TechnoLawyer: Online/Cloud

Coming April 27, 2006 to Answers to Questions: Olivier Oosterbaan reviews several document collaboration tools including Google's new acquisition, Writely, Caren Schwartz reviews QuickBooks for legal billing as does Christian Connell, CaseSoft CEO Greg Krehel discusses the benefits of Adobe Acrobat Professional versus the Standard version, and Clint Pullin offers up an Acrobat Bates stamping tip. Don't miss this issue.

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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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a free online task management tool, voicemail software for Skype, and a multifaceted instant messaging client. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Better than a String Around Your Finger
By Jill Bauerle
Lost your to-do list? Overwhelmed by the number of task management tools out there? Take a deep breath and log onto Remember the Milk. A Web-based, user-friendly tool, Remember the Milk helps you visualize your most important tasks without getting lost in sub-menus and multiple screens. The "Overview" page lets you see what's due today and tomorrow, what's overdue, and what the week ahead looks like. The "task cloud" literally puts all of your task headings like "bills" and "calls" in a bubble and sizes each them according to how task-heavy they are. So if you have to make five phone calls and pay one bill, "calls" will loom menacingly in the task cloud, eclipsing "bills." Different lists for work, personal, etc. help you to separate the various facets of your life and prioritize accordingly. A special feature of Remember the Milk enables you to keep track of time the way that we humans typically conceive it — today, tomorrow, a week from now — and change a due date from "tomorrow" to "1 week from tomorrow" in one click. Reminders come in many forms, including e-mail, instant messages, and SMS. You can e-mail tasks to your Remember the Milk account and automatically create a new list using your subject line. Other highlights of this program include "smart lists" that help you prioritize tasks, a contact list of other Remember the Milk users to whom you can send reminders, list sharing and public lists, iCal synchronization, an "undo" button, recurring tasks, keyboard shortcuts, and an archive for old lists that you're not ready to delete. Once you get a taste of Remember the Milk, you could became as zen about your work load as the smiling cow on the corner of the screen. Remember the Milk is free. Learn more about Remember the Milk.

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.

I deemed 2006 the year of mobile video. It looks like I was half right — video hasn't yet taken off in the legal profession, but it has elsewhere. One of the most vexing issues with video concerns embedding it into your site or blog. As with every technical hurdle, startup companies have rushed to fill the void. Last week, DVGuru reviewed several of these solutions, but just as importantly, those of us who commented on the article provided many other suggestions. If you have any interest in video, I recommend reading this article and the comments.

About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a Web-based utility that stores and organizes your Web clippings, an eBay search engine for smarter and safer shopping, and an all-inclusive Web-based calendar and contact application to keep you and your world in sync. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Bye Bye Bookmarks
By Jill Bauerle
Too many bookmarks in your browser? Forgot why half of them are even there? Time for an account with Clipmarks. Whether you're researching a case, comparison shopping, or keeping track of celebrity gossip, Clipmarks is a Web-based utility that provides a permanent URL for storing and organizing Web clippings. Unlike a bookmark, which just takes you back to an entire page, a Clipmark enables you to "clip" a certain portion of a page and apply "tags" to that clip for easy retrieval. In short, it enables you to create a searchable database of everything you find on the Web. After creating your account and installing the required Firefox extension or Internet Explorer toolbar, the Clipmarks editing symbols appear in your browser. As you mouse over text on a Web page, just click on the paperclip symbol embedded in your toolbar and automatically enter editing mode. This tool actually "clips" text by copying paragraphs or photos into a Clipmarks folder once you click on the "Save" button. You can keep multiple clippings in one file. Each folder contains a link to the original Web page (in case you need to refer to the original source) plus searchable title, tags, and comments. Other tools include an e-mail button to share your clips, a bookmark button that sends your clips to services such as del.icio.us or BlinkList, and "cliprolling" (an RSS feed of your clip tags). On Clipmarks' home page, a "word cloud" shows the most popular topics in real time. Clipmarks offers four views: "Mine," "Public," "Board," or "Hot." For each clip you create, you have the option of marking it public or private. Check out what everyone else is clipping in "Public." See who's commenting on your clips in "Board." Or look at popular clips in "Hot." One possible use for Clipmarks is to draw attention to articles you've published on the Web. Who knows, maybe your clips will become the next hot topic! Clipmarks is free. Learn more about Clipmarks.

