Are attorneys (on average) lacking in basic technical skills?
July 26, 2008 on 5:15 pm | In Tech Tips, The-Practice-of-Law | 3 CommentsIt is surprising to most people, but attorneys tend to be late adopters of technology. I think it is a result of having a “I don’t have time to learn something new, must keep working” mentality.
Proof: check out branding guru Justin Foster’s recent post on “5 technical skills a modern professional should know” and tell me what percent of the attorneys you know have all five of those skills.
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Best new gadget….Netflix Player by Roku
July 14, 2008 on 9:20 pm | In Tech Tips, Television | No CommentsNetflix (last year?) added a service called “Watch Instantly” where they allowed subscribers to watch streamed selections on their computers for free (as part of their subscription). The titles in the “Watch Instantly” library (10,000+ of them) aren’t “New Releases,” but older movies and TV episodes. Example content available on Watch Instantly: The Office: Season 1, Dexter: Season 1, Heroes: Season 1 and 2, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Young Frankenstein.
I guess I’m too Gen X, but watching movies on my computer isn’t my thing.
Then…a company by the name of Roku teamed up with Netflix to release a $99 “Netflix Player.” The Netflix Player is a little box about the size of 5 stacked CD jewel cases that you connect to your computer network at home (via wired or wireless) and to your TV set via standard A/V connectors (A/V, S-video, Component, HDMI). It took a whopping 4 minutes for me to unbox it, plug it in and get it connected to my TV/router.
Once it boots up, the Netflix Player then gives you a unique code that you enter on the Netflix website that links your Netflix Player box to your Netflix account. As soon as you do that, every title you have in your Netflix “Watch Instantly” queue shows up in the Netflix Player’s queue.
The Netflix Player comes with little remote control that you can use to navigate the menu. When I select a title to watch, it takes 20-40 seconds for it to “spool up” and start playing near DVD quality. Very cool.
We’ve watched dozens of things in the last couple weeks, from my kids watching cartoons, to my wife and I watching old TV series episodes. If they add support for CBS or Hulu.com in the future (as rumors seem to indicate is a possibility), I would consider canceling my cable subscription…it is THAT good.
If you have Netflix…you might consider picking one up for your TV too.
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Online Time Clock for Law Firm Employees
July 13, 2008 on 10:19 am | In Idaho, Tech Tips, The-Practice-of-Law | 1 CommentWith mentions in TechCrunch, Technorati, Inc.com, and an iPhone App…..one local Idaho software company (TSheets) is making big waves! See also this Idaho Business Review post.
As a user of their product (my office uses their software for our employees), I completely understand why. It is a great product. One slick feature is that the administrator (e.g., your office manager) has to approve any computer used to log in/out. Thus, an employee can’t log in/out from home (unless you approve them to do so).
So…if you’re looking for an online time clock (that exports to QuickBooks)…you might check out TSheets.com. They even have a free trial!
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Quicktime, TIF and USPTO Images
July 2, 2008 on 1:18 pm | In Tech Tips | 2 CommentsQuick update to an earlier “tech tip”* post of mine (”Tech Tip: Die QuickTime, Die“) regarding how QuickTime blocks the use of AlternaTiff
(my preferred Tiff viewer for USPTO patent images).
Earlier today, I decided to smack QuickTime around again (my problem was back, even though (1) I reinstalled AlternaTiff AND (2) AlternaTiff showed up as the preferred plug-in to use in FireFox AND (3) Windows’ default file type (for .tif, .tiff) was NOT set to QuickTime. Even though these were all set how they should be…QuickTime still managed to be the plug-in that loaded whenever I tried to view a USPTO patent image (.tif).
In that I don’t remember the last time I used QuickTime (and I get sick and tired of killing that little Q icon in my task bar every time iTunes updates**), I decided to uninstall QuickTime. Guess what. Mysteriously, AlternaTiff works again.
After I went nuclear on QT, I noticed this page on the Idaho Secretary of State’s page that covers how to smack down QuickTime (”Help Viewing TIFF’s“). If you don’t want to uninstall, you might try those options (or the ones in my earlier post (”Tech Tip: Die QuickTime, Die“).
*My previous “Tech Tips” posts can be found here: http://inventblog.com/category/tech-tips.
**…makes me want to write a separate post about how Apple becoming is the new RealPlayer…installing junk bundling software on my computer I don’t want (e.g., QuickTime, Safari), asking me whether I want to update/install those programs every time a new version of iTunes comes out. Alas.
[Update: link to the USPTO page on .tif files and plugins- http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/plugins/tiff.htm]
[Update 2: I went to run iTunes this morning...received an error that "QuickTime is required to run iTunes, please reinstall." Fail!]
