April 5, 2008 by Dan Siegel.

It’s not quite bait and switch, but it’s close. When I switched from a Pitney Bowes meter to a Hasler one, the salesperson - Lena Krones of ITS Mailing Services - trumpeted the lower cost, about $6.00 or $7.00 per month. So I swithced. Little did I realize that I would have the problems chronicled in my post last December. But the story gets better.

Postal rates are going up. I received a letter from Hasler inviting me to order what I needed to prepare for the new rates. Lo and behold, the cost of this software update is $85.00, or more than I saved per month when I switched meters. Pitney Bowes isn’t cheap, but the company never charged for rate increase updates; all I did was download some free software updates.

Of course, I called Lena when I discovered this. She was in a meeting (she has implored me to call her whenever I had a problem or question, but she hasn’t returned my call- or she hasn’t left any messages for me at my office. So I called Hasler. They of course said they hadn’t received my emailed complaint in December but offered to provide this software update for free. But future ones would cost ????. In other words, I’m off the hook until the next rate increase.

At least with Pitney Bowes, I paid a lot upfront. I’d rather do things that way than find out later that I will be nickeled and dimed to death. My contract with Hasler is up for renewal in September. I’m going to fax this post to Lena so that they know I won’t be renewing. I’d much prefer know what I’m getting into up front, rather than being surprised.

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March 27, 2008 by Dan Siegel.

My son is scouting for engineering schools, and came across www.engineeringedu.com. He also discovered its jokes page. Apropos my earlier blog today, the site (http://www.engineeringedu.com/jokes.html) features, among others, this little ditty:

New Lyrics to Beatles Song - “Yesterday”

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There’s not half the files there used to be.
And there’s a milestone hanging over me.
The system crashed, so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong,
What it was, I could not say.
Now all my data’s gone,
And I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
the need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

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March 27, 2008 by Dan Siegel.

I always say, “Never train on live data” because if something happens, it’s a “problem,” to say the least. Today I failed to abide by my own words. Guess what, something happened. The database with 98,542 records shrunk a bit — to 6 records. So did my stomach.

Having never seen this before, I called Tech Support. The rep hadn’t seen it either. He put me on hold and found out a couple of the other reps had heard of this. What did it mean? That the database had crashed and I needed to restore it from a backup. And, of course, the firm didn’t think there was a backup! Fortunately, I found a copy of the database file, and all was well. Of course, I strongly recommended that the firm backup the data — and when I return for more training, we’ll use my training databases.

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February 21, 2008 by Dan Siegel.

I recently traveled to Los Angeles to give my presentation, “How to Do 90 Minutes of Work in 60,” in conjunction with the meeting of the National Association of Bar Executives and the American Bar Association Midyear Meeting. The presentation went well, but I learned some lessons on my way to LA. Among them: Bring a paper clip and a book.

Before I boarded the plane, I turned on my Kindle, Amazon’s really neat (but expensive)  book reader, audiobook reader, music player, etc. It gave me a black screen and was dead. I removed the battery and reinstalled — still the black screen. Then I realized the Kindle had a reset spot — all I needed was a paper clip. Just try asking for a paper clip at an airport. The workers look at you with astonishment. They don’t have them. My God, I got the impression that they thought I would try to stab the flight crew with a paper clip (now there’s a picture)!

So I boarded the flight, booted up my laptop and worked for about 90 minutes until the battery went to sleep (I didn’t have an airline power adapter — I bought one in LA for the return flight). At that point, all I had was a dead Kindle. No books, no magazines, no nothing. It was not the most fun three hours I had ever spent.

We arrived in LA and I called Kindle support. Amazon has dedicated support for the device. They were very nice and, once I procured a paper clip, verified that the screen (which was still black) was broken even though the device was still receiving a signal from Amazon. They ordered a replacement and assured me I would go to the head of the queue and receive the new one in about a week.

Of course, in the meantime I purchased a book and a puzzle magazine (plus the iGo airline power adapter — at the Rodeo Drive Radio Shack, no less) and had plenty to do on the flight home. The replacement Kindle did come about a week later, as promised.

What did I learn? Don’t rely exclusively on technology for airline entertainment. Also, Amazon’s Kindle support was excellent, even if they could not replace the Kindle overnight. And lastly, when you travel, bring a book AND a paper clip.

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January 13, 2008 by Dan Siegel.

My father was a gentle man who understood people. He had an ability to immediately sense who was good, who was trouble, and who to “be careful” with. And he always encouraged me to follow my instincts. He was right, and I only wish I had followed his advice a little more closely recently. I’ve instead learned two lessons, both people- and business-related.

First, if you’ve had prior dealings with someone and they weren’t positive, don’t have more. An attorney came to me for some technological services. I had been involved in a case with him a few years ago; his client was reprehensible, but so were some of his actions. He convinced me at our meeting that what happened then was an isolated incident. My gut said no, but I still took the job. Guess what? My gut was correct, and he acted no differently with me now compared with his conduct years ago. I have terminated our relationship — quickly.

Second, follow your instincts, not the clients. Another client came to me for technology consulting. This person was adamant about the person’s tech skills, and I made training recommendations based upon that representation, rather than my experience. When the person didn’t learn everything as quickly as my underestimate, I became a villain. Bottom line — if you know something should take X hours, and a client insists that he or she can do it in less, continue to estimate based upon what has been historically correct, not what the clent says. If you complete the project or training early, great. You’ll be thrilled and so will the client. On the other, if you don’t meet the expectations you set based on the client’s representation, you lose, and you lose a client. And if the client is particularly vocal, you lose even more.