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 April 14, 2006 to Fat Friday: Mark Lieb reviews a handy password recovery program for use in e-discovery, Grady Thrasher discusses a workaround for integrating DeltaView PE with Worldox, David Hudgens reviews his experience with PCLaw, Michael Bates reviews the Web hosting and design company he used to build his firm's Web site, and Corey Rich discusses the convenience and cost of online public records. In addition, this issue features links to 10 additional Posts in the TechnoLawyer Archive. 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.

A podcast is nothing more than an audio or video file to which you can subscribe using iTunes or another podcast-enabled media player. If you have an iPod, take a listen, particularly since all podcasts are free and most are commercial-free. Below I've collected a few of my favorites.

Coast to Coast: Hosted by J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi, both of whom are lawyers, this podcast explores a hot legal topic using an interview format. For example, recent shows have explored first year associate salaries, public defenders, law firm diversity, etc. If you like NPR, you'll like this show.

BusinessWeek Cover Story: A perfect complement to the magazine, this podcast takes you behind the scenes of each week's cover story by having the editor interview the journalist who researched and wrote the story. Because print magazines are notorious for their space constraints, this podcast always brings more information to light that didn't make the cut.

This Week in Tech / Security Now: This Week in Tech consists of a roundtable discussion with a cast of regulars (some better than others) and special guests (ditto) hosted by Leo Laporte of Tech TV fame. This podcast runs far too long, but it's still the best of its breed. Let's hope Leo tightens the reins soon. A much better podcast is Security Now, co-hosted by Leo Laporte and security expert Steve Gibson. If you manage your firm's network security, this podcast is a must.

It's Jerry Time: For a glimpse at some next-generation entertainment, check out this high-definition video podcast featuring the most incredible animation this side of Pixar. Unfortunately, the writing is not on par with the animation.

About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

BlawgWorld 2006, our popular eBook (25,000+ downloads), features 51 of the best blawg Posts from 2005.

Like all books, it captures a moment in time. In fact, BushWorld, the best-selling collection of New York Times columns, inspired us to create BlawgWorld (we didn't actually read BushWorld, we just noticed its success). Clearly, people like the convenience of such collections.

But what happens if you want to monitor a blawg or group of blawgs daily in addition to reading the best selections annually? Several options exist.

If you just want to monitor a handful of blawgs, you can use browser bookmarks and check them every day. If you use Firefox, you can open each bookmark in its own tab simultaneously. Even better, you can use Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature to alert you when these blawgs have new content.

To track a larger group of blawgs, your best bet is to use an RSS newsreader. Personally, I recommend NewsGator's solutions, all of which I consider best of breed — FeedDemon (a standalone Windows application), NetNewsWire (a standalone Mac application), NewsGator Inbox (an Outlook plugin), and NewsGator Online.

If you have a Google or Yahoo account, you may want to use their free newsreaders — Google Reader and MyYahoo. I do not recommend Bloglines, which has a confusing interface.

If instead of tracking a group of blawgs, you instead want to track what all blawgs say about a topic you care about (e.g., e-discovery), you can use blog search engines such as Google Blog Search, Yahoo Blog Search, Feedster, and Technorati. Although you can save your searches, these search engines do not send e-mail alerts. Instead, you must use a newsreader to monitor your saved searches.

Finally, if you don't have a group of favorite blawgs or don't want to deal with newsreaders, but would like to stay in the loop (and don't mind spending some money), PinHawk recently began publishing Law on the Blogs NewzDigest, a daily e-mail newsletter with headlines and links to new content from about 50 blawgs (including TechnoLawyer Blog). This service comes at a price — $199/year. You can view a sample newsletter before subscribing, and try it for free for two weeks.

