One of those ongoing questions that new lawyers ask (and even some “old” lawyers) is how to get paid. While there are a number of methods and suggestions that can be found in books, magazines and from me and other practice management advisors, sometimes it’s the sage advice that has the most impact.

Jay Foonberg literally “wrote the book” on building a law practice and his “How to Start and Build a Law Practice” is now on its fifth edition and is packed full of helpful advice. I tell all new lawyers looking to open their own practice to read this book. While I may not agree with everything in it, it is still a valuable resource for getting started. Jay has other books, but seeing is believing with Jay; if you’ve ever attended one of his speaking engagements you understand that he can be entertaining while sharing his knowledge and unique outlook on the practice of law. So spend 2 minutes and check out Jay conveying Foonberg's Rule Cash Up Front here on YouTube. You won’t be disappointed and may learn something about getting paid in the process.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that Bill Gates and Microsoft are the worst thing to happen to our society since the Black plague. This doesn't mean that I'm happy with many of the business practices undertaken by Microsoft or its attempts to prevent competition in many arenas. However, there are somethings that Microsoft is done well in the fact is they capitalized on the personal computer market. By the same token, I don't dislike Apple or its computer products and have always thought that they have held a niche in certain areas of the computing world. As I primarily look at things from a legal perspective, quite simply, there were just more programs available for a Microsoft Windows computing platform than there were for Apple. Until the recent adoption by Apple of the Intel family of processors and the introduction of Bootcamp and Parallels, solutions to allow you to run Windows-based programs on Apple Computer were not an option. But that's all changed.

I keep toying with the idea of purchasing a tablet PC, more particularly a "Slate" version without a keyboard but haven't been overly impressed with the offerings in the PC world for these types of computers. I've also thought that it would be helpful to have a Mac book so I could start familiarizing myself with the world of Apple computers to more intelligently answer questions from those attorneys who use them in their offices. My one big complaint with Steve Job's and Apple has always been a stranglehold they've placed on the computer hardware. I like to tinker with my computer hardware and upgraded as I feel is necessary: this is difficult to do with most Apple Computer's. In fact, I've always joked that you can have your Apple Computer any way you wanted it as long as it's the way Steve Job's wants to sell it to you. This is carried over into the lack of a Mac tablet computer and Apple has not expressed any interest in this market especially since tablet PCs do not currently have a large market share. But leave it to private industry to step in where Apple has failed to tread.

I was doing my daily check of Daily Rotation when I came across the following link from ars technica. It appears that the folks at Axiotron, Inc. have decided to fill a market niche that Apple hasn't: a tablet computer built around the Mac operating system and hardware.

Named the Axiotron ModBook(tm) - The One and Only TabletMac ™, the engineers at Axiotron have created a union between an Apple Macbook and cutting-edge digitizer hardware from Wacom www.wacom.com to create the world's first mass-market Apple tablet computer. Notebook.com has an article and a terrific video highlighting the preproduction model here  . All I can say is WOW!

Running Intel Core 2 Dual processors, up to 3 GB of memory, built-in Wacom digitizer with up to 512 levels of pressure sensitivity, built in iSight camera and optional GPS, I get almost giddy at the possibilities of this computer when joined with Parallels and Windows software applications. Currently, the ModBook is only available OWC (Other World Computing). However, this customization does come at a price: the base model starts at $2279 and quickly can exceed $2500. For those who have to be on the cutting edge of technology, this seems like a small price to pay. My current dilemma is trying to justify this expense. However, the current systems available for slate PC based tablets that are comparably equipped are not exactly inexpensive either.

For now, this is one item going on my "wish list".

For those of you who have been considering trying speech recognition on your computer, now is the time to figuratively "dip your toes in the water".

Nuance, the maker of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, is offering a $100 discount on its Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 9 through May 31, 2007.  Normally selling at $199, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 9, it is on sale for $99 through the end of May by going here and using the following source code: PPRFRD8-PRFRD9_VISTA. It even includes a headset that will plug into your sound card (although I recommend a USB headset) as well as a 30 day moneyback guarantee from the date of purchase.

I would caution you that if you're going to try Dragon, you pay careful attention to the minimum system requirements which Nuance now states are:

System Requirements   

* Intel® Pentium® / 1 GHz processor (for example, Pentium® M, Pentium® 4), or equivalent AMD® processor - Faster processors will yield faster performance   

* 1 GB RAM   

* 2.5  GB free hard disk space   

* Microsoft® Windows® XP (SP1 or higher) Home and Professional, 2000 (SP4 or higher)   

* Creative® Labs Sound Blaster® 16 or equivalent sound card supporting 16-bit recording   

* Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5 or higher (free download available at www.microsoft.com)   

* CD-ROM drive (required for installation)   

* Nuance-approved noise-canceling headset microphone (included)   

* Speakers (required for playback of recorded speech and text to speech features)   

* A web connection is required for activation   

* For Bluetooth wireless microphone support, please visit http://support.nuance.com/compatibility/

You need to pay careful attention to the amount of memory, as this is a memory intensive application. I also strongly recommend that you have a faster processor than what they recommend as this will benefit software performance and minimize the impact on your system resources. 

If you like this product, then you can decide whether you want to upgrade to the Professional version which gives you more features at a considerably higher price; however, I've found that the Preferred version meets the majority of my needs on a daily basis.

For those wondering why I’ve been silent, it was State Bar of Wisconsin annual convention time last week and every waking moment lately was devoted to that event. I’m glad to say that the 2007 convention was a huge success with over 940 attendees, numerous vendor exhibits and terrific CLE.  However, the best thing about the convention is that it’s over.  Now it’s time to play catch up and try to get things back on track here at the office including restarting my regular posts.  Today’s post will be brief, but I think for those that have already converted to Microsoft Windows Vista or are considering Vista, the information will be useful.

Network Computing.com has a series of posts titled “Making the Most of Vista”. The reader will find four separate posts concerning different aspects of Microsoft Vista including ways to tweak built-in features as well as third-party applications such as Firefox.

We have all been asked or wondered at one time or another, how to securely delete data from a hard drive to ensure that it's not recovered by someone else.  Simply erasing the data or deleting it doesn't actually destroy the data, but simply removes the index for where the data is located; until the physical sectors on the hard drive have new data written to them this data still exists. Wikipedia has a good explanation of file shredding here.  For those who want to take absolutely no chance of any confidential information being recovered, the only proper way to ensure this is through destruction of the physical drive itself. This can be accomplished either through the use of a large grinder such as the government uses or through severe percussive impact (think beating it with a sledgehammer and remember to wear safety glasses).  Others prefer to these use a drill to drive through the hard drive or to pound nails through it.  These methods will guarantee the drive cannot be accessed by an unauthorized party; however, it also results in the destruction and usability of the hard drive.

For those who wish to take a less forceful approach, you can use wide array of data destruction utilities such as the free DBAN a.k.a. Darik's Boot and Nuke , or the commercial StompSoft Drive Washer, Nova Development Dry Erase Pro and Acronis Drive Cleanser, to name a few, all of which provide different erasure methodologies including US Department of Defense standards for the erasure and deletion of information. For more information, check out Wikipedia’s explanation here.

PC World has created a relatively short and useful video available on YouTube on how to erase data from your hard drives.

If you’re not up to do it yourself data erasure, you can contract with a company such as EMC to do this for you and provide written certification that the data has been destroyed.