This week’s Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers E-Journal Law Practice Management Section Featured Practice Tip comes from LOMAP. This week's Tip examines potential options for adopting additional protection for files added to Dropbox accounts, in light of that service’s most recent issues related to security.
Read the Tip here.
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Friday, August 26, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Good Lookin’ Out(look): 5 Microsoft Email Management Tips (A Part One)
In April, even before the glorious summer that we currently have the privilege of living under had commenced, I was asked to speak on the topic of ‘maximizing Microsoft Outlook and Word’, or so I labeled my presentation at that time. I, of course, promoted Ben Schorr’s books on the topics, topic 1 and topic 2. But, short of schilling product for which I receive no royalties, I was delighted to be asked to talk, by the Women Lawyers Network of greater Needham. If you’re a woman and a lawyer and a former rodeo clown and live in or around Needham, this is a tremendous, and vibrant group, and one that you should really consider joining. (Only one of those requirements is completely made up. Sorry, women.) For more information on the WLN, contact Diane Gold.
Now, this was certainly not a rare occurrence. We’re often asked to speak; and, we’re often asked to speak on matters relative to Microsoft Office Suite programs. Notwithstanding the advancing popularity of Google programs and Apple products, the majority of attorneys still live in the Microsoft Office Suite (well, not literally), aggregating, usually, these days, between and among the 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions. Wishing a wider popularity for my presentation pointers, my purpose here is to revive them, in blog format, for your reviewing pleasure. As a firm believer in recycling, it is my further creed that you shall not have missed the ten commanding tricks I am about to relay, merely because you were not fortunate enough to be present at the April meeting of the Women Lawyers Network. First course: Microsoft Outlook; the waiting is over.
And, here we are:
(1) Apply Rules
What Does It Do?
Establishing rules in Outlook allows you to tag emails for instant filing to subfolders based on certain developed criteria.
How Does It Help You?
By filing emails for certain categories (listservs, product updates, committee work) to subfolders, those emails never clutter your mission-critical inbox. You can view less sensitive, grouped emails on your own time, by the categories that you’ve established for them.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text + Video
2007: Text + Video
2010: Text + Video
(2) Use Signatures
What Does It Do?
Signatures allow you to add footers to your emails, or to create template emails.
How Does It Help You?
Modern business, with staggering potential for making new connections, requires that you discover a quick and easy way for email contacts to find out what is most relevant about you and your business; footers are a traditional method for communicating your expertise. If you find that you send the same email over and over again, creating a template can be a great way to save yourself time.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text + Video
2007: Video
2010: Video
2003, 2007 + 2010: Text
(3) OHIO = Only Handle It Once
What Does It Do?
The principle behind this oft-referenced strategy is that you only process an email one time. If you can handle it immediately, handle it. If you can’t, don’t waste your time on it, and respond later.
How Does It Help You?
OHIO prevents you from performing tasks repetitively. Acting once saves time over acting more than once, and guarantees a consistent response. A great way to manage OHIO through Outlook is by converting emails into tasks, with reminders, instructions for which processing are linked below.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text
2007: Text
2010: Text
(4) Preview Files in the Reading Pane
What Does It Do?
You can preview attached documents, without opening them, by viewing them within the reading pane, through which, if your inbox is configured that way, you usually review the full text of emails, without opening them.
How Does It Help You?
By engaging the reading pane view to review attachments without opening them, you save yourself time (two clicks to open and close attachments in applications) and increase your ability to efficiently process your email (and to apply OHIO).
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text
2007: Video
2010: Text + Video
(5) Turn Off Desktop Alerts
What Does It Do?
Outlook provides clickable pop-up alerts, appearing at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, when you receive new emails. You can turn them off.
How Does It Help You?
By turning off your desktop alerts, you’re less likely to (1) notice them and/or (2) click them to open new emails. This means fewer distractions, and less multi-tasking. Once you get off-task, it’s significantly more difficult to get back on-task.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text
2007: Text + Video
2010: Text
Join us next time on the program, when we will apply a similar review process to useful tips and tricks for Microsoft’s Word.
(Thanks to our own Rachel Willcox for finding me links to some great Outlook tutorials.)
. . .
Liner Notes
The end of summer always bring with it a certain bittersweetness; when the weather begins to cool, and the nights become longer, winter’s chill is no longer so very distant on the horizon.
In the spirit of capturing that summer sense before it’s all gone away again (until next year), I’d say it’s high time that I write about my man, Brad Paisley. A recent Facebook status update of mine respecting Paisley generated some buzz, and perhaps the same will be the case within this blog post.
