the apps on this list look familiar? Are you using any of them?
Go to your Facebook Privacy settings page and review the list of apps you have installed and what they are sharing. Do it now. Right now. I am guessing you are sharing information that you don’t realize you are sharing.
And while you’re at it, check the privacy and sharing settings on the other social media tools you use. MyPermissions.org is a great tool to help you do this.
2. MyPermissions: A Great Tool to Help You Protect Your Privacy
You can do lots of interesting things when you give social media tools permission to connect with each other and with other third-party apps. But beware, in doing this you also giving up your privacy.
I think it is safe to say that many of you don’t put much thought into clicking “Yes” when those little permission pop-up messages appear on your screens during an app installation (usually at the end when the app is already installed or starting up for the fist time). And further, I’m sure most of you don’t fully realize how many permissions you have granted or how much privacy you have given up in doing so.
When was the last time you reviewed the permissions you have granted in the various social media tools you use? Last month? Last year? Never?
Nothing like the start of a New Year to give us all a friendly nudge on making improvements.
MyPermissions (mypermissions.org) is a great tool that will help you systematically review the permissions you have granted in the various social media tools you use. And the simplicity of MyPermissions is brilliant – it doesn’t require any access to your accounts. It’s basically a collection of bookmarks that directly link you to the permissions pages for Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Instagram, and Flickr. If you are logged into one of these sites, clicking on the relevant link on the MyPermissions homepage will take you right to the permissions page for that site.
I encourage you to take the time to review the permissions you have given in the various social media tools you use. I think many of you will be surprised at the permissions you have granted. Revoke the ones you don’t think are necessary or appropriate.
And don’t wait until January 2013 to revisit your permissions again. Put a reminder on your to do list or calendar; to review your permissions once a quarter, every few months or even monthly – remember that checking your permissions helps protect you privacy.
3. Install or Update Multiple Computer Apps in Minutes With Ninite
Do you dread moving to a new computer because you have reinstall all your software? If so, you need to know about Nitite. This amazing free service automatically downloads and installs more than 90 popular no-fee apps. Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Skype, Google Talk, iTunes, Hulu,
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Spotify, QuickTime, Flash, Java, Adobe Reader, Dropbox, Evernote, Mozy, Google Earth to name a few. Am betting most of these apps are on your computer.
Ninite fully automates the installers to run offscreen. No Clicking Next, Next, Next… It also automatically says “No” to toolbars and other junk. The Ninite installer always installs an app’s latest version – and it does updates too – just run your Ninite installer again and it will update the apps to their latest versions. No account, signup, or client needed. Wow!
Ninite is a must for anyone lucky enough to get a computer from Santa this year. It will save you hours of tedious installations.
4. Amazing MS Outlook Tip: Sort Your Inbox by Multiple Columns
Most MS Outlook users know that you can sort your Inbox by a single column. A single left-click on any column head will sort all the messages in the Inbox by the contents of that column. For example, alphabetically by subject or chronologically by sent or received date.
Note as well that a second click on the same column will sort the messages again in reverse order to the initial sort.
Sorting your Inbox by a column can be helpful for locating a message or deleting old messages.
But you can do more – you can actually sort your Inbox by two or more columns. It’s actually very easy to do.
First, sort by the first column by clicking on a column head. Then, hold the Shift key down and click on a second column heading. If you do this with From and the Received date, your messages will be sorted primarily by sender, and all the messages from each sender will be ordered chronologically.
You can add a third column to your sort by following the same steps. Wow!
Go tackle your Inbox – use the multi-column sort to find and delete all the old messages that are clogging your Inbox – I’m seeing the elusive “Inbox Zero” in your future.
5. Use HTTPS to Make Your Facebook and Twitter Accounts More Secure
Getting one of your social media accounts hacked can be very embarrassing and time consuming. One of the simplest things you can do to make your Facebook and Twitter accounts a bit more secure is to enable Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS.
HTTPS provides encrypted communication and secure identification for cross-web communications. This simply means that the stream of data going between your computer (or smartphone) and the sever it is connecting to across the web is encrypted. This makes it much harder to intercept and understand. HTTPS connections are often used for payment transactions on the World Wide Web and other sensitive online transactions.
You automatically use HTTPS when you login and access LinkedIn. Unfortunately, or both Facebook and Twitter, HTTPS is off by default.
To enable HTTPS in Twitter, go to “Settings”, click the “Account” tab and scroll all the way to the bottom and select “Always use HTTPS”.
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In Facebook you can enable HTTPS by clicking on “Account” (top right), then on “Account Settings”, and then on check the “Account security (https)” checkbox.
You can tell you are using HTTPS as you will see “https” in the URL of the site you are accessing and your browser will display a “lock” icon in the status bar across the bottom of your browser window.
Changing these settings does not guarantee 100% security, but it does give you a bit more protection when you are using unsecured Wi-Fi.
6. Who’s Looking at You in LinkedIn?
Social media tools allow people to look at your profile information. By tweaking privacy settings, you can limit what people see by type of information (e.g., contact info, friends list, education, etc.) and degree of connection (e.g., friends or direct connections only, friends and friends of friends, everyone, etc.).
LinkedIn offers an interesting twist: you can see how many people have looked at your profile, and in some cases, you can even see their names.
As a LinkedIn user you should appreciate other LinkedIn users can see that you have looked at their profile. In many cases it may not matter, but in some it might. If you are doing some competitive intelligence research on you competition or if you are an HR person or headhunter you probably don’t want people to know you are looking at their profiles.
