60+ Legal PC and Internet Tips in 60 Minutes
A Sampler from the Presentation at the 1999 OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference

(This material is Copyright 1999 by the authors and reprinted here with their permission. Note: We are not printing all 60 tips, only a sample of them.)

Tips From ROSS KODNER

(Ross Kodner is a lawyer and law office consultant from Wisconsin. He is President and Founder of Microlaw, Inc. You can visit his company's web site at <www.microlaw.com>.)

• Help! My PC's Fallen and Can't Get Up  (Or: How to Survive in the Era where "Tech Support" is Merely a Fond Memory . . . )

So, you've just experienced the eleventh crash of the day in your mission-critical Outlook7 98 calendar and the friendly and amazingly chipper techno.guys and techno.gals at the $40 per incident tech support lines are even more clueless than you are about the cause of the problem. Or your brand-spanking new Dell laptop hangs on bootup with a blue Windows Screen of Death claiming "System is Busy, Close all Programs" and you're tired of explaining to the Austinians who are really trying to help but if they ask you one more time, "What new programs did you load that could have caused this, y'all?" Or that USB scanner you bought based on the magazine reviews touting how easy it was to install by just plugging in the USB cable - which of course has resulted in your scanner being invisible to your PC.

Sound all too familiar? Welcome to the end of the second decade of the PC era. Sure you can buy really cheap stuff at www.buy.com and the WordPerfect® Office 2000 Suite can be had for under a hundred bucks. Those are good things. But the era of low-priced, low-profit hardware and software has also brought the demise of vendor-provided technical support as we know it. Of course, this is not really a surprise, nor is it a new development B just read the article Dan Coolidge and I wrote in the Spring '96 issue of the ABA LPM Section's "Network 2d" newsletter called "Unwilling Beta Testers: It's Time to Rally!" Free tech support is as rare as an honest politician these days. "Per incident fees" dominate, but often the exchange of credit card numbers for alleged "solutions" ends up costing you money without any answers in return. So what's a busy techno.using lawyer or law office staffer to do?

Help each other - that's the answer these days. Virtual communities of lawyers, legal professionals and legal technologists have sprung up all over. Further, the world of "lay users" has built a sprawling web of online technical resources staffed by "real users" who have solved the same "real problems" you've faced. Two general types of community-based, self.techno.help are available:

Electronic Resources: these consist of Web sites, e-mail listservs and newsgroups. In the legal-specific segment: these consist of Web sites, e-mail listservs and newsgroups. In the legal-specific segment:

Look to the major legal tech-oriented listservs including the ABA LPM Section's "Network2d" (a close-knit group where some of the most well-known legal techno.dudes hang out); Lawtech, another ABA listserv run by the organization's Legal Technology Resource Center, tends to be a little less collegial than Network2d, but tons of great answers to the most obscure and perplexing problems are offered up daily by a savvy group of participants; Netlawyers, Lew Rose's respected and widely-subscribed discussion on all things Net-related with occasional general technical diversions; and the Technolawyer List, a topic-driven listserv run by New York lawyer and entrepreneur Neil Squillante, tends to have lengthy and meaty postings of periodic immeasurable value.

In states like Wisconsin, take advantage of the State Bar's Web-based legal discussion forums that may be available. (Editor's Note: Our very own OBA-NET serves this function in our state. Check out http://www.oba-net.org/join.htm online or call OBA Management Assistance Program at (405) 416-7008 for more information.)

Check out the non-legal-specific support Web sites that are cropping up. These include Ask-a-Tech which promises free e-mail help within 48 hours. This site is run by experienced help-desk tech Miquel Zlot and two of his techno.knowledgeable pals in their spare time. There's also Experts Exchange, another free Web site that bills itself as a "knowledge-sharing community" built around 70 message boards where over 5,000 registered experts answer posted questions. Woody Leonhard's Windows Annoyances sites provide great tips about Microsoft applications. A couple more freebie help sites include World O'Windows and Tom's Hardware Guide. For small firm Windows-based networking, you can't beat the technical information presented by Intel at their Web page called Networking with Windows 95 - A Primer.

All on the Web isn't necessarily free. There are some fee-based support resources available online as well. These include the Intel AnswerExpress Support Suite which costs $20 per question or $100 per year; the PC Crisis Line which bills $3/minute for the first 10 minutes and $1/minute thereafter and the PC Techline at a flat $2/minute via a 900 number.

