structured, old-style decision making. One lawyer could do all this, with hopefully some assistance from his or her law firm. It would be well worth the effort, even if the new group did not become a huge success. Imagine the new information the "sponsor" would have in over 12 months of meetings with at least 12 in-depth technology topics discussed in face-to-face meetings in just one year;
(4) The key members who form the core group of the about-to-be "your town/county"-based users group should have a secondary plan to bring the monthly meetings to the attention of the local bar association membership and non-members as well. Use this about-to-be-new resource, as marketing for your city or county-based bar association;
(5) Telephone calls could be made, e-mails sent by individuals in the core group, etc. to promote the users group;
(6) The first few presentations should be especially very carefully chosen and the vendors, if they are vendors, who will "show their stuff," should be required, if possible, to fund the mailing and perhaps offer some refreshments at the users group meeting. The vendor might also want to help with telephone follow-up and additional mailings to others not on the bar association's lists and/or the lists of the core-group lawyers;
(7) The program itself must be almost as good as a Broadway show. The vendor is not there to sell, the vendor is there to educate. And the lawyers who take the lead here must structure the entire presentation and be certain that sales is not a part of the presentation, although implicitly, by asking THIS vendor to show their products, goods and services, and then to discuss same in the group...this is a form of implied endorsement in any event;
(8) A lawyer or lawyer who uses the product must be a part of the presentation and, in FACT, be the leader of the presentation...the VENDOR is there to do the techy stuff and to stand ready to answer all questions about the vendor's offerings.
(9) There should be a "chair," "chair-elect" and secretary, if possible. If the local bar association does not take the lead here, then the individual lawyers who get this going must take the lead and be the be-all, go-to persons for every effort;
(10) Why would any one lawyer do this? Because we all need answers to questions and a once-a-month meeting, carefully planned, will provide a wealth of intelligence in just a few months. Imagine the wisdom garnered after a year or two of meetings;
(11) I'd combine these efforts with a monthly newsletter about the live presentations. The newsletter need not be in hard copy as all lawyers should be on the Internet. Accordingly, the monthly newsletters and more should be published and hosted on a web site, perhaps at your local or county bar association's web site;
(12) Why not video the programs as well and provide streaming video to members only!? Another very valuable benefit for members and non-members...to-be-sure, compare this to what your bar association is doing and/or planning to do. With the correct help from technology vendors interested in becoming known to the legal profession, you might be able to obtain these types of resources and information without charge.
(13) Either your new Web site or your local bar association's web site could also host the "threaded discussion forums" discussed earlier in this article so that topics of up and coming presentations (and presentations from the past) could be discussed, members could discuss the presentation as made, keep discussing the presentation and the concept, and perhaps coming to very significant and very important "conclusions" as to such topics. These informational resources, if retained via threaded discussion forums (and this is one of the main reasons I detest the present use of ListServ "technology), then this very important, member generated wisdom, could be made available to present and new members; and
(14) Participants would also learn about the "good guys" and the "bad guys" in the vendor community. Which vendors know their stuff. Which vendors are reliable. Which vendors really perform well when needed. Which vendors are honest in their pricing and business practices.
The need for lawyers to take control of their destiny
The fact is that most bar associations today are focused on "How we've always done it," compared to the swift and "just-in-time" concept of decision making that is so prevalent in our computerized and Internet society. Lawyers have plenty of problems these days and the economics of law practice are worse today then ever before. We lawyers need to circle the wagons and take control of our lives. Via an awareness of what we want and need and that new and innovative techniques are required to get what we need, the use of threaded discussion forums via the Internet, coupled with user-group meetings and all the other technologies that are available to us means that if we act smart and innovate and dare to be different, that we can take better control of our lives and improve the economics of our law practices.
Paul Bernstein, Esq.
Email: paulbernstein@yahoo.com
Web - law firm: http://www.paulbernstein.com
Web - Innovative: http://www.cyberbarassociation.net
By Alan Pearlman
Iomega...making your stuff better with their stuff!
There are some products in the market place that we can do without, while others just keep getting better and better. Iomega Corporation is one such company that keeps coming up with the best in storage and containment products for both the PC and MAC world!
