Utilities Power-up Your PC
Jim’s Top Picks for Programs That Enhance Your Existing Hardware or Software
By Jim Calloway, Director, OBA Management Assistance Program

Favorite computer utilities (and high-tech gadgets) will be the topic of one presentation that I will be giving with Ross Kodner at the 2005 OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference June 23 – 25. But since not everyone can attend the conference, I decided to briefly outline a few “must-have” software utilities this month. I also did a program on “My Favorite Utilities” a year ago at ABA TECHSHOW 2004 with Courtney Kennaday, Practice Management Advisor of the South Carolina Bar. A surprising number of lawyers seem to have an interest in this topic.

The Windows operating system is used to run the vast majority of computers used in law offices today. Windows, unfortunately, does not contain everything we need for smooth operations.

According to www.webopedia.com, a utility is “a program that performs a very specific task, usually related to managing system resources… utilities differ from applications mostly in terms of size, complexity and function. For example, word processors, spreadsheet programs and database applications are considered applications because they are large programs that perform a variety of functions not directly related to managing computer resources.”

There are literally thousands of small utilities designed by imaginative, independent programmers. Some of these can be very helpful, and some can cause more problems than they solve. Sometimes an individual programmer can create a simple utility that works on his system but does not behave the same on all other computers. Sometimes the utility is good, but the instructions are so poor that few can figure out how to operate it. Utilities that purport to do the same or similar things may include very different features or methods of operation. A utility that does a great job on one computer may lock up another computer that appears to be very similar.

So here are several utilities you probably should have installed on your computer.

WARNING: Proceed at your own risk. There’s always a chance that adding something to your system will have negative consequences. But most of these utilities have been installed on lots of computers and some may have been pre-installed on your computer. However, those handy utilities pre-installed on your computer at the factory may not always meet your needs. Many OBA-NETTERS have decided to uninstall the Real Media player because of other habits of the program, for example.

THE BASICS

Adobe Reader 7.0 — www.adobe.com — Most everyone has the free Adobe Reader installed on their computer. But if you have a computer with the XP operating system, then you really want to install the free upgrade to make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Reader. If you have an older computer that is pre-Windows 2000, you may not want to try this. Since PDF files have become a staple in the legal industry, you have to have this program.

AlternaTiff — Have you ever tried to look at a pleading filed in one of the Oklahoma counties that has pleading images available online and only been able to view the first page? Many users of www.OSCN.net have been limited in their ability to view these documents because of a nasty habit of QuickTime. QuickTime is a program for viewing online videos and many either have it preinstalled on their PCs or have installed it to view a video. The problem is that QuickTime installs itself as the default viewer for many file formats including TIFF files and QuickTime can only display the first page of multi-page TIFFs.

Terri Calloway, Director of Legal Information and Law Libraries at OSCN, suggests using this free TIFF viewer at www.alternatiff.com. It is quick and easy to download and install. This is not the only way to fix the problem, but it is my favorite. I have a more detailed paper from Terri on the topic that I will be happy to e-mail to anyone who asks me (jimc@okbar.org).

Quick View Plus 8 — Have you ever received a digital file from someone and had no idea what the file format was? Perhaps you knew the file format, but didn’t want to purchase the application just to view one file. Quick View Plus allows you to view, copy and print almost any file format. It can be downloaded or ordered at www.avantstar.com at a cost of $35-$39, depending on the purchase method.

Zone Alarm, Spybot Search and Destroy and AdAware — Every computer with Internet access needs to have a firewall, anti-spyware and anti-adware products. If you do not have a firewall, it is likely your computer will at some point be overwhelmed with things that are installed without your knowledge or consent. Even with a firewall, you still end up with spyware and other bad things, with periodic scanning needed to sort out and remove these items. These three products are the ones I use right now on my home computer. There are certainly other similar products. These are free, although Zone Alarm is only free for home non-business use. A solo would be well-served to consider buying ZoneAlarm as it is very easy to maintain. Get more information at the Web sites for each product: Zone Alarm - www.zonelabs.com, Spybot S & D - www.safer-networking.org/en and AdAware - www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH MANAGEMENT

Picasa 2 — Google acquired Picasa some time ago, and earlier this year Picasa 2 was released as a free digital photo management utility. With the caveat that the beauty of software is often more in the eye of the beholder and the way that person likes things to operate, I have to say that I love this product. It provides simple ways to organize your collection with searchable labels. You can make captions and order prints from your primary local vendors who do printing. You can easily burn photo album CDs to give to friends or for backups and archives. In terms of improving poor pictures, I love the “I’m feeling lucky” photo retouching button that the product has taken from the Google culture. Go to www.picasa.com.

DESKTOP SEARCH

Surely you’ve noticed the many Desktop Search tools and products that have been announced over the last few months. Locating misplaced files on your computer or doing your own exercises in knowledge management has never been easier. I haven’t really have time to look at all of the products yet, so I will just note several of them.

X-1 — At $74.95, This product has a 15-day free trial and has been recognized with many awards. This commercial product is definitely a power tool. Oklahoma City attorney Douglas Sorocco told me that he has indexed 400,000 documents with X-1, both on his desktop and the servers and receives search results almost instantly. You can get more information and download the product at www.x1.com.

Copernic Desktop Search Version 1.5 — The new version of this free software was just released on March 31. It also has received awards and a great deal of positive press. You can get more information and download the product at www.copernic.com.

Google Desktop Search — Google Desktop Search is free and already being used by many. You can download it at www.google.com/ downloads. Although I tend to like all of the Google products, this one may not work for many of you as it does not yet index WordPerfect files. The latest version now indexes PDF files.

Yahoo! Desktop Search — The latest contender is still a beta (testing) release at this point. It does search WordPerfect files, as well as Yahoo! Instant Messanger and Yahoo! address book files. Go to desktop.yahoo.com.

For a recently published, comprehensive review of desktop search tools go to http://tinyurl.com/64f2K.

OTHER GOOGLE UTILITIES

Google Toolbar and Google Deskbar — www.google.com/downloads/

I feel obligated to mention two other utilities from Google even though I have written about them before. I feel the need to mention them because they are both free, and I use one frequently and one every day.

The Google Toolbar is an Internet Explorer plug-in. It adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer version 5.0 or greater. You can speed your searches by using this toolbar instead of going to www.google.com. It also blocks pop-up ads, so it can be very useful for that reason. But there are two reasons I use it often. First of all, I can go to a Web site and use it to search that page and its subsidiary pages. It often does a better job than the search function that may be on that Web site. Secondly, if I locate a rather wordy Web site as a result, there is a “highlight hits” tool I can turn on that will highlight every time one of my search terms appears on the page.

The Google Deskbar adds a search tool that appears in the task bar at the bottom of my computer screen. It is there all of the time whether I am using a Web browser or another application. I can highlight a word in a word processing document, for example, and hit Ctrl + Alt + G (then Enter) to perform a Google search for the word. It is a quick way to do a spell check or to get a definition of a word by then hitting Ctrl +D (for define).

INTERNET

Firefox Browser — Use of this alternative to Internet Explorer has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last few months. Lots of people are using Firefox browser. What’s not to like? It will import your favorites and cookies. It blocks pop-ups. Its tabbing browsing is a time-saving tool. It has RSS integration tools built in. Most importantly, it has security features that are superior to the most well-known browser.

That’s hopefully enough to get everyone started looking at utilities. But don’t forget that you will hear of many more utilities and other software products as well as a wide range of other information if you attend the OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference, June 23 – 25 at Tanglewood Resort. Register now before the space is completely filled.

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal April 9, 2005 - Vol. 76; No.12