By all means, try out the free resources first, especially the listservs. If those avenues turn up a blank, consider the paid resources. But the bottom-line is that you aren't alone out there when it comes to solving irritating and productivity-sapping PC problems, even if it feels that way when you try and seek help from your vendor!

• Conduct Online Discussions and Conference with Your Clients and Colleagues - For Free!

Use Microsoft's latest conferencing software called Netmeeting, PeopleLink 2.1, I-Chat or America Online's free (that's the operative word with all of these!) AOL Instant Messenger that now comes with Netscape Communicator to conduct multi-person, private, online conferences with friends, colleagues, expert witnesses and clients. Just type what you want to say and everyone else connected can see what you type and can then type their responses. These are very much like the "chat" groups on private services like America Online or the forums on CompuServe®, but they offer privacy and more features, like the ability to save the "conversation" of all parties as a text file for later recall. With Netmeeting, you can even voice conference, share documents, transfer files and share a "whiteboard" over the Internet.

Think about how you can use this capability for marketing. How about signing up existing clients for a one hour a week "free chat" on a scheduled legal topic, moderated by one of your lawyers? My clients have tried this and invariably get tremendous positive reaction from their clients and inevitably generate business - in addition to spreading lots of good will for very little cost.

• Modern PC Keyboards are Pieces of Flimsy Junk...But Shades of Days Past: The Venerable Northgate Omnikey Returns - It's the Harley of Keyboards!

Don't you just hate the wimpy, skimpy, flimsy, cheap plastic keyboards that come standard with most desktop PCs these days? It seems that when you pay a couple of grand for the latest Pentium III or AMC K6-3 barnburner that they could give you more than a $10 keyboard. Remember the "good old days" when 5+ pound monster keyboards ruled? Keyboards that clicked and clacked with every key pressed and were clad in genuine, honest-to-goodness metal - probably real steel? I loved my original IBM 83-key 5150 keyboard so much that it lived through 6 or 7 different desktop PCs. It was replaced by an IBM Trackpoint II keyboard - with that wonderful little pointing stick smack dab in the middle of the character keys - and still with a tactile click that was so satisfying and real heft that kept it firmly planted in one place on my desk. When the Trackpoint keyboard died, I replaced it with IBM's latest Trackpoint IV keyboard ... and it pales by comparison. IBM took one of those neo-plastic 1 lb. junkers and stuck a pointing stick in it. And I can't feel any metal anywhere. I hated it and I thought the situation was hopeless.

Until ...

I found the Avant Stellar keyboard. The best way to describe this is to say this is actually the old Northgate Omnikey Ultra keyboard resurrected once again. Remember it? Much like its IBM contemporaries, it weighed a ton - about 5 lbs. Why? METAL everywhere - a solid steel base. We're talkin' "big iron" here - the Harley of keyboards! Typing salvation has returned! And remember that cool pro-WordPerfect feature of the Northgate keyboards? Not only function keys along the top row but also, hearkening back to simpler times, function keys along the left side of the keyboard! And you want tactile feedback? A good solid click so you know when you've pressed a key? Well the Avant Stellar's got it - noisy, mechanical clicking to spare. It's available from Creative Vision Technologies at 888-770-0500 and runs around $190. Expensive? Maybe? But so are Rolex watches and Rolls-Royces ... but if you want the best...

• "Change the Oil In Your PC Every 3000 Miles": In Other Words, a Little Preventative PC Maintenance Goes a Long Way

Everyone knows that our cars run better if we take good care of them. Regular preventative maintenance can keep our mortgaged rolling pride and joy in tip-top condition so that it lasts at least as long as our payments are still due. PCs aren't any different - well cared for PCs simply work better, crash less often and work when we need them to. The following are some simple self-maintenance tips to keep your PC working in peak condition. You should consider performing these tasks once a month ideally, or quarterly at a minimum:

