TechnoLawyer: Online/Cloud

Coming June 21, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Christel Burris throws down the gauntlet in the everlasting Word v. WordPerfect debate, William Lloyd explains how a multiple monitor setup works, Philip Franckel reviews Dragon NaturallySpeaking and discusses the headsets that its creators use, Deborah Schneider reviews her experience using GoDaddy for email, and Roe Frazer offers a solution for easily finding gaps in Bates-stamped documents. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a consumer-friendly hard drive array, an online service for managing medical information used in litigation, and document comparison software that can compare anything to anything. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Drobo Arigato Mr. Roboto
By Dennis Kennedy

What's the second most annoying aspect of hard drives after disk failure? Running out of disk space! With our office computers bulging from our own documents not to mention the documents of our clients, and our home computers experiencing a similarly expanding digital waistline thanks to music, movies, and photos, the traditional hard drive just doesn't cut it anymore.

But the world of storage beyond the hard drive is filled with acronyms like RAID, SAN, NAS, and other terms that are too complex for the average lawyer, leaving us between a rock and a hard drive.

Enter Data Robotics and its new consumer-friendly Drobo automated storage robot that manages data storage for you. It's designed to ensure that your data is protected and expandable. And it minimizes your need to understand the intricacies of data storage management.

Drobo is a USB 2.0 enclosure that houses up to four 3.5 inch SATA hard drives of any size and make you wish. You need not use all four drive slots initially. LEDs display the status of drives and their remaining capacity. If the lights are green, all is good. Red lights tell you to add or replace a drive. Yellow lights let you know that you are at 85% of capacity and it's time to add another drive or replace an existing drive with a larger one.

On your PC or Mac, Drobo shows up as one very large hard drive — up to 2 TB at which point it shows up as two hard drives. You use this space like a regular hard drive, but behind the scenes it mirrors, protects, and manages your data to provide redundancy in case one hard drive fails.

You don't have to select RAID levels, match hard drive sizes, or delve into network storage esoterica. Drobo's approach to data management speeds up data migration, switches you to other drives if a drive fails, and gives you quick access to new capacity when needed. Drives slide into Drobo without the need for special tools.

Drobo currently works with both PCs and Macs. Expect a Linux-compatible version later this year as well as a version with an eSATA interface. Drobo sells for $499. Learn more about Drobo.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming June 15, 2007 to Fat Friday: David O'Connell reviews the Treo and the three features that really "bug" him (plus our publisher discusses iPhone synchronization with case management software), John Sens discusses the problem with CLE (at least in Iowa and Minnesota), Celia Elwell explains which of the two word processors is easier to learn on the job, Aaron Morris reviews IntelliPoint 6.1  mouse software for its window-switching capabilities, and Daniel Schultz reviews his experience with Mozy online backup service. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers two new online services that can help law firms with marketing and public relations, and a software program for working with deposition transcripts. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Frequent Flyers
By Dennis Kennedy

Designing and publishing marketing materials is time-consuming and committee-intensive, resulting all too often in endless debates about color or word choices and unopened boxes stored in closets for years after being printed.

vFlyer has created an online marketing and distribution platform that could help you put an end to all those committee meetings — and with better results to boot. It offers a simple, template-driven way to create brochures, flyers, and other marketing materials, and an easy way to distribute your materials to a variety of online and offline audiences.

vFlyer offers many channels to reach your audience. You can distribute PDF or HTML versions of your flyers by email (vFlyer can import your email lists). You can print your flyers to send by mail or hand out. You might also take advantage of new online channels and distribute your flyers through Google Base, Oodle, Edgeio, and more, or post flyers to Craigslist and eBay.

VFlyer's Flyer Creator makes it easy to quickly create professional-looking flyers. Flyer Creator provides a choice of standard templates or you can customize your own. You can add photographs and embed URLs. In the paid versions, you can even embed videos. vFlyer also offers custom templates for eBay and Craigslist.