Anyway, I love Brad Paisley. I know he’s popular (he might be the Coldplay of country music, if it warn’t for Taylor Swift), and some people hate on him for that; but, beneath that popularity are unique lyrics, strong neotraditionalist country roots and some serious guitar chops. I had downloaded Paisley songs here and there over the years; but, sometime a couple weeks back, I grabbed his whole discography off of iTunes. I was skeptical, because I didn’t think there was, necessarily, a lot of depth beyond the hits (a peculiar malady of popular music); but, boy was I wrong. All of the albums are excellent, pretty much straight on through.
In listening through all of Paisley’s albums, some themes are evident. Among others, there are certain types of songs that revise themselves regularly across his corpus, including: fishing songs; songs about the differences between men and women; country power ballads; progressive tracks; bluegrassy numbers; songs about Jesus; etc., and, summer jams. Paisley is the master of the summer jam. It seems like he’s always releasing an album in, or near to, the summertime, in advance of a summer tour; and, he never fails to disappoint when it comes to crafting at least one, or a number of, summer anthems, per album.
In addition to being the man, Paisley is also married to “Father of the Bride” star Kimberly Williams, to the eternal vexation of my good friend, Jeffrey.
Since I so enjoy foisting my questionable musical choices upon you through the medium of our LOMAP blog, I’ll be at it again . . . right about now . . .
Here’s a rundown of Paisley albums, and notable, thematic tracks, and etc.:
Who Needs Pictures (1999)
“Sleepin’ On the Foldout” (a Song About the Differences Between Men and Women + a Fishing Song)
“Long Sermon” (a Song about Jesus + a Summer Jam)
“He Didn’t Have To Be” (a Country Power Ballad + a Progressive Track)
“Don’t Breathe” (a Song About the Differences Between Men and Women)
. . .
Now, this was certainly not a rare occurrence. We’re often asked to speak; and, we’re often asked to speak on matters relative to Microsoft Office Suite programs. Notwithstanding the advancing popularity of Google programs and Apple products, the majority of attorneys still live in the Microsoft Office Suite (well, not literally), aggregating, usually, these days, between and among the 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions. Wishing a wider popularity for my presentation pointers, my purpose here is to revive them, in blog format, for your reviewing pleasure. As a firm believer in recycling, it is my further creed that you shall not have missed the ten commanding tricks I am about to relay, merely because you were not fortunate enough to be present at the April meeting of the Women Lawyers Network. First course: Microsoft Outlook; the waiting is over.
And, here we are:
(1) Apply Rules
What Does It Do?
Establishing rules in Outlook allows you to tag emails for instant filing to subfolders based on certain developed criteria.
How Does It Help You?
By filing emails for certain categories (listservs, product updates, committee work) to subfolders, those emails never clutter your mission-critical inbox. You can view less sensitive, grouped emails on your own time, by the categories that you’ve established for them.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text + Video
2007: Text + Video
2010: Text + Video
(2) Use Signatures
What Does It Do?
Signatures allow you to add footers to your emails, or to create template emails.
How Does It Help You?
Modern business, with staggering potential for making new connections, requires that you discover a quick and easy way for email contacts to find out what is most relevant about you and your business; footers are a traditional method for communicating your expertise. If you find that you send the same email over and over again, creating a template can be a great way to save yourself time.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text + Video
2007: Video
2010: Video
2003, 2007 + 2010: Text
(3) OHIO = Only Handle It Once
What Does It Do?
The principle behind this oft-referenced strategy is that you only process an email one time. If you can handle it immediately, handle it. If you can’t, don’t waste your time on it, and respond later.
How Does It Help You?
OHIO prevents you from performing tasks repetitively. Acting once saves time over acting more than once, and guarantees a consistent response. A great way to manage OHIO through Outlook is by converting emails into tasks, with reminders, instructions for which processing are linked below.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text
2007: Text
2010: Text
(4) Preview Files in the Reading Pane
What Does It Do?
You can preview attached documents, without opening them, by viewing them within the reading pane, through which, if your inbox is configured that way, you usually review the full text of emails, without opening them.
How Does It Help You?
By engaging the reading pane view to review attachments without opening them, you save yourself time (two clicks to open and close attachments in applications) and increase your ability to efficiently process your email (and to apply OHIO).
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text
2007: Video
2010: Text + Video
(5) Turn Off Desktop Alerts
What Does It Do?
Outlook provides clickable pop-up alerts, appearing at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, when you receive new emails. You can turn them off.
How Does It Help You?