• Delete all files and folders with dates older than one week from your C:\WINDOWS\ TEMP folder
• Purge your Web browser's history and cache files C they take up space, slow browser performance and can also pose a security risk
• Run SCANDISK (located in Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools). Select the "Standard" option and also turn on "Automatically Fix Errors". Click on the "Advanced" button and under "Log File", pick "Replace Log"; for "Cross-Linked Files" select "Delete"; click "Free" under "Lost File Fragments"; under "Check Files For" pick "invalid dates and times" and finally, disable "Check Host Drive First" unless you have a compressed hard drive - then let 'er rip!
• Empty your Recycle Bin - it can be a real space hog (be sure to undelete any files you need to recover from it first!).
• Run "Disk Defragmenter" (located in Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools). The program will tell you if your drive needs defragmenting or not - at least once a quarter for a heavily used PC is recommended
• Update your anti-virus software (you DO have anti-virus software, right?) by downloading new virus databases or signature files from your software's Web site. Do this at least once a month in order to be able to detect and kill the latest damaging viruses that might infest your system. If you are still skeptical about the likelihood that a virus will hit your firm, take a pill and get over it. Just ask any of the poor buggers who suffered public embarrassment or had client confidentiality breached due to the recent Melissa virus infestation or worse, had their hard drives irrevocably wiped out by the CIH or "Chernobyl" virus - it was hard not to hear about these in the news. Consider it your wake-up call to take anti-virus software updating seriously.
• Perform a "test restore" with your data backup system at least once a month, or more often if you have time (you can't do it too often). Backup systems that aren't working properly have the insidious characteristic of looking like they're working just fine. It's just plain too late when you need to restore from a backup and you get nothing more than "tape empty" messages - talk about a Rolaids moment! To test your backup system, regardless of type, try to select a few documents and restore them to the system (move the originals first to a safe folder or a floppy so that you have an "empty" area to restore to) and then see if you can access them (i.e. pull up a WordPerfect® document in WordPerfect). If this works, the likelihood is that your entire backup session is restorable when the chips are down. By the way, the next time you test it, test restore different files than the previous time.
• Keep your PCs and printers clean! Dust and paper particles and other miscellaneous PC- hostile gunk trashes PCs and cripples laser printers. Use a can of compressed air which you can get at any office supply store to blow out the crud from inside your laser printer. Do this once a month if possible or at least quarterly. Take the covers off your PCs and blow them out as well - quarterly or bi-annually should do the trick.
• Consider keeping some spare PC parts on the shelf for the components you would feel comfortable replacing on your own. For example, you might keep a spare mouse and a spare keyboard handy - those devices are very mechanical and do wear out, usually at the worst possible time. Make sure the replacements are precise replacements Cidentical to the most common keyboard and mouse you use in your office and with the same kinds of connectors. You might also keep a network card, some network cables and perhaps a video card on the shelf. All are pretty inexpensive, but sometimes days away if service is needed and your vendor doesn't carry them in stock.
• Finally, have a plan. Be ready for disaster by knowing what to do if key parts of your system fail, such as your PCs, your printers, your network system, etc. This means knowing what diagnostic steps to take, who to call and having a list of all your key software and hardware with version numbers and serial numbers. Be prepared - it WILL happen to you one day!

• Get a Copy of Topdesk and Access Your Desktop Shortcuts Anytime!

While Windows® 98 makes it possible to add taskbar access to your desktop shortcuts while you are running a program in full-screen mode (and thus obscuring the desktop), there's a much better way to do it that also works for Windows 95 and Windows NT® users. Get a copy of the freeware product called Topdesk 3.0 from Snadboy Software or from most shareware/freeware sites. This nifty little program puts an icon in your system tray. A single click brings up a menu that lists all your desktop shortcuts and gives you access to My Computer, Network Neighborhood, the Recycle Bin and Dial-Up Networking. It's incredibly handy and a utility I use many times every day!

• Network Faxing on the Cheap:Look into WinFax PRO 9.0 and itsNew Fax Sharing Function

WinFax PRO has been the mainstay and benchmark of the workstation PC Fax software marketplace for years. But for network Fax capabilities, even for smaller firms, it has meant spending money on often expensive and complex dedicated network Faxing hardware and software. Not any more! With WinFax PRO 9.0, Symantec has added simple network Fax sharing, even for your smaller peer-to-peer networks. With the help of a setup wizard, WinFax PRO 9.0 guides you through setting up a FAX/modem-equipped PC as a Fax "host". You then can install WinFax Pro 9.0 on any PC on the network and send FAXes through the FAX/modem-equipped PC, even though you don't have a FAX/modem in your own PC. The software "queues" the Fax requests and sends them out on a first-come, first-served basis. And all this capability runs in the background of the "host" PC, only nominally affecting its performance - most users won't even notice. Save thousands of dollars with the new feature of this inexpensive software!