To see how many people have viewed your profile, look in the Who’s Viewed Your Profile? box (3rd box down on the right side) of the home screen. It will say “Your profile has been viewed by # people in the past # days.” This line is a link. Click it you can see the names of up to 5 people that have looked at your profile over the last few days or the last week.
In some cases actual names will be listed, in some cases you can see a description of the person by industry and location (and if you click on that link you can see a list of 10 names that include the specific person), and in some cases it will just say “Anonymous LinkedIn User”. By changing LinkedIn privacy settings you can control whether people will see that you have looked at their profile. Full display of your name is the default setting.
Go to your LinkedIn setting page. In the Privacy Controls section (middle of the screen) there is a “Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile” option. Click on it to see your three options:
A. Your name and headline (Recommended)
B. Anonymous profile characteristics such as industry and title
C. You will be totally anonymous.
Note that the first option is the default and the “Recommended” suggestion is from LinkedIn (as they would like you to be more open about sharing your information). Pick the setting that makes sense for you and click on Save.
Note that if you have an upgraded LinkedIn account (you must pay extra for this), you can see a list of everyone that has looked at your profile (unless they have changed their Privacy Controls setting) and the names of people who turned up your name in search results.
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7. LifeHacker’s Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy
Keeping up with the changes to Facebook Privacy settings is a never-ending task. The large number of settings makes it very confusing. The LifeHacker blog comes to the rescue with The Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy.
This comprehensive guide runs through the basic privacy settings that determine what you share, next it looks at deeper settings you’ll want to tweak, and it finishes with a few third-party tools that will help keep your Facebook information private.
LifeHacker says they will update this page when there are changes in the future. Bookmark this page, make it a favorite and tell your friends about it (remember they can share your information too). This is an amazing must read resource for all Facebook users and you will want to come back again.
Google Account Security Best Practices
Most of us have tons of personal info on various Google sites, and many lawyers have started using Google in their law practices. Unfortunately, most of us haven’t done everything we should to make our Google accounts more secure. Have you enabled Google’s Two Step Authentication on your Google account?
On his blog, Rick Klau has a fantastic post that outlines all the steps you should take to make your Google account more secure. This post is a must read for anyone using Google: If you use Google, personally and/or professionally, please read this post and implement the steps Rick outlines. http://tins.rklau.com/2011/04/google-account-security-best-practices.html
8. Google’s Amazing New “Search by Image” Functionality
“Search by Image” is an amazing new search functionality that Google now has. And to be clear, this isn’t the same as Google’s image search (i.e., searching for an image using a string of text).
Search by Image lets you find other occurrences of an image on the web, as well as all sorts of other content from the web that’s related to a specific image. For example, search using a picture of your favourite band and you will see search results that might include similar images, webpages about the band, and even sites that included the same pictures.
I used it yesterday to confirm suspicions that a website referenced by an apparent fraudster was for a non-existent firm. A search using images of the lawyers who supposedly worked at the firm showed me that the photos were stock images that actually appeared on other sites on the web.
A. How to search by image: Search by Image is compatible with Chrome, Firefox 3.0+, Internet Explorer 8+ and Safari 5.0+. There are four ways to search by image:
i. Drag and drop: Drag and drop an image from the web or your computer into the search box on images.google.com
ii. Upload an image: On images.google.com, click the camera icon, then select “Upload an image.” Select the image you want to use to start your search.
iii. Copy and paste the URL for an image: Use this if you have an image on the web you’re curious about. Right-click the image to copy the URL. On images.google.com, click the camera icon, and “Paste image URL”.
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iv. Right-click an image on the web: To search by image even faster, download the Chrome or Firefox extension. With the extension installed, simply right-click an image on the web to search Google with that image
Search by Image is optimized to work well for content that is reasonably well described on the web. For this reason, you’ll likely get more relevant results for famous landmarks or paintings than you will for your personal images.
B. How it works: Google uses computer vision techniques to match your image to other images in the Google Images index and additional image collections. From those matches, it generates “best guess” text description of your image, as well as finding other images that have the same content as your search image.
C. The results page: When you search by image, your results will look different than your normal Images or Web results page. The biggest difference is that your results can include non-image results like webpages that seem relevant to the image that you searched for. The elements of your results page will change depending on your search and on the information that’s most relevant to that search.
Remember to try Search by Image next time you want to find more about a picture or painting.
9. Deciphering Meaningless Computer Error Messages
At some point or another, every computer user has had Windows or another program lock-up and crash. After this happens, you will sometimes be lucky enough to get an error message. On occasion, that error message will actually give you helpful information about why the computer crashed.
But all too often, the error message will be complete gibberish and offer absolutely nothing that will help you understand why the crash happened, much less what you need to do to fix it. Here is a sample:
Say what????
Next time this happens to you, don’t despair. You can safely assume loads of other people have had the same problem, and that at least some of them have gone to the Web for an answer.
Do a Google search using a portion of the text from the error message you got. Use enough text from the message to get search results for exactly the same error message. Remember to put the search text in double quotes to force your search results to include only items for the exact error message you got. Look through these sites and you will likely find a solution to your crashing problem.
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Note that you may find sites that offer a solution, but ask you to register to get it. Some of these sites are reputable, some are not. Ignoring them is the safe thing to do. Odds are you will find the answer to your problem on a public site.
10. Use PC Decrapifier to Remove Unwanted Software From a New or Old PC
Some of you were lucky enough to have Santa leave a new computer or laptop under your Christmas tree. That’s great news. Now for the bad news: Unfortunately, most new computers come preloaded with a tons of junk software you don’t really want or need. These can be trial versions of various programs, including mainstream ones like Microsoft Office Online, one of the popular security suites, toolbars, utilities, games and other programs you have never heard of (and will probably never use).
