You’re using video as part of your legal marketing plan, and it’s going great. You’re taking all the right advice, getting more clients into your office based on the persuasive power of your video marketing.
Well done, but you’re not there yet.
What you want to do is embed those YouTube videos onto your blog or WordPress site. This way, visitors to your blog will get your marketing message in yet another venue.
Watch this video and learn how it’s done:
More and more lawyers are using their laptops to access information and work remotely. Though Internet access is readily available at many coffee shops and airports, the charge for connectivity can be extreme. And when you need to hop online for only an hour, paying the full day-rate seems wasteful.
For some, the answer is getting one of those neat little wi-fi cards from the cell phone company. But these, too, often cost $25-$50 per month plus the hardware costs (unless you can get a freebie from the company). Up until now, most lawyers have only dreamed of being able to use their iPhone as a means of getting connected to the Internet with their laptop.
Other cell phones can do this and the feature is enabled (but not activated) in the latest version of the iPhone OS.
I did just that recently. Pressed for time, I needed to send an email with substantial attachments to a Chapter 7 Trustee in a client’s case. I had a 45 minute drive ahead of me to get to Court and the calendar call was in 30 minutes. So I belted my MacBook Pro into the passenger seat with the lid open, connected the laptop to the iPhone by BlueTooth and set my email program sending that email out. Strapped myself into the driver’s seat and headed off to court some 35 miles away. By the time I got to Court, the email had been sent over the G3 cell network and the Trustee had acknowledged receipt by return email!
Next time, I’m going to extend this feat by making a phone call through my car’s handsfree connection while emailing through the laptop at the same time. You can activate the tethering feature in your iPhone easily.
How many things can you do at once?
Note that this tutorial was valid and wonderful in 2009 when originally published. iOS has evolved significantly, to the extent that there are many other means of tethering your iOS device – including ponying up a few bucks to the carrier each month or buying an app. This article is current, so don’t try this at home.
Tethering is the process by which you can connect your cell phone to a computer as a method of connecting to the internet. This is most helpful when there is no WiFi available and there is no other internet access. Tethering is built into the latest version of the iPhone OS. You can set it up without hacking or “jail-breaking” the iPhone.
Follow the step by step instructions here:
Now the steps for a Windows machine are a little different requiring trips to the Control Panels folder, but the concepts are the same.
You can undo the process at any time by going in your iPhone Settings -> General -> Profile -> Remove ATT profile and restart the iPhone. If you want to use USB instead of BlueTooth, skip all the BlueTooth steps and just click on WiFi in the upper right-hand menu bar, open Network Preference and choose Ethernet Adaptor (en5). Everything installs itself.
USB tethering is automatic when you plug the iPhone into the laptop using the USB cable. You will see a blue bar at the top of the iPhone screen that says internet Tethering. A few warnings though: AT&T doesn’t currently support tethering so don’t expect to call them or Apple for help; and the lastest beta version of the iPhone OS (3.1) is rumored to disable tethering until AT&T can figure out a way to charge for it.
Ever watch a YouTube video and wish you could just save it and keep it on your hard drive?
You can.
Watch this video and see how easy it is.
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I’ve been pulling my hair out lately trying to fix my version of PCLaw, a comprehensive practice management solution for both daily client management and back office accounting (which replaces Quickbooks.)
PCLAW is a bit glitchy at times and while their support is excellent, the annual maintenacne support costs have shot up quite a bit since Lexis bought the rights to the software.
So I’m looking for the next best comprehensive solution and would prefer web based options over downloadable software.
Clio has shown serious promise however, I still need at a minimum, a proper Quickbooks export or some other back office accounting solution to work seamlessly with Clio.
Rocket Matter has what appears to be a great product as well, however they apparently have no option for a free trial account (though they do offer a free guided demo preview but I prefer to tinker around myself.) They have also increased their pricing across the board which is probably good for business but makes me hesitate. I would probably need 3 accounts which would run about $160/month! Too rich for my taste but nevertheless a solid product I’m sure.
I chatted over email with Andrew Flusche about his choice to go with Freshbooks but I prefer to have my an integrated trust accounting system built in.
Here’s what I need:
1. Client/Contact Management
2. Daily income/expense tracking
3. Attractive, user friendly note taking system
4. Integrated back office accounting OR export system to Quickbooks, etc)
5. Trust accounting solution
Here’s what I want:
6. Basecamp like communication with clients
7. Web based document assembly (a pipe dream)
PCLAW has everything except for item #3. But it’s glitchy and frustrating (infuriating) at times.
Lots of lawyers have Google accounts for email, RSS feeds, documents, and more. But one thing that always bugged me was the fact that I had to waste a browser window on Google. I can have a bunch of browser tabs open, but it gets cluttered and makes me feel boxed in.
Enter GMDesk.
GMDesk is an Adobe Air application that lets you run Google without troubling your browser. This comes in handy because it lets me close my browser without losing contact with Google Mail or Calendar or Docs. Even better, it lets me keep my Gmail or Google Reader account front-and-center no matter what I’m currently browsing.
If you don’t know what Adobe Air is, it’s like Java inasmuch as it’s an application that lets you run other programs regardless of your operating system. So this works for Mac as well as for Windows.
GMDesk is free, as is Adobe Air.
… it can get complicated. Sure, Google’s free for most of the services you’ll ever use. But there’s so darn many of them, how can you keep them all at your fingertips?
Enter GButts, a Firefox addon that keeps Google a click away for whatever service you want or need. Select which services you want to appear in the menu, which is available either as a toolbar or a drop down menu.
Setting it up is a breeze, and the customization lets you do only what you want and not a thing more.
Free, and it rocks. Thanks to Lifehacker for pointing out this cool tool.
The first extension/add-on that I always install for Firefox is Tab Mix Plus. This Firefox extension allows me to switch between my current tab and a recent tab without “scrolling” through every tab.
For example, if I have 6 tabs open and I’m currently viewing Tab 3, I can hold down Ctrl and hit the Tab key to go to the tab 5 (and release.) To go back to Tab 3, I simply need to quickly hit “ctrl+tab” in one swift move and I’m back on Tab 3.
Recently, it stopped working and would just cycle through each tab in chronological order. Furthermore, I could not view the options menu for Tab Mix Plus. After much googling, I found the culprit:
Tab Mix Plus does not play well with the recent Skype add-on for Firefox. Therefore, to continue using Tab Mix Plus you will need to discontinue use of the Skype For Firefox add-on.
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When I'm not working with other lawyers, I'm out there helping people in the fields of consumer bankruptcy, debt collection abuse, and credit reporting errors. [Read More …]