• Backing Up Windows® 95/98Critical System Files:You NEED to know how to do this!

Anyone who uses Windows 95/98 and who has installed new software, probably has or will probably eventually experience some sort of a system meltdown. Software that doesn't play by the rules can devour your system, optimizing everything for its own operation, but rendering the rest of your system totally unusable. There is a cheap and easy homegrown way to protect yourself - aside from religiously backing up your entire system and performing all-important regular data restore tests (hint, hint). You can create a batch file - remember those from the DOS and Windows 3.x days of yesteryear? This batch file, with a single mouse click, can protect all your critical Windows 95/98 configuration and system files before you install potentially roguish software. Here's what's in the file. You can create it with the Windows 95/98 Notepad utility and save it in a new folder that you might call C:\SAFE as in our example below (or even better, also store it on a floppy disk so that you can copy it back to your system when needed):

Call the file something easy to remember like SAFETY.BAT or SAVEMYBUTT.BAT:

copy c:\autoexec.bat c:\safe
copy c:\autoexec.dos c:\safe
copy c:\config.sys \safe
copy c:\config.dos c:\safe
copy c:\windows\control.ini c:\safe
copy c:\windows\system.ini c:\safe
copy c:\windows\win.ini c:\safe
attrib -r -h -s c:\msdos.sys
attrib -r -h -s c:\windows\user.dat
attrib -r -h -s c:\windows\system.dat
copy c:\msdos.sys c:\safe
copy c:\windows\user.dat c:\safe
copy c:\windows\system.dat c:\safe
attrib +r +h +s c:\msdos.sys
attrib +r +h +s c:\windows\user.dat
attrib +r +h +s c:\windows\system.dat

Running this file will protect your Windows 95/98 Registry files, your older 16-bit Windows INI files (if you have them) and your boot-up files (if you have them). They're neatly tucked away in the C:\SAFE folder and can be copied back to their original locations if needed. Just put a Windows 95/98 Shortcut to this batch file on your desktop and protection is one-click away - practicing safe computing never got easier!

• New Employees Claiming All Sorts of Computer Knowledge? Make Them Prove It!

As an employer, there is nothing more frustrating than hiring a new employee who has claimed to have a raft of computer skills and then to find out they were merely blowing smoke. One way to head off this expensive problem before it happens is to test their skills as part of the interviewing process. For example, there is a company called Know it All, Inc. that has a series of testing software products called, not surprisingly, "Prove It!". These are interactive programs that you can install that test knowledge in actual common PC software systems and also gauge general technical knowledge. Whether it's Microsoft® Word 95, Corel® WordPerfect® 8 or Microsoft® Access 97, the list of testable products they offer is significant with costs ranging from about $200 B $600. While this is not an insignificant amount of money, it pales in comparison to the wasted time and money that results from recruiting, interviewing and training a new employee, only to find out after the fact that their skills were misrepresented.

• Mobile Lawyers: Load up on the Latest Portable Computing Accessories

Let's be honest. Those of us who use laptops as our daily PCs tend to be gadget nuts. We just love our techno.tools and one can never have enough portable computing goodies to play with ... er ... work with. Two great sources of portable gear for the legal road warrior are Mobile Planet (be sure to get on their mailing list for their great print calendar too) and 1-800-Batteries. Both companies offer a raft of portable gizmos ranging from batteries for every laptop that ever existed to modem savers to test phone lines, to carrying cases, to GPS systems to keep you from getting lost, to surge protectors in every size, shape and flavor imaginable, to portable ZIP drives and portable CD-writers, to laptop security systems and everything in between. Be sure you have plenty of room left on your charge card when you visit these sites!

