Making improvements in your file organization don’t have to be major undertakings or require huge outlays of cash. Often a very simple, low cost solution exists that can make a big difference in finding specific documents in a file.

While many people use divided folders and place the variuos document types on their own tabs, a large majority of lawyers still place everything in their files in chronological order. For those documents that you generate internally such as memorandums to the file, notes and correspondence, you can make locating your own work product much easier by simply using colored paper when printing the file copies of these documents.

You can use one color, such as yellow, for memorandums and notes and another for the copies of correspondence you send such as pink or blue. You can purchase reams of colored copy paper at your office supply store. Select colors that make sense to you and your staff. Don’t go overboard and try to color coordinate every document - remember less is more.

The ultimate goal is to make locating documents within the file folder easier and quicker.

Reviews from the PMA
February 23, 2006

Hardware

Product: Hitachi Travelstar® 2.5” Hard Drive Notebook PC Upgrade Kit
Summary: Easy to use, good value choice to upgrade your notebook computer’s hard drive.

I currently use a Dell Inspiron 8600 which had a huge (at the time I bought it) 40GB hard drive. Of course, today I sit with a rapidly filling hard drive and wondering what to do. I purchased the Upgrade Kit from Hitachi to replace my existing 40GB drive (which is also a Hitachi) with a 60GB drive. I was intrigued by this upgrade kit as it included an enclosure to turn the old hard drive into an external drive.

The kit comes packaged in a red and white box which contained the 60GB hard drive, the external enclosure, a detailed, printed installation guide which also included a CD-Rom containing Apricorn’s Ez Gig II cloning and image creation software. Also included was a USB 2.0 cable, a PS2 auxiliary power cable and an external power adapter. All of these items were secured in separate sections of the box and well padded.

The installation guide takes you step by step through the upgrade process starting with the installation of the new drive in the external enclosure. It then instructs you on configuring your notebook to boot from the CD drive and connecting the external enclosure containing the new drive.

Upon boot, the Apricorn Ez Gig II utility starts and runs separately from your Operating System. Following the instructions in the installation guide, it is simply a matter of a few mouse clicks and the disk cloning process begins. The time remaining indicator started with 45 minutes remaining and it finished pretty much in 45 minutes. The installation guide then advises you to power down your notebook disconnect the external enclosure and remove the new hard drive from it. You then remove your old hard drive from your notebook computer and install the new drive.

To test whether everything was still working, I booted from the old drive and then shut the system down. Removing the old drive and installing the new drive (after removing it from the enclosure) was a straightforward task. I then started the boot process and the system came up without any issues or problems.

Overall, I was very happy with the upgrade kit and the ease of the upgrade itself. The external enclosure is not anything special: it is a 2 part plastic case, but it is sufficient for using as an external storage device using your old drive. Hitachi points out in the installation guide that the poser of the USB connection should be sufficient for operating the external drive, but recommends that you use the auxiliary power cable or external power adapter when doing the upgrade. There is a switch on the back to select either DC or PC for the power source. This makes sense as you want to minimize any problems that could occur during the upgrade process. You should be able to use the Ex Gig II software to create a disk image as a backup and save it to your old drive in the external enclosure. I also accessed the external drive after changing the switch to use the PC across the USB cable for power which worked. Total time from start to finish was approximately 1 hour.

The Good: Easy to follow instructions, nice feature set.

The Bad: Plastic external enclosure, only 5400 RPM

PMA Score (Max Score Possible is 20)

5 Ease of Use
4 Quality of Materials
5 Feature Set
4 Value for Cost
18 Total Score

I’ve become a true believer when it comes to desktop search engines. However, I prefer those that don’t collect personal information. Google Desktop, Yahoo Search and others provided by the major search sites all have at least the potential for collecting information from you use of their products and sending it to them. Many people like Copernic which is free. I personally use X1 even though it is a fee based program and find it to be indispensable. Its interface is straightforward and easy to use and it can search not only word processing files but also Adobe PDF files as well as many other file formats.

In cooperation with X1, I’ve arranged for a total of 50 free copies of the x1 Desktop Search Engine for my readers. This is strictly a “first come, first served” offer, and will end on the download of the 50th copy or April 30, 2006.

While it’s not a requirement for downloading the software, I would appreciate it if you would send me an email at npetro@lawofficetech.com with your contact information so tha I can follow-up with you and your experience with the software. All contact information will be kept confidential and will not be released to the vendor.

Enjoy!

Author’s Update as of March 7, 2006.

Thanks to everyone who downloaded the free X1 copies that were made available. At this time, all 50 have been downloaded. The link now takes you to the site to purchase the desktop edition.
Download Free X1 Desktop Edition

On February 10, 2006 I posted about concerns regarding the Search Across Computers feature of Google’s new desktop search engine. I just found this follow-up to the Google story which I find to be very interesting from the attitude of Google.

“Google told ZDNet UK on Monday that it recognized the risk, and recommended that companies take action. “We recognize that this is a big issue for enterprise. Yes, it’s a risk, and we understand that businesses may be concerned,” said Andy Ku, European marketing manager for Google.”

Ah, but here’s the really not so funny part: Google said that security was the concern of individual businesses.

“The burden falls on enterprises to look after security issues,” Ku said. “Companies can disable the Search Across Computers facility.”

Later in the interview it gets better:

Google said it was unable to comment on the risks posed when individuals share sensitive information. “Some users may, and some users may not be able to,” said Ku, adding that companies should follow their own policies.

“At the end of the day, each company should make its own decision. If they are uncomfortable, they shouldn’t enable the feature,” Ku said. “It’s about what a company deems to be best corporate policy.”

Interesting. So what Google is telling everyone is that they are going to give your employees the ability to transfer your data (and intellectual property) to their servers, but it’s up to you to lock things down if you don’t want this to happen. No wonder IT administrators want to lock everything down so an employee has nothing more than a dumb terminal. Better yet, for the majority of users, attorneys included, who don’t read the End User License Agreement, you wouldn’t know this was happening. It would be different if the default for this feature was off and then Google asked you as part of the installation process if you wanted this feature turned on. It seems that Google’s mantra of “don’t be evil” has a different meaning for Google then for the rest of us.

Fred Faulkner IV has some good tips on web strategies that’s posted to LLRX.com. While the post is really directed towards Firefox , there is also worthwhile information for Internet Explorer users as well. If you star downloading extensions, the one caveat that I would give is to make sure that they are compatible with the latest release of Firefox to prevent any problems.