Nice to have a chance to try some of these programs out, but in the long run you just don’t want them on your machine. Why? Your computer will take longer to boot-up and run more slowly. These programs will bug you with annoying pop-ups, they can use significant amounts of space on your hard drive and they may slow down your access to the internet. You want them off your machine ASAP.
You can manually remove the programs you don’t want, but there is an easier way. The PC Decrapifier is an easy to use tool will help you remove all the crap you don’t want on your machine! It also does a great job of helping you disable unnecessary startup items that can slow down your computer when it boots up. It takes you step by step through the process, giving you recommendations on what to remove, many of which can be removed unattended. PC Decrapifier works with all versions of Windows 7, Windows XP and Vista and is free for personal use (a commercial version is very inexpensive).
The PC Decrapifier also does a good job of cleaning crap software from an older computer. You will likely see a noticeable performance improvement after running it on an older computer.
A small word of caution: You need to be a bit careful about what you remove. PC Decrapifier will help you make some of the decisions. A Google search can help you with programs you don’t recognize or are unsure of. If in doubt, don’t delete a program or delete it only after you have created a Restore point so you can easily revert back to a previous configuration.
11. Use F2 and Tab to Quickly Rename Lots of Files in Windows Explorer
Renaming a file in Windows Explorer is very easy: Just select the file with a single click and press F2. This allows you to edit the file name. When you are done, click Enter to finish.
But what happens if you want to rename multiple files? Yes you can press F2 multiple times, but there is a better way!
When you need to rename multiple files, press F2 and edit the name of the first file as you normally would. But, don’t press Enter when you are done. Instead, press Tab. This will jump you to the next file in the list and it will select the entire filename so you can edit it. Just repeat the process for all the files you want to rename.
12. Easily View Two Windows Side-by-Side on Your PC Desktop
Do you want to quickly see two windows side-by-side on your desktop? Yes, you can manually resize them by dragging and dropping the edges of each window, but there is a much faster way.
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In Windows 7, you can easily arrange two windows next to each other by dragging them to the left or right side of your screen. Left-click on the taskbar (the bar across the top of each window) and drag and drop the window to the left or right side. Release when the entire window is highlighted.
In Windows XP or Vista, hold the Ctrl key down and click on the taskbar of each of the windows, then right-click the taskbar in one of those windows and select Tile Vertically. In XP and Vista you can use trick to arrange more than two windows.
Nice to see multiple windows at once. And if you want to take it to the next level, get yourself two monitors.
13. Dealing With DOCX, XLSX and PPTX Files if You Use an Older Version of Office
Once or twice a month I hear from people who are struggling to open docx files. Read on for the reasons why this happens, and what to do about it.
Office 2007 introduced new file formats – docx for Word, xlsx for Excel and pptx for PowerPoint (formally known as the Office Open XML format). Unfortunately, people using Office 2003 or earlier versions of Office (and there are still a bunch of them) will find they can’t open files in these new formats.
The solution is simple. If you are using Office 2003, or one of the earlier versions of Office, you need to download and install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. It will allow older versions of Office to open files that are in these new file formats. The Compatibility Pack will convert these files and allow you edit and save them in either the old or new file format for each of the prospective Office programs. The Compatibility Pack will work with Office 2000, XP and 2003.
Instructions for installing the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats are in the Microsoft Knowledgebase document. Make sure you have installed the latest Office updates before you install the Compatibility Pack.
14. Use join.me to Get on the Same Page Across the Web
When you need to collaborate on a document displayed on your screen, it’s great to have a colleague from down the hall come into your office and look over your shoulder.
But what happens when that person is across the city or on the other side of the world?
You can use join.me – a ridiculously simple screen sharing tool for meetings on the fly with up to 250 people. Use it for collaborating on a document, a training session, computer trouble-shooting and anything else that requires you to share a computer screen. You can also share files and chat with people you are sharing your screen with. And there are even viewers for iPad, iPhone and Android devices. Amazing to get all this for FREE!
To start a join.me session, go to the join.me site and click on the Share link. It downloads a small browser add-on that allows you to control the sharing of your screen. You also get a unique 9 digit code (for that session). Tell the people that want to see your screen to go to join.me and enter this code in the Join box. In seconds they will see your desktop in a browser window on their desktop.
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There is a pay version that adds additional features including presenter swap, a personal sharing link & custom background, a meeting scheduler, user management, international conference lines and other features. There is a 14 day free trial for pay version features.
15. Privacy Commissioner Launches Handbook to Help Lawyers Apply Privacy Law to Their Practices
PIPEDA and Your Practice: A Privacy Handbook for Lawyers was launched by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at the Canadian Bar Association Canadian Legal Conference and Expo 2011. This handbook explains how the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) relates to the everyday practice of Canadian lawyers in the private sector. While law in Canada, there are some useful tips for US lawyers.
PIPEDA covers the collection, use and disclosure of personal information in the course of commercial activities. Like other organizations in Canada, lawyers and law firms must comply with the requirements of applicable privacy legislation in their jurisdictions. This resource describes best practices in managing the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, responding to requests for access to personal information, and the potential application of PIPEDA. The Handbook covers practical privacy issues that arise in the course of managing a law firm and conducting litigation.
16. Bypass the Windows Recycle Bin With Shift+Del
If you’re absolutely sure that you want to delete a file(s) permanently from your hard drive (i.e., bypassing the Windows Recycle Bin – noting that deleted files aren’t really deleted…see below**), select the file(s), then hold down the Shift key while you press Delete. You will get a File Delete Confirm dialog box asking you to confirm your intent to delete the file “permanently”, answer yes to do so. The deleted file will not be in the Recycle Bin.
