Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Multiple Monitors

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Dec_16/ai_n15949508



This is one of many articles about the trend towards dual monitors. I must say that as a web developer I do not think I could function with only one. Must computers now are shipping with dual monitor capability and if they are not a replacement graphics card can be found for $80 which does.



Monitors as well have come down in price making it even easier to justify the costs. The caveat I would make is that your users have to be savvy enough to utilize the increased space not just clutter it with more pictures of their friends or animals.



I am not sure we could justify it firm-wide but take an extra monitor you have lying around and have your Legal Administrator, IT Manager, or Managing Partner give it a try.



HOWTO:



If you have a laptop it has a monitor port it is blue and looks like this:

If you have a desktop and you see 2 of these then you are in luck. It is also likely you have one of these and a scary looking white connector. That is called DVI. For a few dollars you can buy a DVI to VGA converter to make it resemble this picture and your monitor cable.

In Windows "rcight click" on your desktop and select properties.

then the "Settings tab"

You will see both of your monitors in the window. Click on the one with a "2" and check the box which says "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor"

Thats it!

For a great companion program called UltraMon goto:http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

The best thing about this is it adds small icons to the left of your usual "min, max,close" options in the upper right of each window. One icon tells the computer to open that window on the other monitor the other icon tells it to stretch the window across both.

Advice: Buy matching monitors in size and brand. Get 17 to 19 inch monitors with very very thin edges to when the 2 stand together there isn't a big gab. You can also buy stands which mount them together if you want.

Back up and Recovery options

I will be blogging on our backup and recovery revamp we have done recently. If you heard me speaking about it this week and just want the basic info here it is for now, more as we deploy the system.

EVault is the company.
www.evault.com
Contact: Matt Burskey, 312-291-3003

The short version is they are not the cheapest backup solution but if your data is important to you this company can deliver for law firms I believe. Feel free to contact me directly with any questions pmh@b-rlaw.com.

Paper - less Office Part 1

This is the first of many posts on our firm's transition to a less paper office. I just came back from an excellent presentation by another firm on their transition. I will see if I can get permission to share some of their great ideas and challenges.

I wanted to first post that when thinking of the technology impact of a more electronic office think first of how you will handle the volume of data. For our firm this meant adding more hard drives and making sure we had a backup system which was able to scale with our increased data demands. More on the backup solution we came up with in another post.

The next step from a purely hardware side (note policies and buy-in are probably come before this chronologically but for my purposes today I am dealing with hardware) is selecting scanners. This really is a business process issue if you currently have people used to going to main copiers and need to still make copies then looking into adding onto or leasing copiers with higher end document scanners built in is an excellent idea. If, however, staff process mail at their desk, desktop scanners are an excellent option.

Desktop scanners used to be single sheet fed or barely ADF machines that did a terrible job. Time and technology growth in the million dollar scanning industry have brought better products to market. The 2 I have focused in on are the Xerox Documate 152 and the Fujitsu S500. Both can be found for between $400-$500 with software. Both come with Adobe products which off the shelf cost as much or more then the machines themselves. These really are fantastic deals for decent machines.

I have seen the Fujistu product in action and the things right now that have me leaning that direction are its ability to deal with lots of paper types. This machine can handle small pieces of glossy paper all the way to legal documents. It orients them automatically, scans both sides and adjusts to color or black and white all on the fly. The documents can also be OCR'd as they are being scanned. I will get into the benefits and pitfalls of individual machines doing this process at a later time. Properly configured this little machine can make searchable PDF's of about anything very quickly all at the staff members desk. I encourage people to find reps for Xerox and Fujitsu and go see these machines in action because they will get a lot of use if you can convince people to use them.

More to follow on growing your own cost effective paperless office system....

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Legal Online Marketing

Below is an article I wrote for a local chapter of ALA on legal marketing. Tomorrow I will post the top 10 questions you should ask of a person or company before choosing them to help you with your legal SEO, SEM or other online marketing effort. When Toby Brown provided me with a list of questions to ask of online backup systems I found that more useful then any number of articles because it gave me a road map for how I can do by own diligence in finding the best solution for my organization.

Checking Your Homework: Does Your Legal Website Make the Grade?
By: Paul Hager, IT Manager Balisle & Roberson S.C.