• The Web is Not All Free: So Complete Web Searches Aren't What You Get If You're Not Careful

For some reason, the Internet has become synonymous with the word "free". Many people think that once you've paid your monthly fee to your Internet Service Provider, it's a free ride from that point forward. The reality is that as much as 40% of the content available via the 'Net is not free - it's locked away in paid Web sites that range from newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, to technical databases that you might need to view for that environmental claim on that real estate lawsuit you're handling, to some information about a cardiological procedure for that PI case you've taken on. So what happens if you do an AltaVista search and it says that nothing is found? What kind of lawyering are you doing if you tell your client, "sorry, it's not there"? Potentially, malpractice methinks. But to try and sign up and pay for every fee-based Web site that might contain the information you're looking for would be impossible. That's where a cool Web site called Northern Light comes in. This is a search engine with a difference. In addition to the expected search capabilities of free Web info, Northern Light can also search a "Special Collection" of over 5,000 fee-based journals, publications, periodicals and databases. You pay for what you read - from one to four dollars per viewed article. The attraction is that you don't need to sign up and pay for any of those services directly - Northern Light has already done that. All you do is open an account with the search engine provider and all that additional information is unlocked. Well worth it and perhaps even necessary to conduct proper legal/technical research on behalf of your clients.

Tips From BRUCE DORNER

(Bruce Dorner is a sole practitioner from Londonderry, New Hampshire. In addition he offers computer consulting services for solo and small firm lawyers in the New England region.)

• Buy and Use a Palm PC and Use it for Scheduling

Buy and use a PalmPilot or comparable device. It's great to have your schedule with you in court and at home. I can't tell you the number of times I get asked, "Honey, can you pick up the kids on Tuesday?" Now I don't have to use my failing memory!

• Use Your Palm PC as a Mini-Case Manager

Use your PalmPilot as a mini-case manager program. Make "To-do lists" of each case and the tasks to be accomplished.

• Use your Palm PC as a Client Rolodex

Put your client's personal information in your PalmPilot. When you're out of the office and your secretary tells you that Mr. Important called, you have the numbers with you.

• Have PalmPilot But Can't do "Graffiti"? No Problem - Just get a Palm Keyboard!

If you like to use your PalmPilot to take notes, consider buying a keyboard attachment. Now you can type your notes and look like a real high-powered geek at the same time! (Visit http://www.landware.com for Palm keyboard information)

• Keep a Paper Log of all the Tweaks on your New PC - Consider it Your PC's "Geek Manifesto!"

When you purchase a new computer create a paper document (yep, reliable old paper) to list each tweak, adjustment and change you make to the settings of the new machine. With this log you will hopefully be able to figure out what went wrong when the machine malfunctions. Don't record this information as a computer file unless you put it on a disk and have another machine to access the data. If it's on the "dead machine," you can't get to it to review the changes.

• Training: One at a Time Please!

Don't install more than one new or updated application in your office in less than three months. Give staff time to train and learn each new application before imposing an additional burden on them.

Provide training and encouragement before the new computers or software are installed. Don't just drop new tools on the secretaries' desks and expect good results. In one office the new machines were installed over the weekend. When the secretaries walked in the door on Monday morning they were apprehensive. At each desk was a loaded squirt gun and a bottle of champagne with a straw. A note from the office manager told the secretaries to use the squirt guns to keep lawyers away while they worked and to stick the straw in the bottle of champagne at the end of the day and enjoy a break for the extra effort! Now that's staff support.

• Security: Thwart the Forces of the Dark Side

On all of your machines, create a hidden, read only file (Set attribute to +H+R), which contains your name, address, phone number and other pertinent details. If the machine is stolen and later recovered, you'll have one more tool to prove ownership.

• Cluttered Desktop? Put it in the Closet!

As applications are added to our computers we often find that our desktop becomes as cluttered as our "other" desktop. The quantity of shortcuts and folders displayed on the Windows desktop can be distracting, inefficient and ugly. Consider setting up a "closet", a folder used to hold those shortcuts and icons that are not used as frequently as others. The applications are just a mouse click away, but your desktop is clean and focused on the most frequently used applications.

Tips From DAN COOLIDGE

(Dan Coolidge is not a small firm lawyer. He leads the intellectual property law practice group at Sheehan, Phinney, Bass and Green in Manchester, New Hampshire. He is co-author of the ABA book, "A Survival Guide for Road Warriors," which can be purchased through the OBA's Management Assistance Program.)