[Update 3: I navigated to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins\ and renamed every one of the files with QT or QuickTime in them to end in a .bak extension (e.g., npqtplugin.dll.bak, QuickTimePlugin.class.bak). That worked. We'll see if that breaks anything else...]
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Some software I recommend…
April 1, 2008 on 7:32 am | In Tech Tips | 1 Comment- 7-Zip [http://7zip.com/] — Free, open source program for opening zip, rar, 7z, gzip, etc files.
- Alternatiff - The plug in for Internet Explorer/Firefox which allows you to view patent images from the Patent Office’s website [http://www.alternatiff.com]
- CrapCleaner- A program that you run occasionally and the computer will through and delete temp files and junk and files without dates [http://www.ccleaner.com/]
- Irfanview - An excellent free image editing software perfect for touching up trademark drawings, screen captures, etc. [http://www.irfanview.com/]
- PDFCreator. If you don’t have “Print to PDF” as an option on your computer, try PDFCreator (free): [http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator].
- Google Browser Sync for Firefox. “An extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.” [http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/]
- Auslogic Disk Degragmenter. Free. [http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/]
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Google Image Labeler … Community Intellectual Property Cops?
March 26, 2008 on 10:26 am | In Copyrights, Tech Tips, Trademarks | Comments OffGoogle has a new “product” in beta. Called the “Google Image Labeler,” it is “a feature of Google Search that allows you to label images and help improve the quality of Google’s image search results.” You are partnered with another person and are shown a series of images over a two-minute period. Both of you enter labels for a shown photo (without seeing one another’s responses) and when you both type in the same label, a new picture is shown. As a reward for your hard work, Google gives you “points.” Interesting concept…and surprisingly fun.
Now…think about the implications to trademark/copyright owners. Suddenly, a Google images search for “Nike logo” may turn up more examples of infringing uses on websites. Hmm…community policing of trademarks/copyrights.
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Best Email Tip I Learned Last Year … @ Waiting
February 5, 2008 on 11:29 am | In Tech Tips | 3 CommentsSorry my posting has been so light lately. Buried at work and I’ve been spending quite a bit of time coaching a local high school Mock Trial team (who qualified for state on Saturday!!!). If you’re looking for a great way to give back (pro bono) to the community (and be forced to refresh your knowledge on the rules of evidence)…talk with your State Bar about volunteering (they are always looking for attorney coaches as well as judges for competitions).
On to my “tip” of the day. “@Waiting.”
Do this…create a new folder in Outlook (or whatever email program you use). Call it “@Waiting.”
Every time you send someone an email (e.g., client, associate, secretary) where you are waiting for them to do something, put the sent email into your “@Waiting” folder.
Glance at what is in your @Waiting folder regularly (daily, weekly) and send follow up e-mails as needed (weekly).
My secretaries HATE my @Waiting folder. No longer can they ignore my requests for side projects…they know that I will send them a follow-up reminder (so they might as well do it when I make the initial request).
The other thing to do is to (for you Outlook users), is to add the “@Waiting” folder to your favorites, so it is easier to find.
One additional tip (which I plan on elaborating on in a later post)…I use SpeedFiler to automate this process. SpeedFiler is an Outlook plug-in that prompts you, after you send the email, as to what folder the sent email should be filed in. SpeedFiler really is a killer tool…a full write up will be coming!
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A question for my readers: filling out 1449 (IDS) forms
December 26, 2007 on 8:29 pm | In Patent Searching, Tech Tips, USPTO | 2 CommentsOne of my secretary’s biggest headaches is taking a pile of patents and from them generating an IDS (PTO-1449). While we use an IP forms program, it isn’t much more “automated” than a fillable PDF form.
The questions is…is there a better way of doing this? Are there other software options, preferably ones that take a list of patent numbers and automatically looks up the inventor name/issue date?
If not…would anyone find such a solution useful? (I have an idea…that could make it possible to create an IDS from a stack of patents in a matter of seconds…)
Thanks in advance for whatever insight you have.
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Dual Monitors, tips and tricks
November 6, 2007 on 1:06 pm | In Tech Tips | 1 CommentExcellent post on LifeHacker.com regarding how to “Make the Most of Your Dual Monitors.” My previous posts (pre-dual 19″ wide screen LCD screens) on dual monitors: first, second.
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Tech Tip of the Day — Archive.org and FireFox Extension
October 26, 2007 on 8:57 am | In Tech Tips | Comments OffMany of us use www.archive.org’s “Internet Archive Wayback Machine” for competitive analysis (e.g., researching when an alleged infringer created the infringing web page in question).
Did you know there is a FireFox extension that allows you to right click and select “Find archived page,” thereby being sent to archive.org’s list of cached copies of the current page you are viewing? See the FireFox extension: 404 : Page is Not Found ? Now it will be!
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