Tech Update

Where has my Saturday gone? Cantata Practice, two hours at the office, and a nap during the Mountaineer basketball game perhaps?

Just wanted to follow up my “Tech Savvy Office” post. I got a helpful tip toward the program Evernote, a cloud based research tool, and my Son John guided me through the process of creating a “public folder” that allowed me to share the photograph dense, six page PDF, 2010 Hunter Family Christmas Newsletter with 100 people. I allowed me to create a shortened URL that I could e-mail. Now I have lost that feature from my toolbar and will have to call him again to help me find it.

As of now, I notice these cloud based programs tend to slow down my computer. Not much problem at the office where I have a high speed cable connection, but noticeable here where we have Hughesnet Satellite. I have been pretty disappointed at the intermittent service problems I have had with Hughesnet, but being 5.2 miles south of the main highway, I have no other choice.

Evernote is great in theory, but so far, in spite of watching several video tutorials, it isn’t intuitive enough for me. I will persevere because I see cloud based computer as the inevitable “new thing”.

Snagit has become easier. I downloaded a new version, and can cut and paste anything from any page. So far it is more useful to me than evernote, although I crave having a listmaker and task list creator that is quicker and less formal than Outlook.

I spent several hours this week consolidating my Pathagorized forms and made and sent to several colleagues templates for a letter we send to clients to help them understand how to respond to our opponents’ “discovery requests” and the four documents that a lawyer needs when she/he needs to withdraw from representing a client. I copied Roy Lazris of Pathagoras.com (designer/president) who was kind enough to respond with observations and tips. So far, that has never happened to me with Bill Gates!

I will be setting up a Pathagoras Form subfolder in my DropBox folder, so anyone I authorize can download a form or upload one for the use of others. I really think it will benefit family law practitioners, and attorneys in small offices who have difficulty finding time to design new office practice systems. This is fun for me, but a real chore for others, parents of young children, lawyers who have failed to keep up with technology, etc.

In the long run, I feel that sharing what I known benefits me as much as the person I share with. It softens a bit my reputation of being tough to deal with. I am tough to deal with versus those how are rough or abusive to my client, NOT to lawyers or parties who show us respect and consideration.

This post was written by Burton Hunter