• You Cannot Overtrain a User on New Software

It is a waste of money to purchase any software if you or the members of your firm don't know how to use it. Take the time and spend the money to insure that all users are thoroughly and adequately trained. Don't expect people to simply learn it on their own. Also, inadequate training is often worse than no training at all, because it simply heightens frustrations and increases resistance to using the new software.

• Beat the Gremlins with Automatic Backup

Systems crashes, lockups and GPFs are a way of life whether you use DOS, Windows 3.X or Windows 95/98. The only difference is the frequency and appearance of the disaster. It isn't just Murphy's Law that causes your system to go down when you are the busiest. The demand on the system resources is significantly greater when we are pumping out a late brief. This is the time you are most likely to have multiple documents open, to be using multiple windows, or to be using "high overhead" programs like Westlaw/Lexis or CD-ROM search programs.

You can mitigate the damage of a system failure by ensuring that you have a recent backup of the document you are producing. Rather than leaving this to chance and your memory to"save" a document, adjust the automatic backup feature of your word processing software to produce a backup with greater frequency. A default "save time" of ten minutes can result in a good deal of lost material, particularly when you are editing a document. Lowering this backup time to three or fewer minutes ensures a fresh document if disaster strikes.

• Develop "Do It Yourself" Legal Practice Systems

Packaged legal practice systems offer the closest thing to a turn-key "lawyer-in-the-box" we may ever want to see. But often times the price and inability to customize the system make these less than attractive options. For many form intense practices, a "do it yourself" practice system can be quickly implemented by combining form packages with a document automation software.

Document automation or document assembly programs (such as HotDocs from Capsoft Development) allow you to establish a "fill in the blanks" system of producing legal forms. In essence, the software takes a document template and fills in the key provision with information that is individual and unique to the particular project. More sophisticated programs allow the customization to extend to full clauses, rather than just names and dates. The best programs include answer files or information sheets which contain the information specific to a particular client. This single information source can then be used repeatedly as multiple documents are produced for that client.

• Buy Your Way Out of Form Re-Creation

Reproducing standard forms in a WordPerfect format can be a time consuming and frustrating task. Even the most proficient word processor can be challenged by fractional line spacing, decimal font sizes and other variations. Keep your eyes out for a variety of pre-formatted forms products which present commonly used forms in standard word processing formats. In some cases, these products include merge codes to facilitate nearly immediate integration into your word processor. As an example, many states have real estate forms now available in electronic form which eliminates one of the most daunting word processing reproduction projects. Consider using the"FormTyper" feature in the Visioneer Paperport software (http://www.visioneer.com) to scan pre-printed forms and fill them in on-screen just as if you were typing on a typewriter C this is great for occasional use forms. For the often-used forms consider Caere's Omniform which can scan pre-printed forms and turn them into "smart forms" to be used over and over again (http://www.caere.com/products/omniform).

• It's Time to Purchase a Digital Camera

It's time to purchase a digital camera. If you are using a laptop and trial preparation software to present exhibits at trial, you will realize that it is much easier if the photos you use are taken using a digital camera. Scans off of prints, or even off of negatives are not as good or as easy to use as those taken with a digital camera. The prices are now reasonable enough that it would be worthwhile to make this investment for your arsenal of modern tools for trial. Buy only "megapixel" cameras (those offering at least 1024 pixel horizontal resolution) that offer high enough resolutions to provide near 35mm photo quality. Keep watching for digital video too. The prices are already falling in this area - and taking your video directly in digital format will allow for greater quality, easier editing, and better presentation than the use of videotape.

• Institute an E-Mail Policy

Consider including an e-mail policy in your firm handbooks. The policy should include at the very least parameters regarding (1) the business purpose of the firm's e-mail system; (2) prohibited language and usage; (3) administrative maintenance schedule; and, (4) consequences of violations. Also, within the confines of privacy laws, include language regarding the firm's and employee's rights related to "ownership" of e-mail messages.

• Tips From the Solo and Small Firm Conference Organizers

So, now don't you wish you had attended the Solo and Small Firm Conference so that you could have gotten all 60 tips?

Our best tip is for you to put on your calendar right now the following entry: Attend the Third Annual Solo and Small Firm Conference on June 1-3, 2000 at Quartz Mountain Lodge near Altus, Oklahoma