Just recently Iomega launched the series of products that I want to discuss today. The first in the line is a must have Zip CD Read/Write CD Rom Drive! Priced at a mere $279.95 at most computer stores, this little wonder allows users to record photos from your digital cameras, your original audio creations and play them back in the car or CD player, and downloads from the Internet. You also have the ability to create backups on CD Rom for all your files, as well as share all your personal photos, audio and visual creations and your data and multimedia files with all of your companions!
It comes with Adoptec Easy CD creator for making your own CD's and Adoptec's Direct CD that allows you to drag and drop data files into the CD! It is also hot swappable allowing you to connect it to your computer without the necessity of rebooting. It has the capacity to store up to 650 MB of data (74 minutes of audio) on a single CD-R or unformatted CD-RW disc. Best of all it is USB (universal serial bus) design allow an immediate connection to all usb port computers, and it makes the perfect solution to copy and protect all of your very important files!
If you're looking for a bit smaller storage solution allow me to suggest the new USB port design 250 MB Zip disk! This new superfloppy is now ultra thin and has an easy to use design. This design is actually so small that the unit fits into your pocket with ease. I was amazed at this unit's versatility. Now you have the ability, in a small 250 MB floppy, to back up, save, transport and share all of your valuable files with USBenabled desktop, as well as notebook PC's.
The unit will handle the equivalent of 170 floppy disks and it is backwards compatible allowing for you to use the older 100 MB disks in the new 250 MB unit, thereby allowing you to exchange files with friends using the older design. It is designed to work with both Windows 95 and 98, so you should have no problem be up and running in no time with this drive. Its data transfer rate is about 0.9 MB per second and remarkably you an use it as an external hard drive without the feeling of being slowed down. Again, because of the USB design you have the ability to utilize the product on a Power Mac with equal efficiency to the PC of your choice.
A smaller but note worthy product from Iomega is a new cable for the external one GB and two GB Jaz drives. Until now to use these drive with a notebook or desktop you had to either have an SCSI port on the desktop or have an external SCSI PC card for your notebook slot for it to function properly. Now you can purchase a new JAZ to PC or MAC USB adopter plug. This handy device allows you to plug your Jaz drives into the USB port on your computers and they are hot swappable, meaning no rebooting here either! Suffice it to say that it works in Windows 95/98/NT 4 with any computer that has a USB port!
The next latest development is an amazing little--and I do mean little--device called the Iomega Clik Drive! This little unit the size of a PC card can hold up to 40 MB of information! It is a separate external storage unit, designed for those of us who need about 40 Megs of storage at one time. That's enough to hold most PowerPoint presentations for your notebook. The interesting part of this Clik drive is that if I desire to share any of my information on the drive with any other individual, all I need do is insert the PC card into their computer's PC card slot. The Windows program will see the unit immediately and no software need be installed! This allows me to share whatever is on my Clik disks with anyone and allows them to copy it right onto their hard drives! I saw this put into practical use at a law firm meeting where one of the partners had a presentation on his Clik drive for the other attorneys and after he finished they just passed around the PC card and downloaded the presentation into each notebook with no problems whatsoever! I highly recommend the Clik drive media for those times when you can get away with 40 MB of storage. No need for any cables whatsoever! Just a small PC card in your shirt pocket and off you go!
Now you might just ask what do I do if I need the information from that Clik into my desktop PC. Well fear not for Iomega has thought of you, too. There is a small device that they have just come up with that attaches to your desktop PC. It is called the Clik Accessory reader, and you guessed it, USB and hot swappable! So now you can read your Clik disks right into your desktop PC or MAC unit!
Finally, if you're a digital camera buff like I am and you adore taking all those digital pictures but just don't have enough storage room for all the shots you'd like to take,may I recommend the Iomega Clik 40 for Digital Cameras! This is a small Clik Unit that is battery powered, and again fits in your shirt pocket. The device works with most Smart Media and Compact flash units. The idea is that you take all your pictures that you are able to with the camera. You then remove the Smart Media or Flash Card from your camera, insert it into the Clik portable device and instantly download all the pictures to the Clik drive unit! Now you can empty the flash card and continue to shoot shot after shot! No more bad vibes because you didn't have the ability to get all the pictures you wanted at any one time and no more missed pictures due to a full flash card in your camera. You are limited only by the number of Clik 40 Meg disks you can carry and believe me you an carry lots of them, as they are less than two inches square!
