TechnoLawyer: Presentations/Projectors

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 53 articles from the past week worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

Technology Is Great, but Prove Your Point

A Study in Why Major Law Firms Are Shrinking

Your Firm's Future Is Tied To Your Referral Sources

This issue also contains links to every article in the June 2009 issue of Law Practice. Don't miss this issue or future issues.

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Coming today to TechnoFeature: You've seen the commercials. The Mac is hip while the lovable loser PC bounces from one crisis to another. Do these commercials reflect reality in the legal world? Should you take the leap and make the switch? Family lawyer Ben Stevens, founder of The Mac Lawyer blog, answers these and other questions in this look at the state of Macs in the law firm. Thanks to his lawyerly ways, Ben remains grounded in reality throughout the article without an accompanying distortion field.

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Our flagship newsletter never disappoints thanks to its in-depth reporting by leading legal technology and practice management experts, many of whom have become "household names" in the legal profession. It's in TechnoFeature that you'll find our oft-quoted formal product reviews and accompanying TechnoScore ratings. The TechnoFeature newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to Fat Friday: Eddie Davidson shares his experience using a MacBook Pro in his personal injury practice (and provides a real case example), Mary Hallman discusses the principles behind to an effective backup strategy, Conrad Leikauf explains why he often has to take matters into his own hands when it comes to hardware/software troubleshooting, Andrew DeMaio shares a helpful tip regarding multiple monitors and LogMeIn, and Roy Greenberg provides a great online resource for Dragon NaturallySpeaking tips. 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 3M's Micro Professional Projector MPro110, Camden Hall reviews ProLaw for practice management, Tom Caruso discusses three cost considerations when switching to a Mac, Jerry Perrella provides some sound advice for law firms needing to reformat server disks, and Jeff Scott Olson shares his recent experience with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 and Windows Vista 64. 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.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers an online meeting and presentation service (see article below), an iPhone dictation app, a BlackBerry task management app, an online marketing intelligence tool for lawyers, and an online research service for intellectual property practitioners. Don't miss the next issue.

Who Needs Legs Anyway?
By Neil J. Squillante

In a recent series of Dilbert cartoons, Dilbert hitchhikes to a business meeting with a serial killer because his company cut his travel budget. If Dilbert had any sense, he would have scheduled an online meeting instead. Of course, when our legs become tiny vestigial appendages someday, we may regret such innovations.

Dimdim ... in One Sentence
Dimdim 4.5 is an online meeting service that enables you to collaborate on documents and give presentations.

The Killer Feature
If you want to conduct flawless online meetings, you need a second monitor since what your audience sees often lags what's on your screen.

Dimdim's new SynchroLive technology eliminates the need to monitor your meeting. It keeps your presentations in sync across your entire audience.

Essentially a secure private network, SynchroLive constantly adjusts as necessary to maintain a consistent flow of data. Thanks to SynchroLive, you can show your audience live Web pages and even video (think depositions).

Other Notable Features
You're not a salesperson. Heck, you're not even a rainmaker. You don't need to give presentations. But you do need to collaborate.

In addition to offering online presentations, Dimdim offers two-way collaboration features such as videoconferencing, document sharing, and a virtual white board.

If you're videoconferencing, it might seem rude if you always have your head down taking notes. Fortunately, there's no need as Dimdim can record your meetings.

Other features include multiple presenters, public and private chat, annotation tools, and a virtual laser pointer.

What Else Should You Know?
Dimdim works on both Macs and PCs. The Free edition allows an audience up to 20 people. The Pro edition starts at $99/year, expands the maximum audience to 100 people, and also offers custom branding and an uptime guarantee. The Enterprise edition starts at $1,999/year, has a maximum audience size of 1,000, enables your firm to conduct simultaneous meetings, and can reside in your firm on your own server. Learn more about Dimdim 4.5.

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 today in the first ever issue of BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 50 articles from the past month worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

What's the Verdict on Verdical?

Kill the Billable Hour

Video Marketing Tip: Check Your Ego at the Door

This issue also contains links to every article in the January 2009 issues of Law Practice Today and Law Technology News. Don't miss this issue or future issues.

How to Receive BlawgWorld
Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of legal technology, practice management, law firm marketing, and electronic discovery, but not the only coverage. To stay on top of all the noteworthy articles published in blogs and other online publications you could either hire a research assistant or simply subscribe to BlawgWorld. The BlawgWorld newsletter has received rave reviews and is free. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers new trial presentation software that handles PDF files (see article below), an online document assembly application, an online service designed to help transactional lawyers draft documents, an online post office box service for managing your mail, and task management software for Macs. Don't miss the next issue.

Present PDF in the Courtroom
By Neil J. Squillante

If Rip Van Winkle were a litigator who fell asleep at his desk for 20 years after reading a complaint, he might very well wake up just in time for the trial. But he might not find any TIFF documents on his trial laptop. "What's PDF?" he would exclaim. "How can I annotate and redact PDF files so I can use them as demonstrative evidence?" He might be tempted to take another nap unless he could quickly find a trial presentation tool that could handle PDF files.

inData TrialDirector Version 5.2 ... in One Sentence
inData TrialDirector Version 5.2 is a trial presentation application that now offers advanced tools for PDF files and supports the MPEG-2 video format.

