Think Your Phone is Hacker-Proof? Think Again

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by John C. Abell
The iCloud debacle that exposed celebrities private images to the world via some clever hackers should be no surprise to anyone- after all, tech-savvy consultants have been warning people about the potential for years.

Once and for all, nothing has ever been private. Predatory glam photographers pre-date the internet (just ask Vanessa Williams). Vindictive/opportunistic boyfriends (just ask Vanessa Hudgens) are as old as time. Trust no one (even if your name is not Vanessa). That includes your mother, who will bring out baby pictures at your Sweet 16. That said, let's not judge people who take intimate photos of themselves, or allow them. This is perilously close to blaming the victim. But do everything assuming there’s a chance it will be seen by unintended eyes.

So: it's a given that at least some things you think should be private won't be. Sometimes this is your fault (Just ask Anthony Weiner), but — see above — usually it's not. This particular security breach only affects Apple's iCloud service, but (no consolation to Apple) it might just have well been anyone's. In the same way Microsoft Windows is especially prone to virus makers, iPhones are especially prone to dastardly hackers looking for celebrity dirt. It’s like the old bank robber motto: Why rob banks? Because that’s where the money is. Every celeb seems to have one. Even those who pitch non-iPhones (just ask Ellen DeGeneres).

Anyone in tech knows that there is a pretty simple solution to this sort of thing: Eliminate passwords. More accurately, impose a protocol under which passwords expire quickly. As in seconds. Two-step authentication is a form of this approach. Both Apple and Google make it available for their services. Apple sends you a text with a short shelf life. Google gives you an app that syncs with a server, so you don't even have to be in a data coverage area to obtain the unlock key. The idea is that adding a time-sensitive element to a password you pick (and only you should know) dramatically increases the security of the credential.

Enterprise e-mail users have been doing this for decades. That RSA SecureID token carried by cubicle dwellers everywhere, which generated a new key code every couple of minutes, were quite literally a badge of honor in the old days.

Killing passwords might be simple, but it's not easy — and that's the reason fobs and multi-step solutions will remain exotic. Too many steps for too many people. Heck — we can't even get people to get behind e-wallets, which are extremely secure and mean you can leave all your unsecure credit cards in your freezer back home. Apple is (rumor has it) about to adopt the Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile payments standard, which may break the dam. But as Wired's Marcus Wolhsen wrote when Square Wallet died: "[S]o far, for both customers and merchants, the old way is just good enough that too few are willing to take the risk of jumping into something new."
Replace "risk" with "chore" (grammarians, lighten up) and you get the idea why analog passwords aren't dying anytime soon.

But, OK, so what? You're not a celebrity whose private photos are gold for creeps. Your password — "password" — is working just fine, right? Here's the problem. Your comfort level for the Pinterest account is one thing, but for your bank or Amazon — whole 'nother level. If merchants and the global money distribution system can't convince the normals that online buying and banking is safe, they'll opt out. If doing sensitive business online is a pain, they'll opt out. Part of the answer will be bringing the normals along slowly. This, however, feels like a huge leap that can't be broken up into baby steps.

Are you already doing the online two-step? Good for you. How about your father-in-law? How are you going to bring him up to speed?

And that brings us to the last point: The good news is that breaches like this make the password dilemma front-page news. It gets the normals asking questions. Still, I wonder what it will take for individuals to stop being so indifferent and resistant to change. Even investors are yawning: Apple, on this unhelpful news, is trading at historical highs. Other password breaches have left only a few dents.

It’s pretty clear that the normals will simply still rely on the good fortune (spoiler alert!) which kept Jennifer Lawrence alive in The Hunger Games: "May the odds be ever in your favor."
Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Entertainment

Four Keys to Protecting Data

This is from a recent article in Texas Lawyer by Julie Machal-Fulks which is a must-read for any lawyer concerned about protecting their internal data and intellectual property.

Four issues arise that must be addressed first:

What constitutes proprietary data that should receive protection? 

The short answer is; every attorney that represents corporations, businesses or individuals should identify what types of proprietary datat the business owns, uses or controls.  Counsel must identify that data through the client at the outset and ensure the company protects proprietary data from disclosure from employees and subcontractors as well as discovery or misuse by business partners and third parties.

How does the company secure the data entrusted to it?

Counsel representing these companies must review the agreements with the client's customers to ensure the company employees are aware of the contractual obligations and can adhere to the guidelines to protect the data.  Counsel should work with the company's chief security officer to identify risks and facilitate independent reviews of policies and procedures effectiveness.

Friday we will cover the last two items to be aware of!

Check Out This Infographic - Most Valuable Social Media Tools

Creating original content regularly can be hard. Even curating content can be a challenge. Plus, after you have your content, you need to promote it and track it to see whether it attracts website visitors and drives sales.

In short, it can take a lot of time and energy. But there are tools that can help.

An infographic from SocialMediaStrategiesSummit.com lists the best tools for each content marketing task. The graphic also explains whether the tools are free, what types of companies should use them, which companies already use them, and why the tools are worth your time.


