TechnoLawyer: Utilities

Coming October 17, 2005 to Answers to Questions: Terese Deboo and Nicholas Hagoort review Stamps.com (the good, the bad, and the price), Jeffrey Franklin provides several options for sharing your calendar and contacts, Michael Raskin explains why your backups may let you down (and we point to a must-read article on this topic), and John Gordon reviews PCAnywhere. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a thrice 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 October 6, 2005 to Answers to Questions: Jason Havens reviews STI's PracticeMaster/Tabs3 combo, Jack Turnquist explains his simple Windows backup solution using DOS, Jeanetta Stewart reviews the pros and cons of Stamps.com (she has used the service for five years), Perry Adanick provides some helpful tips regarding our ongoing spyware discussion, and Lee King offers more reasons why you may prefer a trackball over a mouse. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a thrice 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 July 19, 2005 to Fat Friday: William Kellermann defends native file review, a hot-button topic in the e-discovery industry, David Hammer explains how a broken hard drive can help build your kid's self-esteem, Ronald Cappuccio reviews Document Production System 8, David Larson reviews Pathagoras, and Larry Crowell reviews Iomega's Automatic Backup (formerly QuikSync). 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.

With all the scuttlebutt about document comparison software in recent editions of Fat Friday, TechnoLawyer member Jon Calhoun sent us an oft-forgotten reminder: "I've used WordPerfect's built-in compare feature for years and have been quite satisfied. Of course, that means working in WordPerfect instead of Word, but that's a plus in my book. WordPerfect does a fine job of converting Word documents, which you would have to do before using the redline feature."

About Quips
A Quip is a brief member contribution for which we don't have room in our Answers to Questions or Fat Friday newsletters. Instead, Quips appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Coming August 10, 2005 to TechnoLawyer NewsWire:  In this issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about a time-tracking utility for all the billable work you perform on your BlackBerry or Treo, a new search utility that bypasses OCR for greater accuracy, free accounting software for small firms, a utility that can batch convert image PDF files into searchable PDf files using Acrobat 7's built-in "Recognize Text" technology, and a new line of duplex scanners designed for law firms.

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.

With the release of DeltaView PE for solo practitioners and small firms, the document comparison (redlining) wars have heated up quite a bit. TechnoLawyer member Patti Russell writes in with a brief review of Litera's Change-Pro: "We just purchased three copies of Litera's Change-Pro for our document comparison needs for both Word and WordPerfect. It also has a metadata removal feature. So far, we love it. It's very user friendly and you can buy individual licenses." You can find many reviews of redlining and other legal software in the TechnoLawyer Archive.

About Quips
A Quip is a brief member contribution for which we don't have room in our Answers to Questions or Fat Friday newsletters. Instead, Quips appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Below you'll find one of the five articles from today's edition of TechnoLawyer NewsWire:

A Private Eye for Your Word Documents
By Jill Bauerle

Some software companies use clever spelling and punctuation to draw attention to their products. Workshare's free security alert program TRACE! 2.0 comes by its name honestly. All too often, Microsoft Office users enable the "Track Changes" option and later forget to click "Accept all Changes" from the appropriate document menu, inadvertently leaving traces of their work in finished documents, especially when two or more lawyers collaborate. TRACE! scans your outgoing documents for footnotes, redlined changes, comments, even profanity, and saves you the embarrassment of broadcasting what was meant to be for your collaborator's eyes only. Once installed, TRACE! works in the background, scanning and rating your Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents for high, medium, and low risk security breaches. Besides sniffing out rogue commentary, this new version of TRACE! checks documents for leftover intellectual property, financial information, regulatory information, server paths, and e-mail addresses.  When TRACE! detects a breach, an interface window pops up.  Clicking on the alert button will print a report of every last line of hidden data and metadata in a file. A user-friendly interface window also enables you to assess batches of documents in folders, e-mails, and on Web sites.  TRACE! is compatible with Windows 2000/XP and Office 2000, Office XP or Office 2003. Learn more about TRACE!.

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.

Answers to Questions recently featured lots of reviews of Windows Explorer alternatives. TechnoLawyer member Godfrey Leighton writes in with yet another one: "Try File Ant." A man of few words (unlike most legal professionals), but we thank him for the link!

About Quips
A Quip is a brief member contribution for which we don't have room in our Answers to Questions or Fat Friday newsletters. Instead, Quips appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

Coming July 29, 2005 to Fat Friday: Carlos Gonzalez reviews document assembly tool Pathagoras, Brian Garves reviews his favorite Firefox extensions, Michael Mulchay shares his thoughts on the new version of DeltaView for solos (and Matthew Brown, Workshare's Director of Product Management, responds to Michael's Post), Ross Kodner discusses the second generation of WiFi detectors, and Steven Schwaber shares his experience upgrading from WordPerfect 9 to version 12. 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.

Coming July 27, 2005 to Answers to Questions: Jason Havens reviews his firm's experience with a Health Savings Account, Brent Blanchard explains what maximum annual limit (or stop-loss) means with regard to an HSA, Mark Sargis discusses the top five reasons his firm uses ProLaw, Lawrence Briggi provides an invaluable tip for litigators who apply Bates Stamps to PDF files, and Tim Larason shares his solution for WiFi interference problems (this Post also includes a postscript on WiFi phones). Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a thrice 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.