My personal preference and practice is to “permanently” delete everything, unless I think I might want it back, in which case I delete it by sending it to the recycle bin. I find this gives me more space on my smallish laptop hard drive, minimizes Recycle Bin clutter and makes it easier to find things I want to undelete if and when I go looking for them in the Recycle Bin. Every once and awhile I clean out my Recycle Bin.
**Note that “permanently” deleted doesn’t really mean permanently deleted: When you “delete” a file you don’t actually delete the file data itself, you only delete the reference to that file in the hard or floppy drive’s “table of contents”. The file data remains unchanged somewhere on the hard drive, and will remain there until it is over-written by another file being saved in the same physical location on the drive. There are utilities that can “undelete” deleted files. Keep this in mind next time you want to “permanently” delete a file.
17. Minimize That Darn Office Ribbon for More Room on Your Desktop
If you are using Office 2007 or 2010, The Ribbon is now a part of your life. Some of you will be happy about this – some of you won’t.
The Ribbon was introduced with Office 2007. It replaced the standard Office toolbars and menus with a very large toolbar filled with graphical representations of control elements or commands. Commands are organized in logical groups by functionality and are collected together under tabs. Each tab relates to a type of activity, such as writing or laying out a page.
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There are good intentions behind the Ribbon – honest! It was designed to help you more quickly find the commands you want to use when you are creating and formatting your documents.
If you are learning Office, you may like the Ribbon as it can be helpful to find commands you don’t use that often. However, if you are a power user, you probably don’t like it – likely because it takes up a huge amount of space on your desktop, especially if you are working on a smaller laptop screen.
If you want to go Ribbon-less for more desktop real estate, you can minimize the ribbon by pressing Ctrl+F1. This will make the Ribbon disappear or be “minimized.” When the Ribbon is minimized, the Tabs will still be visible. When it is minimized, pressing on a Tab will make the Ribbon appear, and it will disappear again after you press a command.
If the Ribbon is minimized, pressing Ctrl+F1 again will bring it back.
So there you go, if you want more space on your Office 2007 or 2010 desktop, remember to press Ctrl+F1 to minimize the Ribbon.
18. Four Tricks for Working With Tables in Microsoft Word
Tables can be very helpful for presenting information or data in a document. As many of you know, working with tables can be frustrating when you can’t get them into the layout or format you want. So this week, I’m sharing four of my favourite tricks for working with tables in Microsoft Word.
Tabs are very useful for lining up information in a document. What many people don’t know is that you can use tabs within tables. To set a tab within a table, click within the table cell(s) that you want to include a tab(s). Next, select the type of tab, and click on the ruler in the location you want the tab to appear. Repeat for multiple tabs within the same cell(s).
The one thing you have to remember when working with tabs within a table is that simply pressing “Tab” will jump you to the next cell. You have to press “Ctrl+Tab” to move to a tab position within a table.
The second table trick relates to putting space before a table that is at the beginning of a document. If you need to add text before a table at the very start of a document, you must click within the first table cell and press “Enter”. This will move the table down a line.
Thirdly, remember that you can break a table into two parts. To do this, position the cursor in the cell where you want the break to occur. On the menu bar choose “Table”, then “Split Table” to accomplish this.
Lastly, when you want to make changes to the format or layout of a table, try right-clicking within a cell to see a context sensitive menu that will have all the settings you might want to change. This is far quicker than looking for them using the menu bar.
19. Keyboard Shortcuts for Easily Changing Line Spacing in MS Word
You can change line spacing in Word by clicking on Format, selecting Paragraph, clicking on the Indents and spacing tab, and adjusting the spacing settings. Whew! That’s a lot of work. There is a better way.
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Changing the line spacing in a Word document is very easy if you remember a few keyboard shortcuts:
A. Pressing Ctrl+5 changes to 1.5 line spacing
B. Pressing Ctrl+2 changes to double line spacing
C. Pressing Ctrl+1 will give you single line spacing
If you are using Word for Mac, substitute the Command key for the Ctrl key.
Remember these keyboard shortcuts next time you need to change the line spacing in a Word document you are typing.
20. Change the Style of Your Gmail Inbox to Make Finding Messages Easier
We all need help on keeping up with our email. The Gmail styles feature could help you more quickly see the messages that are most important to you.
Gmail has several built-in configurations or “styles” that change how your Inbox sorts messages. In the Classic style – the default Inbox style – messages are ordered chronologically by the date they arrived (newest first). The other styles present messages in slightly different ways. These are the other styles and what they do:
A. Unread First – Unread mail stays at the top; everything else is at the bottom.
B. Starred First – Starred mail stays at the top; everything else is at the bottom.
C. Important First – This style brings mail from the contacts you email most often and other important mail to the top of the page. Everything else is in its own section at the bottom of your inbox. See this Google Support page for more information how Google flags “important” messages.
D. Priority Inbox – Messages classified as important and unread are in the top section, then starred messages, then everything else. Each section can be customized further, so if you want more control over your inbox, Priority Inbox is for you. See this Google Support page for more info on Priority Inbox.
You can change the inbox style by clicking the arrow that appears when you hover over “Inbox” on the left side of your Gmail page. You can easily and instantly switch between inbox styles any time. Try the different styles out to see if something other than Classic helps you better manage and find the messages that are important to you
21. Have Some Fun and Teleport to a Random Place in the World With MapCrunch.com
Most of you should be familiar with Google’s Street View. It allows you to see pictures of the street you are viewing on a Google Maps map. That can be very handy when you are wanting to know about the landmarks you should be looking for when you are driving to somewhere you have never been before.