I often hear lawyers talk about how there is no way they could ever be in the top 10 on Google or Yahoo’s search engine rankings. Excuses abound for not making an online marketing effort, the most common being that we don’t have the money or resources. Almost everyone, however, can have success on the Internet with careful and targeted Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This phrase has gotten a lot of use in the last five years as search marketing companies are becoming recognized as true marketing professionals. As with all industries, there are a range of talents. Unfortunately you can find companies sending out emails saying they can get you on the top 10 on Google overnight! Stay away from fancy promises. Marketing online, especially for lawyers, needs to be done carefully and in line with your business model. Even if you market your business successfully you must have the business structures in place to handle the new growth in a positive and profitable manner.
The first step in online marketing has nothing to do with computers or fancy code. The task is to establish what keywords or search terms are most relevant to your customers. The most important thing to realize is that if you are a family law firm, your goal should not be to be listed in the top 10 on Google for just the phrase "family law". While it is a fine goal, you are not only competing against lawyer sites but commercial and junk sites as well. With some work and assistance from outside marketing help, you could probably be successful in this broad term. It is, however, more beneficial if you can be found under "Wisconsin Family Law Attorney". This is a very relevant search since anyone who types that in is more likely to be searching for an attorney to hire in their local area then someone simply enters a generic phrase. You will be surprised who comes up under these terms and how many times they are used in a month. If your site can capture all 30 searches in a month under these terms, you will get a greater ROI then getting 1,000 hits from a broad term that people immediately leave the site when they realize its an attorney.
What goes into search engine rankings? If I knew every part then I would be a rich person. Search Engines use complex algorithms to categorize and rank websites. These may include things like having compliant code, using HTML or PHP code instead of ASPX or ASP. Having alternate image tags, keywords in the META tags at the top of each page, and page titles to list a few. While these changes may not boost you to the top of the rankings, take a look at your website and decide whether you measure up:
1) Is the website easy to navigate? An attorneys’ goal is a contact or a phone call. Is there a contact form or phone number on EVERY page?
2) Is the site picture heavy? Very pretty sites can be very bad for search engines. Search engine "spiders" or "bots" are not intelligent. They cannot see pictures and read the page from the code side going from the top down. Using a basic browser like Lynx Viewer can help you see your site through the eyes of a bot. If your site no longer makes sense then it is not making sense to the bots.
3) The page title should be very descriptive. For example, do not use "Welcome to my website" instead use: "Family Law Attorney - Wisconsin Divorce Lawyers - Balisle & Roberson - Divorce Home." The title should change from page to page as well. Home should change to a subject heading, for example the military divorce page the title should now include the word "military" as well.
4) Links, Links, Links. Getting websites that are relevant to your area of practice to link to your site will have the greatest impact. This takes time and patience and involves finding free directories, paid directories, and individual sites to link to your page. HINT: See who links to your competitors and make sure you have links from the same sites and more.
5) META keywords and description. Similar to the title, this code is hidden at the top of each page should list the keywords you are attempting to target with Search Engines. Put the most important ones first in the list. This used to be the most important factor before people learned what value Search Engines provided businesses. Today this is downgraded in importance, but should be done.
6) Content is king. You must provide examples to customers demonstrating that you know what you are doing in your field. Posting articles that you have written that use those same keywords we picked out earlier. This will show clients your expertise and show the search engines that you are relevant. This can take time, but it is a great opportunity for associates and paralegals to research and write articles that can be picked up by publishers on the Internet and that increase your firm’s brand and web position.
Ask yourself and your expense reports whether you are getting your value from Yellow Page advertising and other print ads. The Internet is increasingly becoming the only place people go to find their next professional or next product to buy. Increased marketing success for law firms may depend on their ability to stay ahead in this changing environment.
NOTE: The State Bar in all 50 states have different restrictions and regulations on what types of advertising lawyers can do and how they go about it. Check with the State Bar ethics committee in your area for the complete list of rules and clarifications.

Welcome

Welcome anyone in cyberland as I mark my first post to my legal technology blog. I have been in the technology management industry for over 8 years now and love to read blogs but never taken the plunge. Thanks to those of you who have encouraged me to get this started. I will try to post some of the items I have already written to give this site a kick start.

Keep in mind that I am a "tech guy" and not an author by any means. So you will have to excuse the grammar and spelling errors which are sure to follow.

Hope you subscribe and comment often as I hope this is a resource to those who are in technology and those who wish they understood it.

Thank you

Paul