People have this thing for PowerPoint presentations; they feel a need to do them for just about anything. I personally don’t have much need for PowerPoint, but I understand how they can come in handy.

the problem is that PowerPoint invariably involves lugging around a laptop and, more often than not, a digital projector. I came across a really cool tip from Steve Rubel that discussed a software product called iPresent It. This software, which is available for the Mac and PC, lets you upload and run PowerPoint and PDF presentations from your iPod using a video cable attached to the digital projector.
A really nifty side benefit of having your presentations on your iPod is that you can easily practice them while you travel. And for those of us who use video presentations for our clients to explain how bankruptcy works, imagine the impact of giving your client an iPod in the waiting area.

Sorry, nano users – it won’t work for you.

This is the first in a series of posts about using e-mail more productively in your office.

We all get a ton of e-mail every day.  Clients, colleagues, listservs, and a whole bunch of junk mail.  What is a busy bankruptcy lawyers to do with all of it?

First off, I use Thunderbird for my e-mail client.  I used Outlook for a long time, but grew weary of the complexity and lack of flexibility in the program.  When I want e-mail, that’s all I want.  I don’t want some half-hearted attempt at contact management, a lame calendar, and a bunch of whistles and bells that don’t perform the way I want them to.

Let it never be said that Thunderbird is anything but a strong application.  It includes an adaptive spam filter, rules management, and – best of all – a host of add-ons (called Extensions) that make my life so much easier and increase the functionality of the program.  I can use different signatures even within the same e-mail address, add templated responses, sync with my Palm, the works.  It’s small, doesn’t crash nearly as often as it’s Microsoft counterparts, and can be backed up quickly in case my computer crashes and I need to re-install everything.

Check out this blog post about extending Thunderbird.  You can also search for Thunderbird extensions on your own, and be amazed at all the cool stuff you can do.

I hate paper. Hate ordering it, hate unpacking it, hate storing it, hate disposing of it. It’s all so temporary. I also drink a lot of coffee, which makes paper an easy target for spills. And it’s embarrassing to dump a cup of java all over those important motion papers.

One trick I learned to reduce paper is to kill off one of the main sources of tree-killing consumption – the fax machine. For over a decade I’d dreaded the prospect of having to fax out a document. Print pages, get out of my seat, walk over to the fax machine, dial the numbers, drum fingers impatiently on table as the pages went through, wait for delivery, wait for confirmation, wait, wait, wait. In total, about 5-10 minutes was wasted on a fax, never to be recouped.

Then I came across MaxEMail, a wonderful product that allows me to send faxes from my e-mail program as PDF attachments, and to receive the same way. I was in love with the idea of never wasting another minute on that awful monster of a fax machine.

Mind you, I didn’t get rid of the fax line immediately. No, I tested MaxEMail out for a good two years before I took the plunge. Really worked the heck out of it, made sure it stood up.

One terrific thing about MaxEMail is that it allows you to have the faxes sent to more than one e-mail address. I set mine up to send faxes to my main e-mail address as well as a special GMail address. This way I know that I can always find a fax if I accidentially delete it.

The one cruddy thing about this PDF faxing was that I still needed to print out documents when signatures were required. Curse the wet ink signature!

Ah, but no more. Now when I get a fax all I do is open it in Adobe Acrobat. I use Acrobat’s “Signature” feature to digitally sign the document. I re-save the document, turn around, and fax it back out.

Is it faster to print out the fax, sign it and send it back? Maybe the first time, but once you’ve set up a digital signature in Adobe Acrobat it takes no more than a few clicks to turn around this document.

Learn how to set up a digital signature in Adobe Acrobat 7.0 by clicking here.

Lots of attorneys use Gmail in the law office; it’s handy, has enormous storage capacity, and is generally a handy tool for organizing your life.

Wait, your life? Hang on a second, I thought Gmail was for your e-mail! Not so, kind reader. See, using a few tips and tricks you can make Gmail work to your advantage.

Take, for example, the To-Do List. Ah, the list of things one must get done and has not yet gotten done. Or random Notes (Which I call “NTS”, or “Notes To Self.” They used to begin, “Dear Self,” but I am now on more familiar terms with myself).

The key is PLUSSING. No, not a carnal activity. Plussing means that if your address is maryhadda@gmail.com, you can receive e-mail at maryhadda+littlelamb@gmail.com or maryhadda+longaddress@gmail.com, etc.

Why is this useful? Well, Mary (or you!) could use the base address for mailing lists (“maryhadda+lists”), and another for shopping online (“maryhadda+shopping”) and so on, and then create filters to put useful labels on the different types of mail.

Let’s say you want to set up Gmail to allow you to take notes. You would create username+notes@gmail.com. Then create a label called “Notes” in Gmail as well as a filter that adds the ‘Notes’ label to any incoming email addressed to username+notes@gmail.com. By checking the “Skip The Inbox” (Archive mail) option, your ‘Notes’ mails will not show up in you Inbox but simply await use in the archive.

To file a note from another email account (or have a friend do so), simply send the information in a mail to username+notes@gmail.com with a suitable subject title to help recall.

To file a note from your own gmail account, simply compose the note with a suitable subject title to help recall and select the Notes contact with the username+notes@gmail.com created in step 1 before sending to yourself.

To access a note mail previously saved in this way, simply click on the ‘Notes’ label in the left-hand pane of the main view (or elsewhere) to see all your Notes.