COMPUTERS AND YOUR OFFICE
Buying the right computer and hardware for the office is a difficult process.
After investing in many computers and thousands of dollars of software, and
trial and error, this article should provide some helpful insight.
Modems and the Internet
With the internet's rich resources, anything from buying books and software
and legal research, accessing the internet through a dial up modem will soon
become a thing of the past for most small businesses. After investing in the
hardware and software to upgrade our internet connection to a T1 line (similar
to DSL-digital subscriber line), people here though we might have spent too much
money. After using our new high speed line for a couple of weeks, everyone was
convinced that it was one of the best investments we made. You can test your
internet connection speed at http://www.toast.net/performance/index.html
Your business will not be able to fully utilize the internet through a dial up
modem. Web based legal research is slow and cumbersome and it takes too much to
do research. Sending documents and files through e-mail can take a long time
through your regular dial up modem. Internet access up to 50 times faster than
your standard modem connection, over your basic standard telephones -- plus you
can talk on the phone and be on the Internet at the same time. Most businesses
are upgrading to DSL now. Pacific Bell (http://public.pacbell.net/) is offering
affordable DSL packages. Earthlink (http://www.earthlink.net/)
also offers DSL.
Most computers and computer programs are sold to the public with certain
glitches or bugs. DSL technology will also be essential for those who want to
download program updates and download programs from the internet because dial-up
modems are slow and tend to disconnect on large downloads. Your time is to
valuable to go through many attempts at a download or wait for a long time to
download anything.
Microsoft office 2000
I had been beta testing the premium office 2000 from Microsoft, which like
its recent predecessors, consists of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and
Outlook, plus dozens of applets such as a clip-art manager, photo editor, and
file finder, as well as the Binder application that combines files from Word,
Excel, and PowerPoint into a single document. The final version was released on
June 10, 1999.
By making HTML a principal format, Office 2000 applications let users mix and
match HTML file formats with Microsoft's proprietary file formats, thus blurring
the line between documents created for the Web and those intended solely for
printing. This is powerful technology, but users will need extensive training
before they can tap into the full potential of publishing hyperlinked documents
on an intranet or the Web.
The introduction of HTML as a standard format for Office documents, the
vastly improved file management through new Open and Save dialogs, innovative
Internet-based collaboration features; and a menu system redesigned to increase
ease of use may be seen by many as essential, but for the legal office is
probably unnecessary.
The new versions of Corel WordPerfect Suite and Lotus SmartSuite may continue
to surpass Office in many aspects of file formatting, collaboration, and ease of
use. Corel's recent introduction of its WordPerfect 2000 application suite this
month leads the way toward Web-enabling the general business user with the
inclusion of its NetPerfect and Trellix Corp.'s Web publishing technologies
throughout the suite.
The most useful aspects of office 2000 is the ability to properly handle
different file formats. For example, loading a wordperfect file in word 2000 was
easy and the formatting was almost identical.
E-mail software and Calendars
Outlook express comes with most systems, but it can be downloaded for free
through the internet at microsoft's web site. The latest version of outlook
express (5) runs clean and runs quick. Outlook, microsoft's attempt to integrate
a calendar, contact database and e-mail, has had it problems with earlier
versions. Outlook 97, the first version, was difficult to use and I gave up on
it. Then I went to Outlook 98 and that was a big improvement, but there were
still some problems with it. I continued to use Outlook 98 despite its problems
because of its high functionality. Among some of the features of Outlook: beep
you when you have appointments, keep track of all your contacts, manage your
e-mail, keep track of all reoccurring appointments. In my opinion Outlook 2000
is the premier program to use for e-mail and time management.
Eudora light and Eudora are solid e-mail programs, but they will not do what
Outlook will do. Web based e-mail, such as hotmail, is easy and many people use
for it retaining anonymity. However, I have found there to be problems in
sending attachments through web based e-mail. Hotmail and other companies have
been making the improvements.
Word processing
The two word processing packages used by lawyers are Wordperfect and MS word.
The latest version of word probably integrates better with the internet (you can
download html pages directly into word and it the conversion is done for you by
Word). Wordperfect documents can also be saved in HTML format, but it is weaker
than word when it comes to downloading pages from the internet and handling
graphics.
Wordperfect for many people is easier to use and is more than adequate. Newer
computer users will prefer Wordperfect. And in most cases Wordperfect probably
does a better job at producing better looking pleading documents. Although Word
has some a wizard interface that will produce various pleading for you.
Industry specific software
There is always software specific and necessary to your industry. We use
specialized tax software to prepare our tax returns. Bankruptcy attorneys have
specialized software to easily prepare bankruptcy petitions.
Most legal research now comes either through the internet or on CD-rom. Internet
based legal research will be frustrating if you are using a dial up modem unless
you know exactly what you are looking for. So if you use a dial up modem, you
will be better of CD-Rom software. Both your cases retrieved from the internet
and CD roms will integrate well with either Word or Wordperfect. I have found
that some CD Rom legal research works well with Word and other with Wordperfect.
