The Connected Lawyer

I have not seen one of these before. It is a thumb drive with hardware encryption. Basically, to access the data on the drive, you have to enter a PIN. I am not sure how secure this is. However, it is an interesting concept.

If you read this blog regularly, you probably already know that I am a big fan of Adobe Acrobat. I use it on a daily basis in my practice. One of the things that always frustrated me, however, was that the “recently opened files” list (you know the one that appears at the bottom of the file menu) has only the last five files opened. Plus, unlike most other programs, I was unable to find a way to expand this list.

A few days ago, I happened to notice that right above the 5 last opened files is a link called History. Clicking on it, I discovered that it allows me to see all files that I have opened Today, Yesterday, The Last 7 Days, The Last 30 Days, and The Last 12 Months.

What a great feature. I don’t know why I never saw this before. However, if you, like me, get frustrated with the recently opened file limitation, you now know that there is a great solution that gives you access to so much more.

Today, Woot has a great parody of Steve Jobs’s open letter about the iPhone price drop. The delicious irony is that the parody deals with Woot’s sale of a Microsoft Zune player. The parody begins:

I have received more than three emails from Zune buyers who are upset about Woot dropping the price of the Zune by $20 one month after it went on sale the first time. After reading every one of these emails, or at least scanning their subject lines, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I need to make a better effort to hide my email address.

Second, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 30GB Zune from $149.99 to $129.99. This confidence is based on more than the holy doctrine of corporate infallibility. The Zune is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to “ride the lightning” and “shoot the curl” this holiday season, not to mention “kill the messenger” and “rock the vote”, further enabling us to “pay the rent” and “keep the lights on”. It benefits both Woot and every Zune user (but especially Woot) to drag as many new victims as possible into the Zune “dungeon”. We strongly believe that misery loves company this holiday season.

I encourage you to click over and read the whole parody. It’s even funny when you compare it paragraph by paragraph with the original.

Hat tip to Steve Johnson of Hypertext for the original link.

One of my favorite websites is Giveaway of the Day. Every day the website gives away a free fully licensed copy of software. Most of the software that it gives away has no interest or relevance to me. Every so often, however, I find a real gem here. The trick is that you must download and install the software on the day that it is given away. No coming back for it tomorrow.

In a strange coincidence, I saw that after I posted my entry about using Adobe Acrobat versus a third party PDF creator, GotD is giving away a free copy of novaPDF Lite. If you have been looking for a cheap alternative to creating PDFs, now is your opportunity to pick up a fully licensed copy of such a program. Just go to GotD.

Without a doubt, I believe that Adobe Acrobat is one of, if not the, most underutilized programs around. It is a very powerful program that has some great document processing and annotating features. For example, I used Acrobat to annotate my cases that I am relying upon in drafting pleadings.

However, I recognize that some people either can’t or won’t pay the cost for a full version of Adobe Acrobat (A full version of Adobe Acrobat Professional costs $499). If you have an older version of Acrobat, however, the upgrade price is a reasonable $159. Additionally, that price is good for upgrading from versions back through Acrobat 5 and applies regardless of whether your older version was standard or professional.

If you are not interested in  annotating your cases in Adobe Acrobat or Bates Stamping your documents with Adobe Acrobat, why should you use Acrobat instead of a less expensive option?

Rick Borstein answered this question in his blog recently. You should check out all of Rick’s post. However, I would like to highlight and wholeheartedly agree with a couple of points that he made:

Adobe offers OCR, creation, redaction, bates numbering, review, etc. all in one package, not spread across several packages or requiring additional products

Only Adobe allows you to Reader-enable a PDF so that users of the free Adobe Reader can:

• Fill in forms
• Review and comment
• Use the Typewriter tool
• Digitally sign a document

Adobe offers Reader enablement, so that you can send files to free Adobe Reader users for Review.

Rick concludes by saying:

Adobe still makes the best PDF and the best tools for working with PDF. Still other tools may work for certain tasks, but make sure you thoroughly test them against Acrobat Standard or Professional. Take a test drive, compare file sizes and how the files look on-screen. Try printing the files and timing print time.

