Volume 2014, No. 1 Law Office Computing Page Puritas Springs Software Law Office Computing VOLUME 2014 NO. 1 $ 7 . 9 9 PURITAS SPRINGS SOFTWARE Best Home Pages We think the importance of the through which you accessed INSIDE THIS ISSUE: home page has been greatly the world wide web. Once 1-3 reduced due to the invention of tabbed browsers arrived on the tabbed browsers. Although scene it was possible to create 1,4,5 conceived a group of 4 earlier in 1988, home pages Digital Inklings 6,7 tabbed brows- with each page Child Support 8 ing didn’t go being able to Spousal Support 10 mainstream “specialize” in a Uniform DR Forms 12 until the re- specific area of lease of Micro- your interest. Family Law Documents 13 soft’s Windows Take the Probate Forms 14 Internet Ex- weather for Ohio Estate Tax 16 plorer 7 in example. Every U.S. Income Tax (1041) 18 2006. Until then, your Home good home page should have Ohio Fiduciary Tax 19 page was the sole portal a minimal weather information; (Continued on page 2) Ohio Adoption Forms 20 OH Guardianship Forms 21 OH Wrongful Death 22 Loan Amortizer 23 # More Law Office Tech Tips Advanced Techniques 24 Deed & Document Pro 25 Bankruptcy Forms 26 XX. Quick Launch. The patch the application that you’re Law Office Management 28 of little icons to the right of the working in is maximized. If OH Business Forms 30 Start button is called the Quick you’re interested, take a look Launch toolbar. Sure, you can at the sidebar on page XX of Business Dissolutions 31 put much-used shortcuts on this issue. Living Trust/Estate Plan 32 your desktop, but thoughtful HUD—Settlement Stmts 33 desktop theory tends to frown XX. Pin A Program. So you Scamzamples 34 on a clutter of icons that have a clean, uncluttered In Good Humor 36 makes it hard to find any par- home and you like your Win- ticular one. Furthermore, if it’s 37 dows desktop the same way. If an application that you’re start- you do a lot of work from the Technical Support 38 ing and exiting through the Start button (and who doesn’t) Inbox 44 day, the Quick Launch icons don’t forget that you can stick Order Form 47 are always visible, even if you (Continued on page 4) Call us at 330-989-3165 or 330-485-3165 Page 2 www.puritas-springs.com Volume 2013, No. 1 LogMeInFreeNot Best Home LogMeIn was one of our favor- (Continued from page 1) ite free utilities. We had written unforeseen evolution of web and about it in just about every however, with tabbed browsing mobile apps and the erosion of issue of Law Office Computing you could make one of your the need for the site.” and after testing the free ver- home pages (i.e., tabs) a link to sion we decided to purchase the Weather Channel (for hour When we listen to someone’s licensing for their professional by hour forecasts) or the Na- explanation and don’t under- version which we use every tional Weather Service. stand it, we assume it’s either day for technical support. complicated or bull. In Google’s Still, even with tabbed browsing case who knows? Maybe it’s Even after buying the profes- you only view one tab at a time, both—complicated bull. sional version, we continued to use the free version as a convenience. So we were bummed to hear that free LogMeIn would no longer be free. Figuring that other offices may be missing free LogMeIn, we investigated whether there were any alternatives. And there were. Here are three. TeamViewer Claiming more than 200 mil- lion installations, TeamViewer is quite popular for a desktop sharing solution that we never heard of before. Like free LogMeIn, TeamViewer is free for all non-commercial users and can be downloaded from the TeamViewer web site. www.teamviewer.com/ Supports: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and Win- dows Phone 8 – incl. cross- platform connections. Of the three alternatives re- so it’s useful to have a landing Whatever, with iGoogle being ferred to in this side bar, we page or home-home page that considered by many, including tested TeamViewer over a gives you a lot of information at us, as our favorite home page, period of a months and you’ll a glance. That’s why we were the dissolution of Google created find our impressions on page fond of iGoogle, Google’s per- a browsing void. Of course, XX of this issue. sonalized home page. You set it every one of us has different up for the various news feeds, home page requisites or inter- sports, weather, etc. and you’re ests, but common among them