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January 3, 2008 by Dan Siegel.

Remember, it’s not if, but when in terms of hard drive crashes. My new Dell computer is an ideal example - new, high tech, etc. And the hard drive died in less than 2 months. Dell immediately shipped a replacement. Fortunately, I use Retrospect for daily complete backups. Once the replacement hard drive was in place, I merely re-installed Retrospect and restored my entire system. It took about 3 hours to recreate the index of files, and about an hour to restore my system. But every program, every document and setting were there, as if I just turned the computer on from the day before. I sighed a huge sigh of relief. So, if you aren’t backing up daily — and with the cheap cost of online backups and/or external hard drives, you should be — you are merely waiting for the crash. It may not happen today, but someday…

 In other words, back up everything all the time. I couldn’t be happier I did.

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August 10, 2007 by Dan Siegel.

The Internet is there, like the air we breathe, right? Wrong. Stuff happens. And then you wait, and twiddle.

This week I learned that lesson. My Internet connection began to slow down, and get slower and slower. So I called Comcast, which is reputed to have excellent customer service for its business customers. They checked my connection, and found nothing wrong. They then promised me that someone would come to my office the following day.

Unfortunately, by the same evening, the Internet connection was dead, and so was my overall ability to communicate (although, Thank God for the Blackberry!). When I called Comcast the next morning (the day of the service call), I was placed into a maze of push this number, then that number, eventually leading to a black hole of “leave your number and someone will call you back.” I’m still waiting.

At 3:30, 30 minutes after the anointed hour, I called Comcast to see where the service person was. A very unconcerned person, who said, “I’m just in a call center,” advised me that my call was scheduled for between 3:30 and 7:30, and he couldn’t do a thing for me — nor did he show the slighest inclination to do anything (except perhaps take a snooze). At 5 o’clock, the repair truck arrived, and two very helpful and pleasant workers quickly discovered that my three month old modem had died. They replaced it, and I was up and running.

The lessons: Comcast business service ain’t so great. Businesses need an alternate way of connecting to the Internet (a Blackberry is OK, but a broadband card would be better).

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July 26, 2007 by Dan Siegel.

I know, we’re all tired of learning how wonderdrugs can enhance our lives, and make us look and feel like we’re years younger. And, of course, how many lotteries have you won? That’s all that’s ever in our spam folders, right? Wrong.

It’s a good idea to read the periodic summary you are (or should be) receiving of the contents of your spam folder. Why? Because spam filters are not perfect, and sometimes they filter email you actually want.

For instance, in the last week, my spam filter determined that one bill, two new client inquiries and an email from a credit card processing company were spam, plus some other newsletters I actually wanted to receive. If I hadn’t read the daily email I receive listing the contents of the folder, I would have missed these items, and probably lost a new client or two — who would have wrongly assumed I just didn’t bother to respond to their inquiries.

I know that Spam isn’t part of my diet, but reviewing email spam probably should be.

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July 15, 2007 by Dan Siegel.

Lately, I’m the poster child for backups and restores. Yup, another story. I finally took Ellen Freedman’s advice and installed Copernic at home — it’s a far better desktop search engine than Google. I did it while also ridding my home computer of Norton Anti-Virus (which slowed it to a crawl at times) and installing the easy-to-use CA Internet Suite 2007. Google Desktop Search, however, didn’t want to uninstall and instead, after much frustration, I tried a variety of self-help options (don’t do this at home!) and then rebooted. Windows rebooted, but Explorer (the program that lets you access everything on the computer) was completely unavailable. I had a desktop, nothing else.

So, I embarked on a program to restore the computer. Five hours later, it works. Why? After trying some simple solutions — they simply didn’t work — I began to get creative. First, I had to verify that everything had been backed up properly, then I re-backed up all my documents so that if I had to reinstall Windows XP, I wouldn’t lose all of my and my family’s work. Then I tried restoring just the Registry — not enough. Then I restored all the Windows files and Google Desktop. That worked, but of course my installation of CA Internet Suite had to be redone. And Google Desktop is still there — and won’t go away.

But thanks to my backup, everything went well.

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April 7, 2007 by Dan Siegel.

So, what do I use in my office? That’s the question I’m always asked. I have a lot of answers.

My office is managed with Legal Files, a superb case management program I use (after testing 7 others, including many major names). While I like Time Matters, and recommend and support it, Legal Files is still a slight bit better for my needs. It isn’t perfect, however, and I wish it had Time Matters’ “formattable clipboard” and its “Packages” feature, but overall it wins by a nose.

In addition, I use Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 all the time, and Case Map, Time Map and Live Note have become keys to keeping my law practice going and growing. I don’t love Time Slips or Quick Books, but they work, so I’m not changing. I’m also in the process of integrating Hot Docs with both businesses. On the other hand, I still rely on a host of “non-legal” but key programs. Thus, I also use Word, Word Perfect X3 (the best word processor I’ve ever used), Access, and an array of other more common software.

Let’s start a dialogue — What are your favorites? Let me (and everyone else) know.

That should be fun.

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