Does It Compute?

Amazon's Kindle

Despite the repeated failure of attempts at e-book readers, Amazon has just launched the Kindle, together with the ability to download nearly 90,000 titles for abut $10 each. The download itself, using the Sprint wireless network, is free.  This is a major advantage for consumers accustomed to paying $60 a month or so for wireless.

You can also subscribe to a variety of newspapers and magazines (for a fee). So your paper arrives automatically and wirelessly at 3 am or so with all the articles but, perhaps mercifully, without the ads or crossword puzzle.

You can also email yourself documents, PDF files or graphics to a special email address that comes with the Kindle (how long before you start getting spam on this “special” email address?) or download them via USB cable. Everything on Kindle, including your downloads, notes, bookmarks, etc. is backed up on Amazon servers.

The Kindle uses “e-ink” so that there is no back lighting and much less power drain. The only time it uses power is when you turn the page. According to Amazon if you turn off the wireless connection, a charge will last a week.

What will it take for this kind of device to find a market? These devices face a classic dilemma: they work well when they are simple, but then the demand for more and more features leads toward “bloatware.”  The Kindle seems to represent a good start. A partial list of features would have to include:

- scratch proof casing.  If you really use this the way you would paper, it will take a beating.  What if you drop it, spill coffee, or any of the other things people do when reading a book or newspaper.

- The ability to forward, backward, bookmark and search for text as well as full support for PDF files (which the Kindle does not have - PDFs come across only as images and cannot be resized to fit the screen).  One can imagine a lawyer loading an entire court case in this sort of device - but it would be useful only if it were searchable.

- At least a minimum ability to control font size. This does not have to be fully scalable, as in a word processor, but should have at least small, medium and large - for those who like me have old eyes.

The iPhone unlocked

When the iPhone was launched, Apple concluded an agreement with ATT to give it exclusive rights to the iPhone. It will not work on any other networks.  There followed a flurry of software and hardware “unlocks,” to which Apple responded by releasing a software update that simply incapacitated those phones.

In Europe, however, there is a different story.  Both France and Germany have recently decreed that the iPhone must offer unlocked versions of the phone (which would work with any provider) and without a fixed term contract (typically 24 months).  Various European countries (but not Britain) have laws that protect consumers from being obliged to buy product B and a condition for buying product A. 

More basically, however, the reason for invoking this provision for the iPhone - as well as the much more aggressive European anti-trust actions against Microsoft - is that European capitalism has little interest in simply handing over an economic advantage to its American competitors. 

That this is not just pro-consumer altruism is evidenced by the fact that the cost of many office supplies in Europe is considerably higher than it is in the U.S. because they are tied to the cost of paper (even if not made out of paper), and European forests have been substantially depleted in comparison with those in the US.  Even the cost of the iPhone bears witness to this fact: 399 Euros in Germany ($591) with a 2-year contract, but and 999 Euros ($1,483) for an unlocked phone without a contract. 

However, Google’s new phone programming platform has been exerting pressure on other vendors. Verizon (one of the leaders of the locked, proprietary phone system) has just announced that they would release “open” (or more open, at any rate) phones. So perhaps unlocked phones on a broader scale are in the offing.  That would be a good thing.

Creating Bookmarks in Worldox

One of the most powerful time-savers in Worldox is the creation of Bookmarks, or what I call quick search buttons.  To create one of these, simply perform a search, then right-click on the space immediately underneath the button bar and select “Add Bookmark.” Note that you have to do a search that returns at least one item for this to work.

You will be prompted whether you wish to “Perform Search” or “Show Template,” If this is a search for specified items - for example, I have a quick search button for all my blog posts - select “Perform Search.”  If you simply wish to save a couple of clicks and bring up a search template without picking one from a list, select “Show Template.”  You can combine the two: for example, bookmark for email, has the document type “email” already filled in, but the template is presented rather than just searching for “all emails.”

One of the advantages of this type of search is that it is dynamic: as new documents are added that match the criteria, they will come up on the search. Many people add items for files or matters they access frequently or on a monthly basis (various financial information for example). A quick way to create an instant search is to add some code specific to the documents in the description, such as “jfhmonthly” and then create a search to find all those documents.

Custom Tabs in PCLaw

Custom Tabs in PCLaw are an underutilized feature that can add another dimension to your use of the program and your bills.

One of the problems with the PCLaw link with Time Matters is that the PCLaw description (or memo) is hard-coded to link with the Time Matters Matter Reference field.  Since many firms use an extended description in PCLaw for billing purposes, this can create problems. In addition, you may want the Matter Reference to be descriptive in ways that will facilitate sorting and make it easier to locate a specific matter (somewhat akin to the “Short File Name” in Amicus).

By defining a Custom Tab and assigning it to a billing template, you can put the information required on the bill into one (or more) custom fields and have the description available for linking with Time Matters, or simply for making locating matters by the description field easier. 

To create a Custom Tab, go to Tools | Custom Tabs.  Tabs must be associated with a billing template (so that the information can be pulled into a bill) and you have the option to assign them by default to all matters or to matters of a specific type of law.

Brief Banks - Why Aren't They More Common?

Every time I set up a Worldox installation for a firm, I try to encourage them to create a “Brief Bank” – a set of standard forms that incorporates the best language and provisions that they have come up with over a period of time. 

