Thanksgiving is almost upon us - you know way too much food, lots of desserts and footbal. Its a time that we can contemplate how lucky we  are to live in this great country and for our prosperity. But Thanksgiving is more, its the day BEFORE Black Friday. The Friday after Thanksgiving is the day that all retailers let loose their holiday sales efforts and include "special" deals that are available only for a short time and in limited quantities. I'm talking about the 5 laptops for $299.99 or the digital camcorder for $129.00 with the doors opening at 5 AM. Many of us will brave the wee hours of the darkness to stand in line to get our hands on these deals that can't be passed up.

For the real Black Friday junkies, there are a couple of websites that you can check in advance to see what the sales flyers contain in advance of the Thursday paper. For the die hard bargain shoppers in all of us check out: Black Friday @ GottaDeal.com  or Black Friday Ads    

You can find out early t hat CompUSA is going to offer an HP notebook as an early bird special for $299.00 after rebate. Or get a 15" LCD TV at Best Buy for $129.99. There is sure to be something for everyone. So get into the shopping season with a leg up this year and check out these sites now. Why fight over the Thursday ads.

The clock is counting down to the first Wisconsin Solo, Small Firm & Technology Conference  being held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 16th through 17th at the Milwaukee Wyndham Hotel. The list of speakers reads like a "Who's Who" of local and national speakers on a variety of substantive, practice management and legal technology topics.

Now granted, this post is a bit of a "sales pitch" as I am speaking at the event and the State Bar of Wisconsin is one of the co-sponsors for the event. I'm excited to be speaking during several sessions including the opening plenary session with Ross Kodner, Fred Lederer, Dustin Cole and David Bilinsky on our 25 tech and practice management predictions for small firms. After that the day and a half conference is jam packed with something for everyone. In addition to two more plenary sessions including Fred Lederer's  keynote on The Automated Courtroom and Electronic Litigations - What's Here Now and Where its Going during Thursday's Lunch (included with registration), Attendees can choose to attend sessions from any of the four tracks:

Track 1: Substantive Law

Track 2: Best Practice Management

Track 3: Technology

Track 4: Litigation Practices / MBA in a Day

This is a conference focusing on the success of your law practice. With a spectacular faculty including four top national speakers, expect direct, no-nonsense advice on how to better serve your clients, maximize your financial success and improve the quality of your life. It's all practical information that you can take back to your office and put to use right away.

Check out the program schedule and you''ll see that there are numerous substantive law sessions, practical information about running your law practice as a business, reducing your malpractice risk, how to develop more client business, how to better manage your time and your staff, and of course a broad range of legal technology educational sessions. We'll explore myriad ways to integrate technology into your practice, in a cost-effective and eminently practical way. Programs cover everything from legal case managements systems, to using PDF's; from electronic discovery and litigation for small firms to our always popular 60 Tips, Gadgets and Websites sessions: you'll see first hand how to use these programs to streamline your practice, thrill your clients, maximize your profits, and get out of the office so you can actually have a life!

We will be applying for both Minnesota and Illinois CLE credits, so if you're in Illinois or licensed in Minnesota, come spend a day and a half earning credits and connecting with your peers at a really reasonable cost! Registration is still open and walk-ins are welcome.

Hope to see you there. 

As we see more and more consolidation in the software industry, with Microsoft continuing to move through the software marketplace like an unstoppable juggernaut while adding features to its core software typically handled by other products, we again need to ask ourselves is there a place for simple programs that may only do one thing? to me, the answer to this question is still yes.

I think it's critical to this question to define what exactly I'm talking about.  Generally, I like to break computer software down into 3 broad categories of software:

1) Operating Systems (OS) 2) Applications (including the "Big 3" program types i.e. word processing, case/matter management, time and billing) and 3) Utilities. The OS is the engine that drives the computer.  Applications are the tires, steering, seats and basic things that let you harness and use the OS engine. The difference between the basic model and the sports car is often times the "extras", those things that make driving so much more enjoyable. Many times, a simple, single purpose program can make working on a computer much easier then navigating the morass of OS or application features, even though the OS or Application software may include utility programs to simplify operations.

I generally classify utility programs as follows: a utility program is a small useful program with limited capability. It is often difficult to classify and may be included as part of a larger software package or may be a stand alone program. Utility programs may offer services in addition to those offered by your Operating System or may provide completely autonomous functions and services such as spell checking, data back-up, indexing and full text searching and more. The Bottom line - a utility program is a program that makes your life easier by providing an easier or more efficient way for you to accomplish a task at a reasonable cost when weighed against the expense of achieving the same results without it.  One such utility is Alt- tab Thingy

Alt- tab Thingy is a free replacement for Microsoft Windows Alt Tab key commendation for moving between open programs and windows.  While the basic capabilities built- into the Windows OS are adequate, Alt-tab Thingy supercharges the basic capabilities found in Windows and gives you much more accurate and user-friendly control over the process of switching between open programs and windows.

As shown here, you can opt for a much larger screenshot view

 or a detailed list with associated screen image making it much easier to navigate using the Alt and Tab keys.

In addition, you can also have a program provide a small screenshot of the programs currently opened in the Windows taskbar.

Changes to the settings are made from the settings window which contains tabs and clearly delineated choices on each of them for program options as shown here:

Alt Tab Thingy is a definite improvement to Windows own Alt Tab window switching and for the price, it can't be beat.