The Killer Feature
Although PDF is not exactly a new technology, TIFF files remain a fixture in the litigation world. Many litigation support applications cannot annotate, redact, or otherwise handle PDF files as well as they can handle TIFF files.

But litigators have spoken. They want to use PDF files, especially at trial. inData TrialDirector Version 5.2 enables them to do so.

For example, you can view PDF files instantly no matter how large, annotate them using tools such as a highlighter, arrows, and shapes, redact them using all the common colors and styles, navigate to any page, magnify any area, merge and extract pages, add sticky notes and text labels, and print bar codes and slip sheets.

Perhaps best of all, you can present PDF files and integrate them with TrialDirector's full suite of tools such as annotation layers, live annotations, zoom, rotate, and pan, and callout projections. You can also create a snapshot of any page of a PDF file.

Our customers asked for more flexibility for using PDF images when needed so that's what we delivered in Version 5.2 of TrialDirector," inData CEO and President Derek Miller told us.

Other Notable Features
With consumers migrating to HDTVs, they expect higher quality video in the courtroom as well. TrialDirector 5.2 has always supported MPEG-1 video files. Now it supports MPEG-2 as well, which offers much higher quality. It also supports MPEG-4, QuickTime, and DVD-VOB. Importantly, TrialDirector includes an MPEG-2 codec for video playback, eliminating the need to buy one separately.

Other new features include the ability to automatically assign exhibit numbers, customize the presentation toolbar, position the closed captioned transcript text that accompanies video testimony, and sort and edit documents in a new optional grid view.

Also notable is that TrialDirector 5.2 runs on Windows on a Mac using Boot Camp, Fusion, or Parallels. Just as importantly, inData will provide support for these configurations.

What Else Should You Know?
TrialDirector 5.2 is a free update to licensees of TrialDirector versions 5.0 or 5.1 with a current maintenance contract. Single-user licenses of TrialDirector v5.2 start at $595 plus maintenance. Learn more about inData TrialDirector Version 5.2.

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 today to Answers to Questions: Wendy Parker discusses the security risks of fax-to-email services, David Herdman shares another way to hide your desktop when connecting to a projector for a courtroom presentation, Caren Schwartz reviews QuickBooks for time-billing on a Mac or PC, Caldwell Hancock reviews ABBYY PDF Transformer Pro, and Creston Parker explains how Mac users can easily archive a Web page for future reference. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on 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.

Coming September 18, 2008 to Answers to Questions: Andrea Cannavina reviews the Olympus DS-4000 and DS-2300 as well as the Philips Pocket Memo 9600, Howard Walker reviews Amicus Attorney 2008 Small Firm Edition (plus a response from Gavel and Gown Software), James Vernon reviews Prolaw READY and how it stacks up against its competitors, Kathy Burnett offers a courtroom presentation tip, and J. J. explains why one word processor will always have the edge. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on 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.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a new format for video depositions (see article below), a telephone system for small and midsize firms, and a network appliance for archiving email. Don't miss the next issue.

Depositions Hit the Big Screen
By Peter R. Olson

Video has revolutionized depositions. Remember those depositions of Bill Gates with a scowl on his face, speaking in a monotone? Powerful stuff — assuming you can see it that is. Until now deposition videos have primarily existed in MPEG-1 format. Translation — grainy quality not exactly up to Hollywood standards. Time to shake things up.

DepoView DVD ... in One Sentence
inData Corporation's DepoView DVD enables you to use a DVD player to view your deposition video and the accompanying transcript at very high quality (MPEG-2) on a television or a computer monitor.

The Killer Feature
Using your DVD player's remote control, you can switch among three modes — watching the video only, reading the transcript only, or a combination in which the transcript appears below the video as subtitles. You can jump to any page as well. The high-quality video enables you (and eventually the judge and jury) to see every nuance as the deponent answers questions — from facial expressions to body language.

Other Notable Features
A DepoView DVD provides you with everything you need — the ability to view depositions on any television as noted above plus the ability to work with the transcript and video on your computer.

For example, each DepoView DVD also includes nonproprietary formats such as ASCII as well as proprietary load files for popular litigation software such as inData TrialDirector, CT Summation, LiveNote, Sanction, etc. The MPEG-2/DVD codec on the DepoView DVD disc guarantees accurate playback of video.

In addition, DepoView DVD includes a complimentary copy of DepoView software for your Windows PC. DepoView, which we covered in the November 14, 2007 issue of this newsletter, enables you to clip and export video clips to PowerPoint and other presentation applications, search for keywords, print condensed transcripts, take snapshots of any frame, view exhibits, and more.

What Else Should You Know?
Every court reporter should be able to provide your transcript in DepoView DVD format. They can obtain the necessary software from inData. The cost to order a video deposition in DepoView DVD format starts at $5 per deposition, plus any related syncing costs. While the DepoView application requires a Windows PC, DepoView DVD works in any DVD player whether attached to a television or in your computer. Learn more about DepoView DVD.

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.