You can output flyers in a variety of delivery formats, including PDF (for printing or emailing) and mobile or text messaging formats. You can also create RSS feeds.

vFlyer also offers a number of "widgets" that you can use to place your flyers and other ads on your Web site or blog, or even on social networking sites. These widgets come in Flash and JavaScript formats. You simply generate the code you need and place that code on your site or blog.

vFlyer is available under a subscription model with pricing based on features and numbers of flyers that you can create. A free, ad-supported version gives you 5 active flyers. Paid subscriptions start at $9.95 per month and go up to $79.95 per month with discounts for annual subscriptions. Learn more about vFlyer.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a lawyer-centric discovery program and two online document management solutions. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Discovery Easy Enough for Cavemen (and Simplicity-Seeking Lawyers)
By Dennis Kennedy

Those instant classic television commercials about car insurance so easy to apply for even a caveman can do it have me wondering what else cavemen might find easy enough to understand in today's world. Discovery? Probably not, but LexisNexis Concordance has taken great strides in that direction with the new version of its flagship discovery program — Concordance 2007.

Designed for lawyers, Concordance 2007 sports a "completely revised, highly intuitive interface" that produces faster data access, improved document searching, and streamlined e-discovery features. The new release also integrates online Lexis.com research and a "send to" function to share your discovery data with other litigation and e-discovery software tools, including LexisNexis's Total Litigator and CaseMap. You can use Concordance 2007 from your desktop, laptop, or the Web.

Concordance 2007 focuses on simplifying the discovery process while providing enormous data capacity. The new interface helps you better navigate and organize documents, and should result in reduced training time for busy lawyers and paralegals. The Import Wizard can quickly import email and attachments in their native format. You can import and manage up to half a terabyte of data and thirty-three million records in each database. Need flexibility? Concordance allows 250 customizable fields for each record and up to 12 MB of data (approximately four copies of War and Peace) in each field.

Concordance's Simple Search technology easily locates key phrases and documents for non-technical reviewers. More advanced users can make use of Boolean, fuzzy, wild card, relational, and concept searches. The Synonym Builder enables you to search less-than-perfect OCR documents. Once you find a term, you can highlight it, send it to Total Litigator, and perform research using your Lexis.com account. You can save and re-run searches on up to 128 databases at once. Other search tools help you search on related concepts and find duplicate documents.

Concordance 2007 also provides you with a rich set of review, analysis, and collaboration tools. You can use multi-level folders, add your own tags, and set up public and private folders to simplify document review and manage cases. New organizational management tools provide helpful statistics such as who reviewed a particular set of documents. You can also bulk send entire document sets from Concordance to CaseMap to help you analyze, manage, and strategize your cases.

Other notable features include transcript management, a wide variety of flexible reporting tools, and programmability for advanced users. Concordance also offers state of the art security. You can try Concordance 2007 for free for 30 days.  Learn more about Concordance 2007.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a communications solution that integrates desktop faxing and PDF creation, a free Web analytics tool, and a free Web-based productivity suite. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Double Your Productivity
By Dennis Kennedy

Many lawyers want a desktop faxing tool. Many lawyers also want a PDF creation tool. As digital technologies converge, you can see the overlap between these two tools. Once we scan a document, we should be able to fax it and email it — with one click.

Equisys' Zetafax Duo 2007 integrates the popular Zetafax with Zetadocs PDF. The result is what it calls a visual document builder that enables you to create and combine documents into PDF files that you can can fax or email, whichever makes the most sense for you and the recipient. And you can do all of this from Outlook.

With the Zetadocs PDF component, you can merge documents created in different programs or scanned using any TWAIN-compliant scanner into a single PDF file (e.g., a cover letter created in Word and a bill created in your time-billing software). You can also apply your letterhead, logo, etc., attach existing PDF files, and archive every file you fax and email. Best of all, for routine tasks that you perform over and over again, you can create "automation commands" (macros) that perform a series of tasks with one click (handy for distributing a client newsletter).

With the Zetafax component, you can send and receive faxes using the Zetafax client or, as noted above, Outlook. Because faxes are routed over your law firm's network, they remain secure from sender to recipient. Zetafax 2007 integrates with Microsoft Office 2007 and Exchange 2007, but also supports prior versions of both products. Zetafax 2007 also integrates with just about any other mail sever via its optional email gateway, and many popular CRM programs such as ACT!, Goldmine, and SalesLogix.

Zetafax Duo 2007 installs quickly and takes advantage of Windows Group Policy to let you roll out client software from a central location rather than visiting each desktop. Zetafax Duo pricing starts at $1,295 for 5 users (upgrades start at $795). Learn more about Zetafax Duo 2007.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming May 17, 2007 to Answers to Questions: Doug Jacobs compares Amicus Attorney, Time Matters, and AbacusLaw, Anthony Vrsecky shares how his firm uses QuickBooks Pro for trust accounting, Jeff Lisson offers some advice for choosing a Web hosting service (having learned the hard way), Yvonne Renfrew discusses multiple monitors, pivot monitors, and online forum etiquette, and Steven Loble reviews Concordance for discovery documents. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a new yet familiar e-discovery service, a financial news resource, and online service tailor-made for law librarians and other book lovers. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

The E-Discovery Hostess with the Mostest
By Dennis Kennedy

Lawyers beginning to delve into the world of electronic discovery often express surprise at how even simple cases can involve large amounts of electronic data. "Help" is usually the first word that comes to mind.