I hope that this little potpourri of storage device items available from Iomega has whet your appetite for just exactly what you can do to provide better and safer methodologies for storing your very volatile and confidential information. I know that everyday I use most all of these products in my practice to make sure that I have the right type of storage for the right job ahead of me. I think that after you check out this product line you will agree that while Iomega's motto has always been "its your stuff," you're really gonna like their stuff!
Facts
Iomega products can be found in most computer stores around the country and also on the Web and www.Iomega.com or call 1-800-my-stuff!
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Copyright 2000 © Alan Pearlman "The Electronic Lawyer" ™ - all rights reserved
By Alan Pearlman
C-Pen...a new design in personal handheld scanners
Last month I told you about an exciting new scanner to take care of all your business card needs. Well this month we take the scanner idea one step further with a brand new and innovative piece of hardware that I think the legal marketplace will embrace.
The item I am referring to is called the C-Pen, made by C Technologies US Inc., in Duluth, Ga. The C-Pen is about the size of a magic marker and approximately one inch wide. It is a handheld scanner that will instantaneously make you more productive in your practice! It scans, stores and transmits text in a very accurate fashion at anyplace or time!
How would you like to be able to remember all the things that you read during the day that are of importance to you? Books, letters, newspapers and business journals, as well as the names and addresses on the stack of business cards you receive. With the C-pen you have a state-of-the-art, handheld scanner, just slightly larger than a pen! The scanner captures, stores, and transmits the information you save to anyplace you desire.
If that is not enough for you, the C-Pen will remember and organize any text that you can then transfer wirelessly to your Palm Devices, PDA, laptop or even a download to your computer! No longer do you have to find the need to take notes or clip any articles again and thereby making your working day a more productive experience!
The unit is surprisingly small, 5" x 1 3/8" x 1", and comes in two models, the 600C which can store 2,000 pages of text and has a six Mb of flash memory or the model 800C which can hold 3,000 pages and has an 8Mb flash memory. I opted for the 800C which has a slightly larger display screen (seven rows LCD as opposed to four rows) and also is a rechargeable nickel metal hydrate battery, instead of using two AAA batteries, as in the 600C.
My unit has a number of nice features to it. It comes pre-installed with several programs. C-Read allows the user to move the pen over a line of text and the text appears instantly on the display. You then click to save the text, which is also computer editable by you! C-Beam lets you send directly to any Palm or PDA, or for that matter, any IR equipped device, thereby allowing you to share anything you have stored with your colleagues. I personally like the fact that I now have the ability to scan in your business card as I hold it in my hand and then simply infrared it to my Jornada Pocket PC!
The C-Address program allows the scanning of all business cards and addresses, which in addition to beaming, you now have the ability to sync it with Microsoft Outlook. The C-Direct application allows the user the ability to scan text directly into your PC in any windows application. You have the ability to do quick edits and write individual characters with the C-Write program, and, with the 800C model you also get a C-Calendar, which enables the user to organize and keep your schedule and appointments right there on your C-Pen, in daily, weekly or monthly view!
In addition to all of these fine features and programs, the C-Pen gives you the bonus of a free Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. It really is a breeze to use. Just move the pen over a word you want to find the meaning of and click the dictionary. Lo and behold the entire set of definitions for the word is visible to you on your C-Pen screen! This tool alone makes the C-Pen a more beneficial scanning device.
I must admit that when I first looked at the C-Pen I was more than a bit skeptical as to how and why I would use the device, not to mention if it would really perform as the company had claimed. But after working with the unit for five days, I am thoroughly convinced that the C-Pen will have a permanent place in my arsenal of legal tools. The unit outperformed any of my expectations and it has a very decent (approx. 97 percent) capture/accuracy rate, which gave me little to no trouble working with.
Most, if not all of us, are coming to see the benefits that scanning has brought to the legal community in the last few years and today many of the same professionals are in agreement that the C-Pen can give you the convenience of capturing information on the go, with a great deal of time savings.
I am really now a true believer in the worth of this small but mighty product. If you are anything like me when it comes to trying to capture information and save time all at once, then I can highly recommend that you purchase a C-Pen for yourself and in short order you will be scanning more and more on the go than you have ever imagined you would!
Facts
C-Pen is a product of C Technologies US Inc. For more information call 1-877-ASKCPEN or visit them at www.cpen.com.
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© 2001 - Alan Pearlman "The Electronic Lawyer" All Rights Reserved
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