But if you are wanting to have some fun with Google Street View, you can use MapCrunch to “teleport” or jump to a random place in the world.
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MapCrunch allows you to easily explore the vast array of imagery captured by Google in over 27 countries. You will see spectacular scenery, busy cities and quiet back roads in the middle of nowhere. It is fun. It is addictive. The best views are added to the Gallery every day – be sure to check it out!
Go to the MapCrunch.com site and click the green “GO” button to be teleported to a random place in the world. If you only want to see certain countries, select them on the right hand panel.
And click the “myMap” option (top-right of side panel) to choose your own area to teleport around – after checking this option you will only see images within the area covered by the map on your screen. For example, if you only want views from Tokyo, move and zoom the map so that you only see Tokyo city (or search for “Tokyo”), then click “GO”!
Not quite a Star Trek transporter, but a lot of fun and probably the closest you will get to the real thing. Beam me up Scotty!
22. MS Outlook Tip: Drag and Drop Items of One Type to Create Another
Sometimes you will get an email from a client and that will trigger the need to have an in person meeting. This requires the creation of an entry in your calendar. To save time and avoid re- entering all the information in the email, remember that you can create an appointment in your calendar by dragging the e-mail message to the taskbar Calendar icon and dropping it there. All the information from the original email will automatically be transferred to the new calendar entry – no need to retype it. Make any necessary edits and save the meeting entry. This trick works with other types of Outlook items.
23. An Easy Way to Access Multiple Printer Format Settings
If you routinely print two or more kinds of documents, each requiring its own printer settings, you’ve probably found it frustrating to have to re-enter all the printer properties every time you change documents.
There is actually a very simple trick to avoid having to do this. Simply install the same printer two or more times, but with different names and settings.
This way, you simply select the “printer” that has the group of print settings you
This way, you simply select the “printer” that has the group of print settings you want each time you print.
To install a printer with new print settings in Windows, go to Start, Settings, Printers, and click the Add Printer icon. Install the printer as you would normally, inserting the driver disk if you have it. When you come to the screen where you name your printer, name it something that differentiates it from your default printer. The name should also remind you of what the special printer settings are. For example, “”HP4landscape”".
When you finish, right-click on your new printer and select Properties. Enter the special print settings for the new printer, and click OK.
Now, when you want to print using the new print settings, you can just select appropriate printer name from your program’s Print dialog box.
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24. Use Application Groups to Organize Apps on Your Ipad or Iphone
Most of us have many screens of apps on our iPads and iPhones. Sliding multiple screens of icons back and forth is really easy, but it can be a pain finding a particular app if you’ve downloaded tons of apps. For faster access to your apps, create application groups. They are collections of apps within a single icon.
Creating an application or app group is dead easy. Touch and hold your finger on an app icon. After a few seconds, all the app icons on the screen should start shaking. Simply drag one app over top of another and an application group will get created with those two apps in it. To add more apps to a app group simply drag other app icons over and into it. Press the Home button when you’ve finished to stop the shaking.
The icons for application groups have mini icons on a dark background. They are easily distinguished from app icons as they have a silver border. If you look closely, you can actually see miniature versions (up to 9) of the actual icons in that group.
Tap on an app group icon to open it. Group like apps together and give your app groups names that will make it easy to figure out which group has the app you are looking for (e.g., social media, games, utilities, etc.). You can change an app group icon name by editing the text in the white area within an open app group.
You can create multiple app groups on the same screen. You can’t create an application group within another application group.
To remove an app from a group, open a group icon by tapping it as normal. Then press and hold an app icon within the group until all the icons start vibrating, then drag the icon onto the “see- through” desktop above.
Application groups are available as of IOS 4.2. You can also create application groups within iTunes using the device’s apps tab. Some people may find it is easier to move apps around and create groups on the computer. Any changes you make must be synched to get them onto your iPad or iPhone.
Thanks to my youngest son Christopher who showed me this tip last night.
25. Do You Have a Startup Repair Disc?
I am going to assume you have a recent complete back-up of all your computer hard drives. You do – don’t you?
Here is another important question: Do you have a Startup Repair disc?
Of course you do! But if you don’t, please take a few minutes to create one. It could be a lifesaver if your hard drive crashes. A Startup Repair disc can be used to start your computer in situations where your computer won’t boot-up due to corruption or damage on the hard drive.
Creating a Startup Repair disc is simple and fast. Put a blank writable CD or DVD in your optical drive. In Windows 7, click Start > All Programs > Maintenance > Create a System Repair Disc and let Windows 7 build a bootable emergency disc. Windows will create a disc that will have the Windows 7 OS and some hardware specific info for you computer. The steps for creating a repair disc for older versions of Windows are similar.
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Take a few minutes to create a Startup Repair disc if you don’t have one. It can help you avoid the loss of all the data on a corrupt or damaged hard drive.
26. Google Will Tell You the Time of the Next Local Sunrise or Sunset
Do you have a burning desire to catch a sunrise or sunset? Google can help. If you type “sunrise” or “sunset” followed by the name a city (don’t type the quotes), Google will give you the time of the next sunrise or sunset in that city and how many hours and minutes until it arrives.
27. How Come My iPad Won’t Charge When It Is Plugged Into My Computer?
At one time or another, most of you will have plugged your smartphone or cell phone into computer to charge it. And on occasion, many of you may have charged a camera, GPS or other device on your computer. Using a computer or laptop for charging these devices is especially helpful in a pinch – most often when you forgot your charger at home and have a dead device.
I’m also sure that those of you that own an iPad or other larger tablet will have tried to charge it on your computer only to be frustrated by the “Not charging” message.
