The Connected Lawyer

The Affinity Law Office Technology Blog has a post on a great and cheap solution for network attached storage (NAS). They suggest using an older desktop PC and the FeeNAS server operating system. I have not yet tried this software, however, this is a project that I have been considering and I am quite pleased to find a free software solution.

If you are looking for a similar solution, this may be something you want to check out.

I have a computer problem that has been giving me fits. I hope that someone here can help me with this.

I have a computer in which the power supply and part of the motherboard got fried. I would guess the problem origianated in the power supply and then killed part of the motherboard. Anyway, I pull the hard drive, pop it in an external case and fire it up. It appears to be working fine. I can access everything on the drive EXCEPT for the stuff in the My Documents folder.

For reasons that I won’t go into, we need to recover the files from this My Documents folder. (Please note, this is not my computer and it is not my fault that there is not a good backup). The drive appears to be working fine and every other file on the drive is intact and able to be retrieved. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to access the files within that folder?

Update: I guess I should have been a little more clear in my question. A commentor asked for clarification:

Are you going through C:\Documents and settings\[user]\My Documents?

Yes, this is how I am attempting to access the folder. I have also attempted to redefine this folder as the My Documents folder for the new computer.

Are you getting some kind of error?

Yes, I am being told that the folder is not accessible. This is the message I get anytime that I try to access the folder (even when I try to designate it as the My Documents folder for the new computer).

I am a big fan of ebooks. They are certianly more portable than regular books. Although I read my ebooks on my Treo, I am always happy to see advancements in e-reader technology. engadget has a post about a new e-reader from Plastic Logic.  This device is thinner than the Kindle, plus it is flexible. Additionally, it’s display is 8 1/2 x 11. This means that it likely won’t fit in your pocket. However, it should fit just fine in a briefcase. This decision seems to make sense in that Plastic Logic is marketing this to the business market.

Of course, the downside is that it does not connect direclty to Amazon to download books over a cellular network. Instead, you connect to your computer via a USB cable, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

Although the video below is a sales presentation, it does give a nice overview of the product.

Also, you can find some pictures of it here.

PC Magazine has a great article on extending your laptop’s battery life. The article contains suggestions that we are all familiar with such as dimming your screen and not using the DVD drive. However the article also contains more substantive tips.

Some of these include:

Turn off ports. Disabling unused ports and components, such as VGA, Ethernet, PCMCIA, USB, and yes, your wireless, too. You can do this through the Device Manager or by configuring a separate hardware profile (see next step).

Create Power-Saving Hardware Profiles. Configure your laptop for the various scenarios in which you use it (on a plane, at the coffee shop, at the office, and so on). You can do this through the Hardware Profiles menu by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Preferences or by using a freeware utility such as SparkleXP (for Windows XP users).

Configure your display to turn off when not in use. This is different from just using a screensaver, because in many cases a screensaver still requires the display’s backlight to be on. You can set the interval to turn the display off in Windows’ Power Options—found in the Control Panel.

The article contains several more tips, all of which will help you extend your laptop’s battery life. i urge you to check it out.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having my review of the Canon ScanFront 220P scanner published as a TechnoFeature by TechnoLawyer. A reprint of my review can be found on my Files page or by clicking here.

My summary of the review is that I loved this scanner and I would recommend it for anyone who is looking for a network scanner.

On a somewhat related note, I would also recommend that if you are not currently subscribed to TechnoLawyer, that you click over to their website and sign up. It is one of the best sources of the practical application of technology to the practice of law that I have found.

Dilbert exposes the possible downside to multiple monitors.

To the surprise of no one who has ever used multiple monitors, recent studies show that multiple monitors increase a user’s productivity 20%-30%. As the Slashdot article notes:

For those of us who use multi-monitors, this is not shocking.

The Microsoft article states:

Give someone a second monitor, let them use it for while, and then try to take it away. It just isn’t going to happen. They’ll never go back to a mono display. Researchers in the Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment group (VIBE), found that increasing a computer user’s display space made it easier for them to complete their tasks.

I have used multiple monitors for more than four years now and wholeheartedly agree that using multiple monitors improves my productivity by the 30% shown in the study. The only drawback that I have ever encountered in using a multiple monitor set up is that I have multiple monitors only when I am in my office. When I am away from the office I find myself often wishing that I had a second monitor to use. In fact, I have used MaxiVista to co opt a second monitor get to get the extra desktop space.

I wrote a short column on using multiple monitors. This can be found on my Files page.

If you have never used multiple monitors before, I strongly encourage you to try it out. I have never met anyone who used multiple monitors that ever wanted to go back to a single monitor.