About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a soup-to-nuts solution for managing your litigation matters and collaborating with clients, a secure chat room service for law firms and businesses, and a new site in which anyone (including you) can become a beat reporter or columnist. Don't miss the next issue.

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

New Tool Enables Firms to Impress Their Clients
By Jill Bauerle
When it comes to client priorities, litigation takes the cake — dockets, deadlines, deliverables, depositions, and documents all add costs to their legal budget. Given the complexity of even small cases, you would think that dozens of companies would offer litigation management solutions. But that's not the case (no pun intended). Sensing a need, CaseKnowledge has launched an eponymous service in the form of a "powerful extranet platform that makes case information immediately available to your clients from any Web browser. CaseKnowledge features a powerful shared calendar and timeline with which your firm can manage all of its open cases, including court dockets, depositions, document production deadlines, and the many other events that transpire during the discovery, trial, and appeal phases. As its name implies, CaseKnowledge also stores all the accumulated knowledge for each case — the theory of the case, the litigation plan and budget, settlement exposure analysis, case resolution strategies, interrogatories, deposition transcripts, expert witness interviews, and much more — all searchable with versioning and approval workflow technology. Unlike other litigation management programs, CaseKnowledge doesn't just manage your case information, but also your client communications. Instead of emailing your clients and colleagues, you simply post a message within CaseKnowledge, which then alerts them via email. They can then reply to your post within CaseKnowledge. The result is a threaded discussion in one place that you can easily search. Speaking of email alerts, CaseKnowledge can send users email alerts for approaching deadlines. Your firm can centrally configure these alerts by case type or by client. For those in the corner office, CaseKnowledge provides a dashboard with an overview of all active cases. From the dashboard, you can pull up a variety of information and reports, including Total Case Cost, Case Status, Spend Analysis, and Exposure Analysis. Even better, you can also create dashboards for clients displaying their entire litigation portfolio. This ability to report information to your clients in a manner not likely provided by the other firms they retain could persuade them to send all their litigation to your firm. CaseKnowledge costs nothing to set up. Instead, CaseKnowledge charges a monthly fee per active case. Learn more about CaseKnowledge.

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 March 24, 2006 to Fat Friday: Kevin Thompson reviews his new Acer Travelmate C200 Tablet PC, Kevin Grierson adds his two cents to the attorney-client e-mail debate, Larry Kasoff shares his five favorite Web sites, Meg Spencer Dixon writes in with an important correction regarding Neil's review of the Tanita BC533 scale, and Edward Brooks tests our publishing limits — see what he dared us to post. 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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a new place on the Web where you can share your legal or other expertise, a service that enables you to search specific sites and save those searches, and a personalized virtual desktop accessible from any computer — all free. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Use a Lens to Improve Your Firm's Visibility
By Jill Bauerle
Wikipedia relies on many experts in a given field to cover one topic. Squidoo takes the opposite approach by inviting experts to set themselves apart rather than collaborate. If you haven't already created a free "lens" (a Web page on steroids) on Squidoo, what's stopping you? Maybe you already have a blog or an "about" column on your Web site, but one more item that increases the likelihood of prospective clients finding you through Google couldn't hurt, right? Join Martha Stewart and others on this blog-meets-wiki mashup for sharing your knowledge, increasing your profile, and pointing traffic to your Web site. Each Squidoo lens consists of "modules" — building blocks. A number of different modules exist for different types of content — text, links, tags, feeds, etc. Thus, on your Squidoo lens, you can list your latest blog posts, link to court opinions involving your firm, provide an overview of your legal expertise, and much more. Each lens you create comes equipped with an RSS feed to which people can subscribe. Squidoo ranks its lenses daily according to frequency of updates, traffic, inbound and outbound links, and user ratings. Just as fun as it is to share your skills, Squidoo also teaches you new ones. Squidoo features lenses ranging from learning Mandarin to figuring out which colors work best on the Web. Squidoo promises a new feature soon that will earn royalties for you or your favorite charity — plus frequent flyer miles and hotel points. Squidoo is free. Learn more about Squidoo.

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.