TechnoLawyer: Email/Messaging/Telephony

Coming today to Fat Friday: Ed Zohn shares the details of his mobile setup, Joseph Travaglini adds one more step to Mazyar Hedayat's small firm success strategy, Donald Jemela compares hosted Microsoft Exchange from GoDaddy and Rackspace, Ruth Curcuru explains how she prints TimeMap timelines, and Michael Jones reviews Acrobat Pro for lawyers. Don't miss this issue.

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Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 82 articles from the past week worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

Review: Thunderbird 3.0: Good Email Solution for Law Firms?

A Bankruptcy Lawyer's Move From Palm to Droid

Checklists in Law Practice

What is All the Hoopla Over Avvo Reviews?

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Coming today to Answers to Questions: Sam Gibson discusses the impact of accepting credit cards at his law firm, Bob Leonard explains how he syncs his iPhone with LexisNexis' Total Practice Advantage (and LexisNexis discusses its mobililty plans for 2010), Marc Dobin explains how to create audio clips for trial, Bruce Dorner offers advice to new lawyers overwhelmed with technology options, and Christopher Holly reviews PureText and ClipCache Pro. Don't miss this issue.

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Coming today to Fat Friday: Diedre Braverman reviews AdvologixPM, Tom Trottier discusses laptop security and passwords, Steve Pena shares his thoughts on forced obsolescence and online music subscriptions, Ed Detlie provides some ideas for making calls using a MiFi, Harry Steinmetz has a few words for Smart Invoice's pricing plan, and our publisher lays out a use case for Apple's new iPad. Don't miss this issue.

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Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to Fat Friday: Donald Moir reviews Microsoft Response Point with Syspine hardware, Jonathan Warner shares his experience with locally-built laptops, Mike Agron explains why he's switching back to a PC after spending a year with a MacBook Pro, Wesley Brown reviews FileBox eXtender, and Kerry Hubick discusses Australia's health care system. Don't miss this issue.

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Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to Answers to Questions: Michael Bauchan explains why and how his firm accepts credit cards, Victoria Pitt reviews Time Matters, Fredric Gruder reviews Acrobat and QuickFile4Outlook for archiving email, Stephen Hayes reviews Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows 64 and Nuance technical support, and Simon Laurent discusses his firm's fax-to-email solution. Don't miss this issue.

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Originally published on December 14, 2009 in our free SmallLaw newsletter.

Continuing with the theme of my last two columns, let's explore another enormously useful Acrobat feature — email archiving. Who isn't awash in an endless swirling sea of email that conspires to digitally drown you daily? Yes, that's clearly a rhetorical question because the answer is: all of us.

How often have you heard that shrill siren call emanating from your IT people: "Delete old email — you're taking up too much space — or we'll do it for you!" Microsoft Outlook users have never had a particularly useful or satisfying way to cull email. Outlook's archiving functions are effectively brain-dead. Either auto-delete or manually delete your messages. Or "archive" them, a seemingly pointless process that moves older email into an "archives" email folder structure, which serves only to make the email less accessible and less convenient, doing nothing to reduce the size of the stored data Outlook and its Exchange Server engine must track.

How to Archive Outlook Email Using Adobe Acrobat

Forget archiving in Outlook. Instead, look to the potent abilities of Acrobat and the PDF format as the panacea for your email pain.

Adobe Acrobat offers a special portfolio that includes Microsoft Outlook email and your attachments. A surprising number of people seem unaware of this powerhouse feature's existence. In some respects, you may find the ability to efficiently archive Outlook email and attachments even more powerful than Acrobat's core PDF making capabilities.

Adobe Acrobat adds a a PDFMaker ribbon or toolbar to Microsoft Outlook that features two useful buttons:

1. Create Adobe PDF from Selected Messages
2. Create Adobe PDF from Selected Folders

Let's assume you want to archive the contents of an Outlook "matter" folder you've created for "ABC Trucking v. Smith Corp." Select the Outlook folder in the folder pane, and then click the second Acrobat button. Let's further assume that the "matter" folder contains more than 200 email messages, many with one or more attachments. A progress indicator will appear as Acrobat "processes" all the email in the folder. The end result is a PDF Portfolio containing all the email within the matter folder.

When the process is complete, the PDF Portfolio consisting of all 200+ email messages and their attachments via live links appears. The Acrobat Bookmark panel shows each email message listed, sortable by subject, sender and date. Each email message maintains its live attachment links — the attachments also reside the PDF Portfolio. Click on an attachment "link" in an included email and the file will appear — a Word document loads in Word, etc.

This method is far superior to saving 200+ email messages and perhaps as many individual attachments. No one would ever be dedicated enough, or for that matter, have a long enough attention span, to torture themselves with those manual saves.

You can save the PDF Portfolio containing the Outlook matter folder's email and attachments in the regular folder location containing the rest of the matter's documents. As part of an initiative to build complete and contiguous electronic case files, there is no more effective way to incorporate email from Outlook in a fully searchable format. If you wish, you can delete the contents of the email folder in Outlook, thereby keeping Outlook lean and efficient.

Overall, Adobe Acrobat's PDF Portfolios offers a clever streamlined approach to email archiving. The best approach for small law firms that use Microsoft Outlook? For now, the answer is an emphatic yes.

Written by Ross Kodner of MicroLaw.

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Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to Fat Friday: David Hudgens compares the Jawbone II and BlueAnt Z9i bluetooth headsets, Andrea Cannavina discusses the limitations of speech recognition software, Paul Tredoux describes his preferred method for creating cross references in Word 2007, Jerry Nicholson explains how his digital forensics company has survived the recession, and Paul Purdue provides a quick anecdote about DIY technology. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive Fat Friday
Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to Fat Friday: David Hudgens reviews CaseMap, TimeMap, and TextMap, Lewis Kinard lists tips and pitfalls with regard to blogging for marketing purposes, David Moskowitz shares his company's secret to success during a recession, William Anderson reviews Best Case Bankruptcy, and James Atkins discusses the number one benefit of challenge response software (and we explain why we disagree). Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive Fat Friday
Our most serendipitous offering, Fat Friday consists of unsolicited contributions by TechnoLawyer members. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The Fat Friday newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to Answers to Questions: Al Menzy shares his firm's cost analysis of Interwoven, NetDocuments, and Worldox, Craig Bayer reviews SharePoint and BrainKeeper for knowledge management, Andrew Willinger explains how to connect a USB scanner to a wireless network, Tom Trottier provides a solution for archiving Outlook email, and Jesse Farr reviews Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive Answers to Questions
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In Answers to Questions, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The Answers to Questions newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.