I have written before about how much I like the combination of my Freedom Keychain GPS and TomTom Maps. Until this last week, however, all that I had really done with the system was play around with it. On vacation, however, I had the opportunity to use it in several situations. In each situation, the system came through with flying colors.

The first situation that I had the opportunity to use the GPS was on the interstate between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. While traveling through Indianapolis, we saw a message that said that there had been an accident on I-74 and to consider alternative routes.  Given that traffic had not been too bad until then (it was night by the time we hit Indy) we decided to continue on. Once we got on 74, however, the message had changed. Now, the message was warning that the road was closed ahead. Sure enough, up ahead, we could see brake lights ahead, where traffic was stopped.

I indicated that there was a roadblock ahead and that we needed an alternate route. The software instructed us to exit at the next exit (which was fortunately before the stopped traffic) and then routed us down a frontage road and through a small town, before taking us back to the interstate. Along the way, we saw a very long line of cars just parked on the interstate. Had we not navigated around the area, we would have set on the interstate for probably hours. As it was, our detour added 6 minutes to our trip.

Further, if I did not have the GPS, we would never have found our way back to the interstate in any reasonable length of time. All in all, it was a huge time saver for us. Plus, it was unbelievably simple to use.

When we arrived at our destination, I had to stop at the rental office to pick up keys to our cabin as well as directions. Unfortunately, the map that the rental office provided was poorly designed, not to scale, and difficult to follow. Fortunately, however, all that I had to do was enter the address in my GPS and it led me to the front door of the cabin. Without the GPS, however, we would likely have wandered around the mountain for quite a while looking for the cabin.

In sum,  I love the convenience of being able to carry the GPS with me at all times. I also love the simple interface provided by the TomTom software. The maps are accurate and easy to use. I would recommend this set up to anyone who uses a compatible device.

This week I gained a new member in my Household: A Dell Latitude D630. My D600 was 4+ years old and had starting having problems. The optical drive did not work unless you taped it shut, the internal wireless card stopped working, the power button did not work well, and the touchpad was kind of touchy.  And those are just some of the problems that I was having. Thus, it was time to get a new one.

I was really pleased with how well my old Latitude held up. Despite the problems I was having just recently, I have no complaints about the machine. I take it with me almost everywhere I go. Given the amount of traveling it did, I am pretty impressed that it lasted as long and as well as it did.

The 630 is a nice improvement over the 600. In addition to the increase in speed because of the faster processor and more RAM, it also incorporates some additional features. Perhaps my favor thing is that Dell has added two additional USB ports. My 600 had only two ports in the back. My 630 has two in the back plus two on the right side beside the opitcal drive. I am a USB device junkie. I can never have enough USB ports. It also has a Firewire port. Now I just have to find something to plug into it.

Although it can be a bit of a pain to transfer to a new computer,  this transfer went relatively painless (despite the fact that it was time consuming). Nevertheless, I am quite happy to welcome my new laptop to the family.

For quite a while I have wanted a GPS. This desire comes not from the fact that I tend to get lost, but instead from the fact that I think they are really cool. One drawback was that I really didn’t want to have to keep track of another device and have to decide whether to take it with me everyday or leave it at home. Despite the coolness factor, it seemed like a bit of a hassle.

For my birthday, however, I recently received the most hassle free GPS I can imagine. It is the Freedom Keychain GPS 2000. This device is only the GPS receiver. To use it, you must connect it to your Treo via Bluetooth. Also, the device comes with no maps. You have to decide on your own what maps you wish to use.

What makes the Freedom absolutely hassle free is the fact that it is tiny (it weighs .77 oz). In fact, it is smaller than the key fob for my wife’s car. It charges via a mini USB port (all devices should have to do this) and it comes with a car charger. The battery life is 9 hours and my use of it shows that this is likely the case.

To be able to get around, I need more than the GPS, however, I also need the software that goes with with it. The map data is not cheap. However it is available from a variety of companies, most of which produce versions compatible with a Treo. In my case, I first tried DeLorme’s Street Atlas USA. After trying it for a few days, I didn’t like the interface that it had with my Treo. Thus, I returned it, and bought TomTom Navigator 6.

I love this software. It was easy to install and it works flawlessly on my Treo. Also, it integrated easily with the Freedom GPS and I have had no connection problems between the two devices at all.

The aspect about this solution that I love the most is that I have a full GPS solution, yet the only additional thing that I am carrying with me is a key fob. How great is that.

I bought my copy of Navigator 6 from Amazon and saved a few bucks over the price direct from TomTom.

I plan on doing a more in depth review of the Navigator software later. In the meantime, you can find a great review on the Freedom GPS at Treonauts. You can find a review of the earlier version of the Freedom at treocentral.