Doing this fulfills three main functions:

1) It standardizes the forms, contracts, agreements, responses to interrogatories, etc. that the firm uses.  In so doing, it also improves the overall quality of the firm’s product, since it helps ensure that somebody does not re-use and old, outdated or superceded document. In many firms, individual users have their “own” forms - consolidating them would obviously be to everyone’s advantage.  Of course this does not address the issue of dysfunctional firms where one attorney wants to use one font, and another attorney insists on a different font (and the same with forms, provisions, etc.)

2) It increases productivity, since attorneys would not have to rely on their memory and “hunt around” for the most appropriate document in a given situation.

3) It decreases errors (thus also increasing productivity). An attorney would no longer have to worry about forgetting to change certain names, pronouns, etc. since it would be a “fill in the blank” type form.

Despite the overwhelming arguments in favor of doing this, very few firms seem to get around to it. Why is this? 

I believe it is largely due to the well-known fact that when considered as business propositions, many smaller firms are very poorly managed. Law Schools do not have courses in managing a business. In particular, they almost never have a technology plan, or consider even an approximate Return on Investment analysis of a new system. 

Characteristic of this thinking is the syndrome captured by the question: “which do I want, a new computer system or a new Mercedes?”  Guess which one usually wins.

The other side of the coin, a more far-seeing analysis, was provided one time in a firm I was working for. When I suggested a new software program, the name partner thought about it and said “No, I don’t think we can do that right now, but keep the suggestions coming because every software program I DON’T own presents a potential competitive advantage to competing law firms.” 

Why Men Shouldn't Be Allowed to Take Messages

Message taped to a refrigerator door:

The Gyne Colleges called. Said the Pabst Beer was good.

I didn’t know you liked beer.

Calculating a Person's Age in Time Matters

It is possible to create a field in Time Matters that calculates the age of a person.  Assume you have a field for the person’s date of birth, say field 3 in area 3 of the contact form.

Then create  a calculated text field with the following calculation:

  '&AGE(DEFORMAT(CON:CON1_03_03,@D2)) &'

where “03_03" is the date of birth field and the operator is: Appended. The second field should be listed as Text, but left blank. The grammar must be exactly precise (if you cut and paste the above it should work)

Note that if the date of birth field is not filled in, the person will be listed as being 2007 years old - at least for another month or so, until they turn 2008.

First the iPhone, now the GPhone?

The much heralded “Google Phone” turns out to be open software that can run on any phone.  While many have expressed disappointment, in fact the Google software may pose a challenge to the various phone company mini-monopolies.

Many phone companies lock down their phones so that only certain software can be used or the phone can be used only on certain services.  The iPhone and ATT deal is a notorious recent example. Similarly, Verizon, my carrier, blocks the use of the Opera web browser on its phones, although (because?) it is much superior to the browser supplied by Verizon.

Google challenges this entire structure by providing software - and a development platform - that can potentially be used on any phone.  It will be extremely interesting to see how this plays out.

Microsoft and Security

Now we get to the more thorny issue of Microsoft "security."  The Windows operating system has never been geared to corporate use. This may seem surprising, but all you need to do to convince yourself is right-click on My Computer, go to the "Computer Name" tab and note that they suggest naming the computer something like "Kitchen Computer or Mary's Computer." 

From the outset, Microsoft took the approach that ease of use was more important than security - and hence more or less consciously ignored security issues.  When they came under attack for this, they adopted the approach of making programs more "secure" by making it harder for people to use them. The best example of this is integration with Outlook, provided by many programs. When you try to integrate with Outlook (to get calendar, or address information), you get a pop-up warning you that you are trying to access Outlook and do you want to and for how long. Software makers wrote programmatic end runs around this function so that users could get their work done and a series of utilities were spawned (such as "Clickyes") which stayed in memory and answered "yes" any time the security message appeared. There are a number of other instances where the only realistic and acceptable way to get your work done is to ignore the instrusive Microsoft security warnings or settings (security on macros, for example). In addition, many users are obliged to do an end run around Windows security by running as "Administrator" because many law firm specific programs would not work properly otherwise.

While Vista is supposed to dramatically improve this situation, one wonders about the security popup lampooned by the Mac advertisements on TV.  A "Man in Black" stands in the background saying "accept or deny" every time PC and Mac try to talk to each other. I rather suspect that many users will be lead simply to turn off this feature, which has been widely criticized as intrusive and extremely annoying.

Security and Ease of Use

One of the main roadblocks to adequate security is the simple fact that the more secure something is, the harder it is to use.

If you don’t have a lock on your door, it is easy and quick to open – both for you and for anybody else.  If you have one simple lock, it might be easily pickable. If you have 3 high-quality (and hence more expensive) locks, it takes a minute or two to open your door.

The same applies to computer security.  No password: anybody can open your computer. Simply password - easy to break.  And so on.

Some advanced techniques have gotten simpler as well as more secure (at a cost). Thus fingerprint readers provide excellent security (provided the backup password is a good one).  Retina scanners are even better (but more expensive).

Encryption is another option.  One of the issues here is what kind of performance hit you might take.  The high end Vista programs offer real-time encryption through BitLocker. But for a proven program and technology I would go with PGP’s “Whole Disk Encryption” from one of the pioneers of encryption.   It says volumes about how the world has changed that in the 1990s the US government wanted to prosecute the original author of PGP (“Pretty Good Privacy”), Phil Zimmerman, for offering encryption programs at all on the grounds that it made it harder for the government to spy on people. Plus ça change....