So why won’t an iPad or similar tablet charge when it is plugged into a computer? The answer is really quite simple. The USB ports on a computer just don’t have enough power to charge an iPad. The USB ports on computers or laptops (for both PCs and Macs) put out 5 volts at 0.5 amps; or about 2.5 watts. The iPad charger is much more powerful as it puts out 5 volts at 2.1 amps; or about 10 watts. You need the extra power to charge the larger battery in an iPad. Most USB hubs also don’t have sufficient power to charge and iPad.
Two tiny footnotes in case you find yourself in a real pinch with just a computer to charge your iPad. First, despite what I said above, computer USB ports can actually charge an iPad, but they do it very slowly, and only if iPad it turned off. The moment the screen goes on, the iPad sucks more power than the USB port can give it and the battery will start to drain. No peeking!
Second, you should also check the specs on your computer or laptop as some have USB charging ports that will have a higher output – these still won’t charge a device while it is on, but they will charge it a bit faster than a regular USB port will. On some computers these charging ports will even charge a device with the computer it turned off.
28. Four Tips for Easy Navigation of PowerPoint Slide Deck
Ever seen someone get up to do a PowerPoint with no clue about how to advance (or reverse) the slides. Ouch!!! Here are four neat tricks for navigating through your PowerPoint slides.
First, remember to use the space bar to advance to the next slide – one tap on the space bar will jump you one slide ahead. Of course, you can use PageDown or the right or down cursor keys to do the same thing, but the space bar is a much larger and easier to hit target if you are nervous or your hands are shaking.
And please remember – PageUp or the up or left cursor keys will back you up one slide.
Next up, here’s a great tip for jumping to a specific slide: If you press the Alt key, plus the one, two or three digits that represent the number of the slide you want to jump to, followed by Enter, you will jump to the specified slide. This shortcut is handy if you get to a point in your presentation where there are questions and you need to jump back to a key slide to give an answer. Jumping directly to that slide looks so much better than having to Page Up or Page Down through multiple
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slides. Make sure you memorize the numbers of the key slides in your presentation or having an outline or a list in front of you.
Lastly, remember the power of a “right click” on your mouse. A right click on the screen while you are in presentation mode pops up a menu with several options. If you select “Go” and then By title, there is a listing of both slide numbers and titles for every slide your presentation. Click on a particular slide in the list and you will jump directly to it.
With the above tips you will be able to navigate your PowerPoint deck like a pro.
29. Banish the new e-mail pop-up
Most people computer’s present that little “new message” pop-up window come up every single time an e-mail message arrives in their Inbox. Stop the insanity - it’s just a huge interruption. You know, the beep goes off, and you get bounced out of whatever you were working in, and your train of thought gets interrupted. Turn off that notification window!! Go with just the beep if you have to. And, if you don’t need to know the instant when something arrives in your inbox (and most of the time you don’t), consider turning off the beep too. You’re going to check your inbox reasonably regularly anyway.
30. Virtual Meetings
While there is something to be said for a face-to-face meeting, you can get just as much or more done at a virtual meeting, especially if you use some of the new tools that let you collaborate across the web. Virtual meetings have several benefits: you can hold them on an ad hoc basis without leaving your desk, and you don’t incur the time and expense of traveling to an in-person meeting.
I am a user and big fan of GoToMeeting (www.gotomeeting.com). It allows me to show the contents of my computer screen to one to twenty other people as fast as I can send an e-mail link to them. At least once a week during a phone call I say to someone, “hey, why don’t we just a bit of time right now fleshing this out.” I send them a link via e-mail, which they click on to open a browser window and it displays what is on my screen. They instantly see everything I type, and I can give control of the keyboard and mouse to them if they want to type something.
I also find GoToMeeting is great for virtual brainstorming sessions. You can write a document or create an outline much more quickly when everyone can simultaneously view and comment on it as the draft as it evolves. On numerous occasions I have concluded a phone call with a decent draft or outline of a document that normally would have taken many e-mails and redrafts over days or weeks to create.
WebEx (www.webex.com) and the new Acrobat Connect (www.adobe.com/acrobatconnect) are other widely used virtual meeting products. Pricing for the basic versions of these products is extremely reasonable at around $50 per month. If you avoid just one in person meeting a month you are more than paying for them. Most of these products share common features, including instant messaging, free teleconferencing through a central number that meeting attendees can use (they pay long distance charges). Many let you share work with both PC and Mac users, and some will transmit video as well.
31. Training
One last word of advice – and this goes for every new piece of software you purchase, as well as those that have been on installed on your computers for many years: give people proper training.
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I guarantee 80% of the people in your office are using less than 20% of the features in the software that is installed on their computer. You will get a far greater return on your technology investment if you spend some time and money on training.
Remember that different people have very different learning styles. For those that like a formal learning environment, community colleges have excellent and very reasonably priced courses on widely used software programs. Those that like self-study can learn from a good book or multi- media tools such as the DVDs that Keystone Learning Systems (www.keystonelearning.com).
Lastly, if you have a technology savvy person in your office, encourage and reward them for their efforts, and make them the go-to person for technology issues. They can really help to improve the technology skills of other staff members.
Lots to think about here, and loads of new ways to do old tasks. Keep some of the above options in mind next time you need to hold a virtual meeting or collaborate on a matter or the creation of a document. Many of these applications can be used at no cost, and even those that cost something have many of their basic features available for free, even if just for a short term trial. Once you try working and collaborating online, you will be hooked.
32. Your best source of LPM advice and info: (ABA) Law Practice Management Section books and publications
The American Bar Association (ABA) Law Practice Management Section has dozens of books on legal technology and other law practice management topics, including firm management, practice finances, and marketing. For a complete list see www.abanet.org/lpm/catalog.