By turning off your desktop alerts, you’re less likely to (1) notice them and/or (2) click them to open new emails. This means fewer distractions, and less multi-tasking. Once you get off-task, it’s significantly more difficult to get back on-task.
How Do You Do It?
2003: Text
2007: Text + Video
2010: Text
Join us next time on the program, when we will apply a similar review process to useful tips and tricks for Microsoft’s Word.
(Thanks to our own Rachel Willcox for finding me links to some great Outlook tutorials.)
. . .
Liner Notes
The end of summer always bring with it a certain bittersweetness; when the weather begins to cool, and the nights become longer, winter’s chill is no longer so very distant on the horizon.
In the spirit of capturing that summer sense before it’s all gone away again (until next year), I’d say it’s high time that I write about my man, Brad Paisley. A recent Facebook status update of mine respecting Paisley generated some buzz, and perhaps the same will be the case within this blog post.
Anyway, I love Brad Paisley. I know he’s popular (he might be the Coldplay of country music, if it warn’t for Taylor Swift), and some people hate on him for that; but, beneath that popularity are unique lyrics, strong neotraditionalist country roots and some serious guitar chops. I had downloaded Paisley songs here and there over the years; but, sometime a couple weeks back, I grabbed his whole discography off of iTunes. I was skeptical, because I didn’t think there was, necessarily, a lot of depth beyond the hits (a peculiar malady of popular music); but, boy was I wrong. All of the albums are excellent, pretty much straight on through.
In listening through all of Paisley’s albums, some themes are evident. Among others, there are certain types of songs that revise themselves regularly across his corpus, including: fishing songs; songs about the differences between men and women; country power ballads; progressive tracks; bluegrassy numbers; songs about Jesus; etc., and, summer jams. Paisley is the master of the summer jam. It seems like he’s always releasing an album in, or near to, the summertime, in advance of a summer tour; and, he never fails to disappoint when it comes to crafting at least one, or a number of, summer anthems, per album.
In addition to being the man, Paisley is also married to “Father of the Bride” star Kimberly Williams, to the eternal vexation of my good friend, Jeffrey.
Since I so enjoy foisting my questionable musical choices upon you through the medium of our LOMAP blog, I’ll be at it again . . . right about now . . .
Here’s a rundown of Paisley albums, and notable, thematic tracks, and etc.:
Who Needs Pictures (1999)
“Sleepin’ On the Foldout” (a Song About the Differences Between Men and Women + a Fishing Song)
“Long Sermon” (a Song about Jesus + a Summer Jam)
“He Didn’t Have To Be” (a Country Power Ballad + a Progressive Track)
“Don’t Breathe” (a Song About the Differences Between Men and Women)
. . .
Friday, August 12, 2011
Hashtag, You’re It! How to Filter and Archive Twitter Posts by the #
This week’s Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers E-Journal Law Practice Management Section Featured Practice Tip comes from LOMAP. This week's Tip lists some free services for compiling hashtagged Twitter posts.
Read the Tip here.
Read the Tip here.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Scrible: What Evernote is Evernot
People love Evernote, people, like Jay Fleischman and Erik Mazzone. You probably figure if Erik Mazzone uses Evernote, you should, too. That may be true. But, there’s another option: Scrible.
There are two primary areas in which Evernote and Scrible differ—one is a huge advantage for Evernote, and the other is, perhaps, just as huge an advantage for Scrible.
First, plainly, Scrible’s blog has nothing on Evernote’s blog. But, Scrible’s still in beta. It’s just a baby. Give it time. My sense is that they are too busy developing their product to market those developments at their blog. Scrible is in an intense feedback-seeking mode, aiming to improve its product as much as possible during this beta phase. And, accordingly, they have made submitting errors and questions into an easy, one-click, non-distracting process.
Evernote’s real advantage, though, is in its ability to capture anything: webpages, photos, screenshots, voice memos, notes, emails, stray dogs. . . And then, you can do all the things that Jay and Erik wrote about in their posts, above. Scrible, however, is limited to capturing websites.
Scrible counterbalances this limitation with a comprehensive annotation toolset. Yes, in Evernote you can edit a webpage, but only with a comparatively primitive text editor: bold, italic, underline, subscript, superscript, horizontal alignment, strikeout, indentation, numbered and bulleted lists, hyperlink, checkbox (I like that), font color, family, and size. There are no actual markup tools, as such.
First, Scrible’s editor toolbar is much prettier. Visually pleasant interfaces make me happier when I work. Everyone likes being happy. Scrible's pretty toolbar allows you the following capabilities:
Email sharing is a one-click process, and, in non-basic editions, Scrible will integrate collaboration features with its shareable libraries. Both personal libraries and shared libraries are searchable, filterable, and tag-able. Those functions mirror that which you see in Gmail, so, for the many Gmail users, the Scrible library will be very intuitively navigable. And, of course, articles can be copied easily from one library to another.