good to go. Google dissolved are: weather, news, sports, mar- iGoogle allegedly due to “the ket, and entertainment. When Call us at 330-989-3165 Volume 2014, No. 1 Law Office Computing Page 3 LogMeIn Pages Con’t Alternatives you think about it, newspapers nicely laid out set of links: sports, CrossLoop had it all worked out years ago. tech, travel, movies, news, food CrossLoop offers screen sharing The areas of interest correlate to and music, etc. In other words and remote computer access the sections of a newspaper, you can’t see the current components for free. It utilizes a except that you can see all the weather, but you can click on the web browser to store computer sections at the same time like a weather link to get that info. accounts and provide access to table of contents. Bottom line, instead of the pho- those computers that have been tos and animation, a lot of cool registered for the account. What So far we haven’t even men- stuff is only a click away. As far put us off about CrossLoop is tioned RSS feeds which provide as our limited investigation could the fact that it is a shell created you a continuous stream of news tell, this site is not customizable to run a virtual network in the about your special area of inter- like MSN or AOL. No advertising background. Therefore, a VNC est, i.e., daily blurbs about your is nice. client is required on the client favorite personality. Now that computer. We were fond of the iGoogle is gone, the following list Yahoo! This is another semi- LogMeIn no-brainer approach had increased significance. The customizable site like AOL. We and the about clients, servers sites are listed in no particular think the layout is the least ap- and virtual networks scared us order. pealing of the three, but if your off. With LogMeIn for example, email service provider is Yahoo! you clicked, downloaded and MSN. Before iGoogle we used it may be a good fit for you. Also you were pretty much ready to MSN which has all or most of the like MSN and AOL, this site has go. There may be clients and features we’ve mentioned. The advertising. servers, but nasty details are only drawback we see is the kept out of sight and mind. More prominent advertising, but for Homepage.org. Imagine Best- information is available at the what you’re getting maybe it’s HomePageEver with linked icons CrossLoop web site: worth it or at least tolerable. It is or tiles instead of text links and http://www.crossloop.com/ customizable so that you can set you got Homepage.org. Much of it to display the weather for your the same, standard content and area, the scores of your favorite no advertising. It is not custom- team, your new service of izable. We found this site to be Chrome Remote Desktop choice, etc. quite likeable with an impressive Even though we use Google array of links to news, weathers, extensive including Google AOL. In the dial up days when sports, entertainment and much voice, we were not aware that AOL was a major Internet player, more. We could imagine this Google produced a Chrome it gathered in a lot of users as home page as being a nice com- browser plugin that provides well as providing an email ser- plement to your other browser secure remote access. One vice. Today the AOL home page tabs simply because of it’s or- reason for that may be the fact has about everything that the ganization and diversity. that we use Internet Explorer MSN page has (including the and so we were not familiar with prominent advertising) and pro- Chrome except by name. vides a handy gateway to those Chrome browser usage is re- with AOL email accounts that quired at both ends of the con- are a decade or more old. It is nection. You can download the not customizable to the extent of Chrome Remote Desktop app at MSN. the Google Play Store. BestHomePageEver. Instead of having an image-based graphi- cal user interface, BHPE has a Call us at 330-989-3165 or 330-485-3165 Page 4 www.puritas-springs.com Volume 2013, No. 1 Windows 8 History Lesson # More Law Office After a brush with death on our Windows 8 computer we de- (Continued from page 1) about the background, it’s easier cided it was time to make sure application shortcuts to the Start on your graphics system to not we had an automated backup menu so they can be started even have a wallpaper. Speak- system in place - something we with navigating through multiple ing of wallpaper in the context of should have done when we set submenus.