Law Practice Magazine is ABA LPM’s flagship printing publication. It is published 8 times a year, and is available by subscription to non-ABA members. www.abanet.org/lpm/magazine/home.shtml
The LawPracticeToday webzine (www.lawpracticetoday.org), the ABA Law Practice Management Section's E-zine, contains many articles on various law practice management issues. It is published monthly and there is free access to all (you don’t have to be an ABA LPM member).
33. Alt+Tab for switching between programs
Switching between open programs is one of the most frequent things we all do as we work on our computers. For this task most of us use a mouse to select a button on the task bar. There is a much faster way. Pressing Alt+Tab will open a rectangular grey pop-up window in the centre of your screen. It will have an icon for each program that is running on your computer. Hold down the Alt key, and repeatedly press Tab to jump from one icon to the next. To help you find the window you want, the text from the title bar of each window appears in a box at the bottom of the pop-up. Simply release both keys when you get to the window you want. In this pop-up window, the icons are presented, from left to right, in the order you last looked at their respective windows. This means that the window you were in previous to the current ones just one Alt+Tab away. This lets you jump back and forth between two programs in the blink of an eye.
34. The Miraculous Undo
No doubt, from time to time you will find yourself in a place you just don’t want to be after a series of edits. To undo changes - including multiple changes - press Ctrl+Z, Alt+Backspace, or click the Undo button. You can do this multiple times.
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And there is more – you can redo undone changes (including multiple changes again) by clicking on the Redo button, or by pressing Ctrl+Y, one or more times.
Undo works in all the MS Office applications, and many other programs as well.
35. Second Monitor
One of the easiest way to increase productivity in your law office is to add a second monitor. The productivity increases have been demonstrated by a number of studies with the most recent being done by the University of Utah, on behalf of NEC. (
http://www.necdisplay.com/Gowide/NEC_Productivity_Study_0208.pdf). Windows OS and Mac OS have built in tools to allow users to easily use dual monitors. Most laptops also have a monitor port allowing for the easy addition of a second monitor while most desktops can easily be modified with a video card that allows the addition of a second monitor. It is common to be able to purchase a monitor of appropriate size for less than $150.00. I have never met anyone that wanted to go back to one small monitor.
36. Organize your Outlook
The email onslaught can be overwhelming. I use Outlook add-ons to help control the flood. Maybe my favorite is SimplyFile by TechHit. This is a program that sits right in your Outlook and allows you to quickly move email to appropriate folders. After some initial training the program will begin to predict which folder to send emails. This is a great tool to move email out of the inbox.
37. Adobe Acrobat Professional
Adobe Acrobat which, at its simplest, creates PDF documents, but it does so much more. OCR capability, portfolios to assemble virtual closing books and evidence binders, annotation tools, collaborative tools, security and sharing tools, creating fillable forms are some of its worthy features…. and the single tool that makes it more that worthwhile… the email consolidation tool which will saves selected emails (with attachments in their native format) as a single searchable, storable, securable file. Although Adobe Acrobat is more expensive than any of its competitors it is more than worth the money. Such additional resources as the blog “Acrobat for Legal Professionals” is such a valuable resource that the money paid for Adobe is well spent just to have access to such a great learning tool.
38. iPhone J.D.
A site for lawyers using iPhones published by Jeff Richardson, an attorney in New Orleans, Louisiana. It has every kind of app, tip and trick you might ever want to know, and a few you might want to waste some time on. (www.iPhonejd.com)
39. Translations With Google Translate
Google Translate is a free translation service that provides instant translations between 57 different languages. It can translate words, sentences, web pages and even whole documents (in a PDF, TXT, DOC, PPT, XLS or RTF format) between any combination of the 57 supported languages.
Like most Google tools, it is extremely easy to use. Google Translate generates the translation by looking at the patterns in hundreds of millions of previously translated documents. Do you get
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perfect and sworn to be accurate translations you that you can take to court? No – but they are more than good enough to give you the gist of any text, document or website that you need to translate.
You can find Google Translate at http://translate.google.com
40. Use Google Alerts So You Aren’t the Last to Know
The Google Alerts service is one of many very helpful Google apps. It allows you to monitor the web for interesting new content and it will send you an email update of the relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
A. Being aware of your name or your firm name appearing in the new or on the web
B. Monitoring a developing news story
C. Keeping current on a competitor or industry
D. Getting the latest on a celebrity or event
E. Keeping tabs on your favourite sports teams
To create an alert, go to the Google Alerts page (www.google.com/alerts) and enter a text string that contains the name of the person or topic that you want to monitor (e.g., your name, your firm name, a client’s name or industry). Google Alerts will send an e-mail alert to you of Google news or Web search results based on the terms that you specified. You can configure it to deliver the alerts to you instantly, daily or weekly. On the news side, it searches several thousand news sources that the Google news page indexes. On the Web search side it searches all the Web pages that the Google search engine indexes.
On the Google site there are some great tips for getting just the alerts you really want to see.
Google Alerts is a great way to make sure you are aware if there is news or content posted on the Web that is about you, your clients, your firm or other topics of interest to you. In the past I have found it faster and more thorough than some of the commercial clippings services I have used.
41. Search Tips That Will Get You Better Google Results
It is amazing how Google can search the web and find exactly what you are looking for. However, as amazing as Google is, you can do a few things to help it better find the information you are searching for – read on.
These things will help Google find the specific information you are searching for:
A. Use multiple search terms: Narrow your results with more search terms as Google will return only pages that include all of your search terms.