Scrible has a few shortcomings, all of which were mentioned to Scrible CEO Victor Karkar, and all of which were met with an optimistic response for potential improvements. Nonetheless, currently, you cannot anchor a comment to a picture (though, I don’t think I’ve ever found myself wanting to do that, and, if I did, it would be easy enough to work around). You cannot move an article from one library to another in one step (you'd have to copy it, and then go back and delete it—a little inconvenient). You cannot export or suggest tags across libraries (again, yet).
Scrible is marketed as an online research markup tool, as noted by Mashable. So, although I think the folks at Scrible would be inclined to react to its’ users desire to store non-webpage material, that may not be the direction they’re heading. I have no idea. The other unknown is when, if ever, Evernote will develop Scrible-like annotation capabilities for clipped webpages. I can’t imagine why they haven’t yet, which makes me wonder if they ever will. Apparently, you can integrate Skitch or Jet Screenshot with Evernote. I haven't tried it.
So, for now anyway, if you’re looking for a product to store, organize, and review a varied lot of related items, you would be smart to use Evernote. But, if you’re really digging into online research (holler at fellow former debater Victor!), use Scrible.
There are two primary areas in which Evernote and Scrible differ—one is a huge advantage for Evernote, and the other is, perhaps, just as huge an advantage for Scrible.
First, plainly, Scrible’s blog has nothing on Evernote’s blog. But, Scrible’s still in beta. It’s just a baby. Give it time. My sense is that they are too busy developing their product to market those developments at their blog. Scrible is in an intense feedback-seeking mode, aiming to improve its product as much as possible during this beta phase. And, accordingly, they have made submitting errors and questions into an easy, one-click, non-distracting process.
Evernote’s real advantage, though, is in its ability to capture anything: webpages, photos, screenshots, voice memos, notes, emails, stray dogs. . . And then, you can do all the things that Jay and Erik wrote about in their posts, above. Scrible, however, is limited to capturing websites.
Scrible counterbalances this limitation with a comprehensive annotation toolset. Yes, in Evernote you can edit a webpage, but only with a comparatively primitive text editor: bold, italic, underline, subscript, superscript, horizontal alignment, strikeout, indentation, numbered and bulleted lists, hyperlink, checkbox (I like that), font color, family, and size. There are no actual markup tools, as such.
First, Scrible’s editor toolbar is much prettier. Visually pleasant interfaces make me happier when I work. Everyone likes being happy. Scrible's pretty toolbar allows you the following capabilities:
- Highlight text in no less than forty different colors;
- Create sizable comment boxes in the same forty colors, which makes it easy to see what text the comment boxes refer to;
- Change text color (and, bold, italic, underline, and strikeout are all available here, too);
- And, you have a handy undo/redo button set, which is very useful (not that I ever make mistakes that I want to undo);
- AND, you can create an annotation legend;
- AND, you can hide all annotations, or, just minimize comments.
Email sharing is a one-click process, and, in non-basic editions, Scrible will integrate collaboration features with its shareable libraries. Both personal libraries and shared libraries are searchable, filterable, and tag-able. Those functions mirror that which you see in Gmail, so, for the many Gmail users, the Scrible library will be very intuitively navigable. And, of course, articles can be copied easily from one library to another.
Scrible has a few shortcomings, all of which were mentioned to Scrible CEO Victor Karkar, and all of which were met with an optimistic response for potential improvements. Nonetheless, currently, you cannot anchor a comment to a picture (though, I don’t think I’ve ever found myself wanting to do that, and, if I did, it would be easy enough to work around). You cannot move an article from one library to another in one step (you'd have to copy it, and then go back and delete it—a little inconvenient). You cannot export or suggest tags across libraries (again, yet).
Scrible is marketed as an online research markup tool, as noted by Mashable. So, although I think the folks at Scrible would be inclined to react to its’ users desire to store non-webpage material, that may not be the direction they’re heading. I have no idea. The other unknown is when, if ever, Evernote will develop Scrible-like annotation capabilities for clipped webpages. I can’t imagine why they haven’t yet, which makes me wonder if they ever will. Apparently, you can integrate Skitch or Jet Screenshot with Evernote. I haven't tried it.
So, for now anyway, if you’re looking for a product to store, organize, and review a varied lot of related items, you would be smart to use Evernote. But, if you’re really digging into online research (holler at fellow former debater Victor!), use Scrible.
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