LexisNexis Concordance's Hosted FYI aims to provide that help by combining "state-of-the-art" data hosting and security with e-discovery tools built on the familiar Concordance platform — priced a la carte based on your needs.

With Hosted FYI, you and your team can review, process, store, retrieve, redact, and share documents in a secure, centralized, and always-accessible environment. Rather than task your IT staff with daunting security and management requirements, Hosted FYI enables you to take advantage of the capacity, experience, security, and staffing of LexisNexis. As a result, you reduce your internal staffing and infrastructure costs, keep important data in an environment equipped for disaster recovery, and free your firm to focus on winning cases, not worrying about IT and security issues.

You can also take advantage of Hosted FYI's project support teams, including project managers and technical support representatives. These litigation support professionals can help ensure the integrity of your discovery data and, most importantly, track chain of custody. Thanks to this neutral stewardship, opposing counsel will likely consider using Hosted FYI as well, streamlining the discovery process. Even better, you can move cases midstream into Hosted FYI that you're currently handling internally or with other vendors.

Hosted FYI uses the well-known Concordance platform, a litigation environment familiar to many law firms and one used for many of today's biggest cases. Law firms that already use Concordance can easily move to the Hosted FYI environment seamlessly and without retraining their litigation support staff. You can quickly review and redact information, search, organize, and annotate email and other documents in their native file format (including metadata). The Web-hosted approach enables lawyers, paralegals and others to work simultaneously whether in the office, home, hotel room, etc. with access to only what they need to see.

Hosted FYI also provides you with financial controls. You can avoid building out infrastructure or hiring additional staff. Instead, Hosted FYI's a la carte pricing options means that you pay for only the services you need. The billing is also simple as you receive a single bill for what you use. Learn more about Hosted FYI.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming May 11, 2007 to Fat Friday: David Ventker discusses how he reduced overhead expenses in his litigation boutique by going paperless, Daniel Fennick reviews CD ripping service Ready to Play, Thomas Beltran reviews his experience getting his Dell laptop repaired, Rob Howard reviews his Treo 700p and compares it to the iPhone, and JP Siou sets the record straight regarding Outlook's advanced search function. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers software for managing client trust and escrow accounts, online sticky notes, and a free service for sending files too large to email. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Stop Losing Sleep Over Client Trust Accounting
By Dennis Kennedy

A surprisingly large percentage of disbarments and disciplinary actions against lawyers arise out of the mishandling of client trust funds. The rules for handling trust funds can seem arcane — especially for bookkeepers and accountants not experienced with law office trust accounting and ethical rules. To make matters worse, many general business accounting programs either do not handle trust accounting or provide only rudimentary or limited options.

Easy Soft's Easy Trust software enables you to take charge of your firm's trust and escrow accounting needs, and comply with the applicable rules in your jurisdiction. Easy Trust can track and reconcile receipts and disbursements for each of your clients separately while providing tight controls and an audit trail.

Thanks to a "simple, elegant interface," you can easily set up client ledger cards and enter transactions. You can create as many bank accounts or client ledger cards you need. Most importantly, Easy Trust prevents common trust accounting mistakes from occurring. For example, by default it guards against client ledgers having a negative balance.

Easy Trust also provides security and control. You can set up an account for each user with its own set of permissions limiting what that person can do in the program (e.g., transaction "entry only" permission without the ability to "print checks" or perform "bank reconciliation"). Other helpful features include overdraft alerts, bank reconciliation, and three-way reconciliation.

Easy Trust generates a variety of useful reports designed to simplify the audit and review process. For example, you can view the prior month's reconciliation reports, enabling you to easily match the reports with the corresponding bank statements. Various bank and client ledger reports can be produced with a single click. Also, users of Easy Soft's Easy HUD RESPA program can import settlement transactions directly from HUD-1 forms.

Easy Trust costs $499. Licenses for additional computers cost $199 each. Learn more about Easy Trust.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.