Does It Compute?

Adding a Signature to Emails Sent from Worldox

MAPI Integration with email systems used by practice management programs such as Time Matters or Amicus does not provide the ability to automatically populate a signature which opening a new email, the way Outlook and other programs do. This is a constant source of irritation, because for every email you have to add the signature manually.

However, Worldox provides a partial workaround to this issue.

To create a Worldox signature, click on the Email tab, then Edit | Signature. A box appears that lets you enter an email signature. You must replicate the signature that appears in Outlook by
entering the desired address in the box below. The address must be in plain text or html format, with a blank line at the top and bottom.

When you right-click on a document in the Worldox file list and select “email,” it will insert your signature in the email program window.

While this function does not apply to the Reply or Forward functions from the email viewer window it is certainly better than nothing.

Do What I Say Not What I Do

Consultants always tell clients to backup, backup, backup, right?

So, I was reconfiguring things yesterday and said “oh, those are the wrong versions of the most recent files, I can delete them.” ZAP. 

Guess what, they WEREN’T the wrong versions and since they were on the server I could not undelete them (unlike Novell, which had a server undelete function - “filer” - for years - saved a client more than once).

And guess what, my backup was a couple of days out of date and I had no backup for those particular files.  Three hours of work or so down the drain that had to be redone.  Fortunately, the work was mechanical, not drafting documents, so it was easy enough to reproduce.  But a pain.

So, backup, backup, backup.

Memory Card to USB Converter

When we went to LA to visit family recently, I was dreading lugging all the extra cords, in particular a cord to connect a digital camera to my laptop in order to download pictures.

Then I stumbled on the IOGear Pocket Card Reader/Writer for  SD & Mmc memory cards. This tiny device, about the size of a USB flash drive, lets you plug the memory card from your camera into the device. The other end of the device is a USB connection which can be plugged directly into the computer. 
The other big advantage is that unlike the software that comes with many digital cameras, it lets you address the memory stick directly as if it were a USB drive, simplifying uploading data.  Available from www.extremegeek.com for $12,99.  Well worth it.

Happy Winter Solstice!

The Winter Solstice has traditionally been celebrated in all cultures for at least 5,000 years as marking the point where the days start getting longer. Maes Howe in Orkney (north of Scotland) is a very large chambered cairn (about 100 feet in diameter and 22 feet high on the outside: the interior chamber is about 14 feet square and about the same height). The 45 foot long entrance way is constructed so that the setting sun shines directly through the passageway onto the back wall of the cairn on the shortest day of the year, setting directly over a stone (the Barnhouse Stone) placed a half-mile or so from the entrance.

Pre-historic/neolithic peoples were acute astronomers. It is well-known that the Mayan long calender is more accurate than our current calender with its leap years every four years and “super leap years” at the turn of the century once every 400 years.

Subsequent religious year-end myths were manifestly modeled on the celebration of the Winter Solstice.  So during this winter holiday season, I wish you all a Happy Winter Solstice. Spring is coming.

Using Wireless on the Road

I have been visiting family in sunny Los Angeles, staying in a motel that advertised Wireless Internet. How back could it be, I thought?

The answer is, pretty bad.  Or perhaps more precisely - sporadically, but frequently, horrible. Some times, I got a 56Mbps connection and that was OK. However, more often, the line dropped to 11 Mbps, or even 5.5 Mbps. At those speeds, I had a terrible time doing anything much more than checking e-mail, and even that could be iffy.

I mentioned this to a client while I was there and he agreed, adding: “I won’t stay in a hotel with wireless any more.”

So if you’re on the road and want to do anything more than check email, avoid wireless.

Office 2007 revisited

When I bought my new laptop, I bit the bullet and also bought Office 2007. I figure that as my clients begin using it, I better know what they are up against.

Office 2007 follows the classic Microsoft paradigm, in that doing simple things has gotten somewhat easier, whereas doing complex things has gotten substantially more difficult.  And if you want to customize things, you are in for big trouble.  The learning curve is significant, and anyone who is in a position of having to start switching would be well-advised to spend some money on training.

A lifesaver has been the Classic Menu from Addintools This inserts an item called “Menu” in the Ribbon bar, which contains the default toolbars and icons from Office 2003.  The beauty of this is that I can learn the new setup at my own pace and if I cam in a hurry to get something out, I can work at my own pace.

In addition, if an office is buying new computers a few at a time, adding in the classic menu means that anyone can use Word, not just the people who have been trained in the new version.

Patriotism and Scoundrels

As the American Revolution was unfolding, in Britain, the colonial power of the time, Boswell was chronicling the life of Samuel Johnson. One of the many aphorisms that deserves being reminded of from time to time (especially in today's world), is the following:

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel
                – Boswell, Life of Johnson, April 7, 1775

Use Strong Passwords

The question of passwords is always a thorny issue at small law firms - many of them simply ignore the question. They have no passwords, or “password” or some other equivalent. I recently ran into an extreme example of this: a firm where every user and the server was logged in as “Administrator” with an identical password.

Dennis Kennedy’s recent blog on strong passwords should be must reading.

Using Electronic Letterhead

Many, if not most, firms have converted to electronic letterhead.  The advantages to this are many:

●    The firm saves significant amounts of money by not having to pay to print letterhead.
●    When you change or redesign letterhead, the process is easy and you do not have to throw out the old letterhead.
●    You can set your templates and other documents to pull in a single letterhead file, so that when you change letterhead you only need to change a single file.

About the only disadvantage is that you lose the ability to have embossed letterhead. However, in an electronic age this is not a significant disadvantage.

Usually, you already have, or can easily purchase a font that matches your existing letterhead closely if not identically. Failing that, you can always scan existing letterhead and insert it in documents as an image.

Mysterious security message

Some of my clients have reported mysterious security messages when running standard innocuous programs such as Worldox or others asking if it is ok to run the executable - of a known program.

Very often, this is caused by a setting in Internet Explorer 7.  To fix it, go to IE 7, select Tools | Internet Options | Security | Local intranet | Advanced.

Then add the location on the server to the “trusted” list in the form \\server\worldox.  It will probably simply appear on the list as \\server [whatever the name of your server is].