Web building software
Few lawyers have web sites and many of them fail to timely respond to my
e-mails. When you finally decide to put up your web site, I will suggest that
you prepare your web site in house. While the experience of professional
webmaster will be needed for most, the website should reside in your office
computer so that you can frequently make updates and provide timely information
to your clients and others accessing your web site.
Our website provides forms to download, free downloads of tax compilation
software, and other useful information. Many think that a web site may not be
needed. However, as more clients become internet savoy and communicate through
e-mail, it makes it very easy to get a referral from your web site. Existing
happy clients with the click of a button can send information about your company
to one of their colleagues.
Frontpage and adobe have web building software. I prefer using Frontpage,
although it may take longer to learn. Trying to write a web site from scratch in
HTML will not be feasible for most lawyers because they do not have the time.
With the wizard that comes with Frontpage you can create a web site in a matter
of minutes by just plugging in certain information.
Other software
The legal office will also want the acrobat reader and quickbooks. The
acrobat reader is part of a software package called adobe acrobat, which
includes other programs. The reader is limited in functionality but it will
allow you to read files in pdf (portable document format) format. If you want to
modify, save and create forms, you will need to buy the adobe acrobat. Federal
government agencies, such as the IRS, and most other state agencies provide free
downloads of their forms in pdf format. Judicial council forms are also
available is pdf format.
Quickbooks will keep track of your law office expenses and allow you to
adequately account for you trust account activity. For personal injury
attorneys, Quickbooks can also track your capitalized and currently expensed
client costs. If you can write check on your computer, you can use Quickbooks. I
especially like quickbooks because of its integration with Microsoft Excel.
If you send multiple documents vi e-mail you will want to get a program
called Winzip. This program shrinks the size of the file and will literally
allow you zip up a number of files or documents and send them via e-mail. You
can get this file from the winzip web site and download it for 29 dollars.
Hardware
It gets confusing deciding how much RAM (Random Access Memory), hard drive
space, and megahertz. Most of the higher end and powerful computers are more
than the legal office will need.
Upgrading your systems will improve performance and defer having to buy
another system. Most upgrades are easy and relatively inexpensive. As with any
upgrade you must check the compatibility between your system and the proposed
upgrade. Additional RAM is probably the easiest and least expensive of the
upgrade. You will get the most from your money from this upgrade. You must know
the specifications of your existing RAM because the additional RAM chip that you
buy must be compatible with your existing RAM specifications. CPU upgrades will
also improve performance. But before you do any CPU upgrade, do your research.
Is some cases you may have to make adjustments on the motherboard and download
additional software. If you are uncomfortable with this update, you should have
a technician come to your office and make the installation.
The legal office will want at the least 64 megabytes of RAM. For those office
who access the internet and use CD Roms for research 128 megabytes of RAM is
ultimately preferable. You can go to http://www.mcglen.com/mcglenweb/
and http://www.crucial.com/ to shop for
RAM updates specific to your computer. Before you do any upgrade check the web
site of your computer manufacturer. If you are planning to upgrade your CPU, you
can visit http://www.powerleap.com/. A
local computer company which we use can be found at http://www.r-tech.com/.
R-Tech can give you fast and competent support when you purchase parts from
them.
Other equipment
Scanners are now very inexpensive. Some are as low as 100 dollars. A scanner is
nice to have around the office and it is relative easy to use.
CD Rom are now writeable and can store up to 650 megabytes of information.
Iomega now has zips drive with up to 250 Megabytes of capacity. When you buy a
computer, a zip drive is essential and will only cost you 100 or so dollars
extra.
Hewlett Packard is the most reliable and powerful laser printer. If you are
printing many pages you can spend around $1,200 for dollars for one that prints
up to 17 pages per minute. In our office there is nothing else. Their support
has been good and the machines have never broken down.
Browsers
Netscape and Internet Explorer are the premier browsers. Netscape is now at
4.51 and Internet explorer is up 5.0. You can get both for free on the internet.
Both are comparable Internet explorer integrates better with front page and
word, and thus for that reason I prefer it. Each browser gets better with each
release.
Each browser has an html editor as a companion. Netscape uses a program called
composer and internet explorer uses frontpage express. Both composer and
frontpage will adequately allow you to generate HTML (hyper text mark-up
language) internet documents, similar to how a word processor generate a word
processing document. HTML documents are useful because you do not need to worry
whether the client has compatible software because both netscape and explorer
will be able to read any HTML document.
Books and training software
Many companies are offering multimedia training videos on various software
programs. The two main features you will want are comprehensiveness and the
ability to fast forward. The ability to fast forward is beneficial so that you
can go any point in lesson without having to watch what you already know. You
can go to http://www.vtco.com/vtcusa/
and http://www.learnkey.com/cgi/vlink.
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