Above all, does the product meet all your needs? Does it allow you fill in and save data in a court form? Does it allow you to efficiently combine PDFs to create eBriefs or Deal Books. Does it offer the ability to use robust commenting tools? Can you redact a docement and be sure that all the data is gone?

Acrobat isn’t inexpensive, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an excellent value and the right choice for your firm.

Once again, I agree with him. Adobe Acrobat is not the right choice for everyone. However, take advantage of the 30 day free trial that Adobe offers and see how Adobe Acrobat works for you.

At the ISBA Solo and Small Firm Conference, I had the pleasure of speaking with Nerino Petro, Ross Kodner, Tood Flaming and Adam Nelson at a presentation called 60 Tips in 60 Minutes.

My favorite tip came from Ross and it has absolutely nothing to do with the law. It is a website called YouParkLikeAnAsshole.com. If people double parking, parking over the line, or squeezing an SUV in a compact only spot annoy you, this is the site for you.

The Practice Management Blog has added a page with some great Adobe Acrobat resources. I am a big fan of Adobe Acrobat. I believe that its is underutilized by almost everyone who uses it. I also am a big fan of the improvement that Adobe made in version 8, especially with the inclusion of Bates Stamping and making the toolbars more customizable.

Acrobat 8 is a great program and the Practice Management Blog has given us a great resource.

If you have found my posts about creating styles for numbered paragraphs in Word to be confusing, or, if you just want an easier way to do it, you should check out Numbering Assistant from Payne Group. As described by Payne Group:

The Numbering Assistant is a paragraph numbering utility that allows you to quickly add, modify and update automatic multi-level numbering schemes in Word documents. The tool contains 28 preloaded schemes provided by Payne Group. Additionally, individually tailored numbering schemes can be added upon request. The Numbering Assistant uses native Word functionality (heading styles linked to outline numbering) so you can also easily share your numbering schemes with clients and others who may not use the software. You can even add up to four multi-level schemes within the same document.

I have not used Numbering Assistant, however, I have never heard anyone complain about a Payne product. Further, I have heard plenty of good things about it.

As an added bonus, if contract drafting is your thing, Numbering Assistant incorporates the suggestions made by Ken Adams in his Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. Further information about this can be found at Ken’s site. (BTW, if you are a writing geek, you should be reading Ken’s blog).

Anyway, if you are looking for an elegant solution to fighting with Word’s numbering styles, you may want to check out Numbering Assistant.

I received a comment to one of my Word Style posts that I want to elevate here and address. The commenter asked:

How do I set bullets? I have tinkered with this for a long time and can’t get it right. For some reason, Word just randomly changes my settings.

If you followed along with primer on creating a numbered paragraph style, you are already 90% of the way there. Follow those steps (except you should change the name of your style to something like Bullets) until you get to step 8 “Select the Numbered Tab.” There, instead of selecting the Numbered Tab:

1. Select the Bulleted Tab
2. Choose the bullet style you want
3. Click customize. You can also change the bullet style here if you wish.
4. In the top Bullet position Indent At, select your location for a bullet. For example, .5″
5. In the Text Position section, select the location where you want the text to start after the bullet (Tab Space After) and the location where you want subsequent lines in the same bullet point to start (”Indent at”). I typically set both of these to the same position. In this case, .75″, which gives me a .25″ space between the bullet and the text.
6. Click OK.
7. Click OK.
8. Click OK.

You now have a bullet point style that you can apply.

If you find this stuff interesting and want to understand how it is that Word’s numbering works, I can recommend to you the Word MVP site. You can view his info on his website. Additionally, he has a 25 page PDF that explains how Word Numbering works. I found this article absolutely invaluable in understanding Word and its styles.

I am back from the ISBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. I had a great time. If you attended, I hope you found the experience both enjoyable and informative.

Todd Flaming has provided a recap of some of his experiences. I encourage you to find a conference such as this to attend if you can. Not only have I found the programs informative, but I have also met many interesting people at ISBA’s conference.