B. Make your search terms as specific as possible to the information you are looking for.
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C. Remember Google uses stemming technology which means it will search for words that are similar to your search terms. Thus a search for diet will also include results with diets, dieting, dietary and so on.
D. Google searches are NOT case sensitive. Everything will be understood as lower case, so john smith, John Smith, and JoHn SmItH will all return the same results.
E. To include common words in your search (by default they are not searched) put a space and a “+” sign in front of them e.g., Star Wars, Episode +1. Look in the top right corner of the Results screen to see the words Google searched on.
F. Use a phrase search by using double-quotation marks around two or more search terms. This is really helpful if you’re searching for proper names (“George Washington”), lyrics (“the long and winding road”), famous phrases (“Four score and seven years ago”), and computer error messages (“Maximum_Wait_Objects_Exceeded”).
G. Use negative terms to exclude some pages from your results e.g., London Arkansas – England.
H. Phrase your query in the form of an answer. Think about it: you don’t want Web pages that ask your question, you want pages that answer your question. So instead of typing, Who decided Marbury vs. Madison?, type Marbury vs. Madison was decided by.
And if you want even more ways to tweak your search, on the Google homepage click on Advanced Search for help on more of the searching options Google gives you.
42. Don’t be a dupe: That’s the advice from those who were fooled
In the months of July and August alone, hundreds of lawyers (from across Canada, the U.S., and even elsewhere in the world) have provided LAWPRO with emails seeking to retain them on bad cheque frauds. The most common scenarios are loan or debt collections and spousal support payments. (If you get obviously fraudulent emails, please forward them to [email protected]) Dozens of Ontario lawyers have called looking for help in determining whether a matter they were handling was a legitimate one. In many cases we have recognized the name of the fraudster, the scenario and/or the text of the email. And where we don’t recognize the fraud, the members of the LAWPRO fraud team can use the collective experience of having seen many frauds to determine if a matter may be fraudulent. On a few occasions, we have seen matters that were highly suspicious, but still may have been legitimate retainers.
Clearly Ontario lawyers are more aware that they are the targets of fraud, and they are becoming more adept at recognizing frauds. That is good. But we see some complacency, too. We frequently hear comments such as “l would never be fooled,” or “How would anyone fall for one of these frauds?”
But some are falling for these frauds, acting through at least the initial stages of collecting information, sending a demand letter and communicating with the debtor – who just happens to call up wanting to pay immediately after getting the demand letter. And there are some lawyers who go all the way and are successfully duped into disbursing funds from their trust accounts. This happens more often at solo and small firms, but the biggest firms are not immune either.
One lawyer said to us: “I was suspicious at the start, but the client called several times, provided me with an Ontario driver’s license as ID and a bunch of documentation. He led me along and I got fooled. I feel stupid that I fell for it.”
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Some of those who were duped were saved when the teller or the bank detected that the cheque was counterfeit. But don’t rely exclusively on the banks to protect you: They get fooled too. These counterfeits are really good. They will be in colour, on decent paper, and have holographs and watermarks.
In one recent case, a lawyer faxed to the bank a copy of a cheque drawn on the account of a major Canadian retailer. The bank replied that the signatures on the cheque matched what was on file and that the cheque looked good. The lawyer was told “out of an over abundance of caution you may want to contact the company to verify that the cheque is good.” The lawyer did so and it was confirmed that the cheque was bad. The fraud was one we had reported on the AvoidAClaim blog (avoidaclaim.com).
A. Frauds getting ever better
i. The fraudsters are changing it up to make fraudulent matters appear more legitimate.
We are seeing more phone calls or personalized emails as the initial contact (not generic BCC blasts to many people). We are also seeing new fake client names more frequently. In the sidebar to the right we list the new and most common names we’ve seen at LAWPRO in the last two months. But just because a name does not appear on this list does not mean you can stop worrying. New names are being used by fraudsters daily.
While in the past the fraudsters would sign retainer agreements and promise retainer cheques, they are now providing actual retainer cheques (which are fake of course),typically on a U.S. account. Banks will accept these for deposit, but will put a hold on them. Of course, a payment on the debt collection matter magically shows up from the debtor a day or two later, before the bogus retainer cheque bounces.
ii. What to do if you are suspicious
If you have even the slightest suspicion that the matter you are handling isn’t legitimate, ask questions and dig deeper, especially if the facts don’t add up or are inconsistent. Click on the confirmed frauds button at the AvoidAClaim.com blog to see a full listing of confirmed frauds. (avoidaclaim.com/?pageid=1479). Search the client’s name on Google. Cross-check names, addresses and phone numbers.
If you still aren’t sure, Ontario lawyers should call LAWPRO for some direction. We will walk you through the common fraud scenarios we are seeing and help you spot red flags that may indicate you are being duped. This will help you ask appropriate questions of your client to determine if the matter is legitimate or not. If the matter you are acting on turns out to be a fraud and there is a potential fraud if possible, and minimize potential claims costs. If you have been successfully duped, please immediately notify LAWPRO as there maybe a claim against you.
For more immediate updates on fraud and claims prevention, subscribe to the email or RSS feed updates from LAWPRO’s AvoidAClaim blog.
B. Fraud Fact Sheet
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More fraud prevention information and resources are available on the practicePRO Fraud page (http://www.practicepro.ca/fraud),including the Fraud Fact Sheet, a handy reference for lawyers and law firm staff that describes the common frauds and the red flags that can help identify them.
Ultimately, if you are not completely sure a matter is legitimate, terminate the retainer. Don’t be sucked in by your emotions or a strong desire to help. Don’t let the lure of a generous fee cause you to ignore your concerns as to the legitimacy of a matter. If t looks too easy or sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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