The Connected Lawyer

Most people hate giving out their email address to a website to access a portion of a website. In most of these situations, you have to give out a real email address because the website will send a confirmation email that you will have to access. Some people have set up a separate email address just to deal with this issue.

A different, but very useful, solution comes our way from 10 Minute Mail. 10 Minute Mail provides you with an email address that  automatically expires after 10 minutes. During the 10 minutes you can access the email that arrives at the address. This allows you sufficient time to respond to a verification email.

Once you do that, however, you need not worry about having provided that email address and you don’t have to worry about wading through the spam created for that address. According to the operator of the website, he gets between 20,000 and 30,000 emails a day, all addressed to expired email accounts. Let his server deal with that spam instead of yours.

The Detroit Free Press reports on a county treasurer who was charged with embezzling public funds to invest in an online Nigerian banking scam. The Free Press reports that the man had transferred at least $72,500 of his own money to the con artists before he allegedly sent up to an additional $1.25 million in public funds.

The news story is an interesting read, with the best quote coming from a spokesman for the Attorney General who said “Every part of this makes you wonder, ‘What was he thinking?’ ”

I have seen many news stories about these scams and people being taken advantage of by them. However, this is the first story I have seen in which a person stole money to invest in one of these scams.

These scams (which are commonly known as 419 scams) appear to still be finding victims. I know that I have warned a least two people of these scams when they contacted me to seek help setting up accounts to transfer the money.

It looks like that, in addition to warning our friends and family about these scams, we also need to be warning our public officials.

Jeff Beard at Law Tech Guru Blog has some good advice about watching out for fake wi-fi hotspots created by computer to computer ad hoc networks. Apparently this scheme is most commonly found at major airports. Jeff gives a great definition of these ad hoc networks as:

“Fake Wi-Fi hotspots and “man in the middle” attacks are nothing new. The key is that they are actually peer-to-peer or “ad hoc” wireless network connections — meaning that your laptop connects directly to someone else’s PC, not a wireless access point. That’s a major security no-no, as they can sniff your logins, passwords, and other confidential data you send through. They can also deposit some nasty items on your PC behind the scenes. Guess what happens when you connect to your company’s or firm’s network when you get back to the office?”

Jeff also points to a great article from Computerworld. In the article, the author provides instructions for users of both Windows XP and Vista on how to keep your computer from connecting to an ad hoc network.

Futurelawyer points us toward a video by Keith from Cool Tools in which he gives a short video demonstration on why the Treo 700p is a great device. In the video, Keith demonstrates using the network dial up and bluetooth capabilities of the 700p to surf the internet completely wirelessly. If you have considered purchasing a smartphone, this is a great video that shows you some of the capabilities.

JiWire.com has a great article on its 25 Wireless Tips & Tricks. JiWire is a great resource for all things Wi-Fi. In this article, they offer great tips on such things as:

• Finding hotspots while traveling
• Securing your home network
• Using a hotspot in a secure manner
• Keeping shared files safe
• Setting up a free hotspot
• Setting up an ad hoc network to share an internet connection
• Adding wireless network storage
• Monitoring your home with a wi-fi webcam

There are some great tips to be found in the article. I recommend it to anyone who uses a wireless network.

One of the things that I believe is essential for a connected lawyer is a laptop. A laptop allows you to be out of the office, yet still connected to it. With the ubiquity of wi-fi hotspots and the emergence of high speed cellular data networks, you can usually find a connect just about anywhere that you are traveling, even if this means you have to stop at a Buffalo Wild Wings or a Starbucks.

Additionally, if you regularly scan your case documents or otherwise have electronic copies of them, you can easily carry all of your case information with you simply by taking your laptop with you. This is especially useful if you have to travel out of town to take a deposition. You can have your entire file with you, without carrying a single sheet of paper.

All in all, if you want to be away from the office and yet be able to work, a laptop is an essential item for you to have.

Is saw this article at MyTreo.net. The article details a new short antenna that is available for the Treo 650 and 700. This antenna is made by a person who got tired of having a large antenna and decided to make his own short one. Once he did so, he decided to sell it to other Treo users.

The author concludes:

“I think there are three groups of Treo users: those that want a shorter antenna on their Treo, those that don’t care about the antenna length, and those that actually like the longer antenna because it gives them a handle. If you fall into the first group and like the idea of a shorter antenna, then I’m pretty sure you are going to love the short antenna. It looks great, it doesn’t have a noticeable impact on reception, and it is incredibly easy to install.”

If you are longing for a Treo 680 because of its slimline, antennaless shape, this may be the solution for you.

Many people, even those who are quite familiar with the internet do not know what RSS is.

In its simplest terms, RSS is a technology that allows you to identify the things that you want to read and have those items aggregated together in a single place for you to read, without having to go to a bunch of different websites. Although RSS is traditionally thought of as a blog technology, many “regular websites” are now using RSS now.

If you are using the latest version of either Firefox or Internet Explorer, identifying those pages that have an RSS feed is very easy now that both browsers use the orange RSS icon.

Law Practice Today has an informative article on RSS and written by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. You can also find a series of tutorials on RSS. Ken Adams also has a post on his blog in which he recommends that his readers use an RSS reader. I have to say that I agree with him. If you read any blogs at all, you should be using an RSS reader.

David Swanner of the South Carolina Trial Law Blog hits the nail on the head with his most recent post.

On the topic of how connected you should be to your clients, David says:

“On Friday afternoon, my wife who is about to have our second child was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital for testing. After the tests, but before the results were in she was reading a book and I logged in to the office network, checked e-mail, checked messages and answered a few questions. Before the age of technology, I would have had to leave either my wife or the office in the lurch. Wi-fi is a good thing.”

David then goes on to conclude, however, that we need not be connected to our clients at all times.

“When I travel, I call clients and check in on them. I sometimes call clients on Sunday afternoon to see how their treatment is doing and to make certain all of their questions have been answered. I appreciate my Treo, GoToMyPC and wireless internet. But I also think it’s important to set boundaries to have a personal and family life.”

As usual, excellent advice from David. Jump over to his blog and read the whole post.