Here are a few of the tools featured in the graphic:
Content curation tools:

• List.ly
• Storify
• Curata
• Magnify
• Echo

Promotion and distribution tools:

• Buffer
• Outbrain
• Content BLVD
• Gravity
• One Spot

Analytics and tracking tools:

• Webtrends
• Act-on
• Marketo
• Genius
• Pardot

Check out the infographic for more:

Law Firm Apps- Check out an Award Winner

Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. (http://www.furiarubel.com), an integrated marketing agency, has won “Best Legal Mobile Website” for its development of a mobile website for the northeastern Pennsylvania personal injury law firm Scartelli Olszewski, P.C. The award from the Web Marketing Association recognizes the achievements of marketing professionals all over the world who create and maintain the best mobile websites and applications.

As the popularity of smartphones and tablets continues to soar, effective mobile marketing is more important than ever, according to Laura Powers, Chief Marketing Officer of Furia Rubel, who spearheaded the agency’s award-winning project.

“A website optimized for performance on small-screen devices is no longer just a perk; it’s a vital component of business today,” said Powers, who oversees the agency’s creative web development division.

The average smartphone user reaches for his or her phone 150 times each day, according to a 2013 study from industry observer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which also reported that the shipment of tablets such as iPads and Google Nexus 10s eclipsed shipments of both desktop and laptop PCs combined in the fourth quarter of 2012.
As the shift from desktop to mobile continues, law firms and other professional services companies must adapt by providing audiences with websites that load quickly, display well and present highly relevant information.

The Web Marketing Association looked for those attributes and others while judging this year’s MobileWebAwards. Entries were evaluated on seven criteria considered requirements for a successful mobile website: creativity, impact, design, content, interactivity, ease of use and use of the medium. Each entry was judged against others in the same industry category and then against an overall standard of excellence.

The association began WebAwards in 1997 to recognize outstanding web design work. In 2012, judges created a separate category for mobile websites “to recognize the explosive growth and creativity in this space.” William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association said the goal of the MobileWebAwards is to recognize the people and organizations developing some of the most effective mobile websites and mobile apps on the Internet.

With offices in Scranton and Wilkes Barre, the law firm of Scartelli Olszewski represents seriously injured victims and their families in auto accidents, medical malpractice, product liability and nursing home negligence cases. The firm also handles criminal defense matters. In June 2013, after monitoring and analyzing key metrics which continually demonstrated an increase in website traffic from mobile devices, Furia Rubel designed, developed and implemented an improved mobile version of the firm’s website at http://www.scartelli.com.

“To remain competitive, companies can’t lag behind in technology,” said Gina F. Rubel, President and CEO of Furia Rubel. “As an agency, we pride ourselves on identifying communication trends early and ensuring that our clients understand the value and return on investment when they implement new strategic tactics.”

Its Data Privacy Day! Protect Yourself With These Five Tips

Today is Data Privacy Day, a global “holiday” aimed at raising awareness about online security and privacy.

However, it’s hard not to be aware of the constant threats that hammer on our digital doors. The joy of the Internet is that we’re all connected to each other, making it easy to share information and commerce. But there’s also a dark side: Just as in the “real” world, the Net is full of evildoers who want to take advantage of the less-than-vigilant among us.

Don’t be one of them. On Data Privacy Day, take some time to secure your virtual borders. Here are five things you can do right now that will give you peace of mind and make it little harder for the jerks who want to steal your data, your identity and your cash.

• Change your passwords – This is the first thing you should do, and it’s the most effective – so long as your passwords are strong and effective. Change the passwords on all the accounts associated with your personal information, and make each one different. A strong password has a mix of letters, numbers and symbols, and ideally it should be a pass phrase, rather than a single word.

If you’re having a hard time coming up with a tough password, there are sites that will make them for you. Try the PC Tools Password Generator – it’s owned by Symantec, so it’s trustworthy – which helps you build a strong, hard-to-crack password.

• Adjust your social media privacy settings – Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all let you control what information you reveal and to whom. Facebook in particular has fairly powerful privacy settings, but most people don’t change them, either out of inertia or because they’re too intimidating.

You can find Facebook’s privacy controls here. Pay particular attention to who can see the items you post – the default is Public, which means everyone can see them – and “Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public”. The latter is confusing, but basically Facebook has reset old posts so only your Friends can see them, even if you originally set them to Public or Friends of Friends.

You can also use Facebook’s activity log to review all your items, change individual settings and even delete some you now wish you hadn’t posted.

• Get your credit report – Did you know you have the right to get a free copy of your credit report once a year? The three national credit reporting companies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion – are required to give them to you as part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. By examining your report, you may be able to catch attempts at identify theft, or even unauthorized credit accounts that have been opened in your name.

Fortunately, you don’t have to go through the hassle of contacting each one of the reporting agencies individually. The three have cooperated to streamline the process. AnnualCreditReport.com lets you request reports from all of them. If you’re old-school, you can call 1-877-322-8228. You can find more information at this Federal Trade Commission website.

• Update your antivirus software – Time and again, when I hear from people whose PCs are infected with malware, it’s because they let their security software subscription lapse. Paid products like Norton and McAfee do continue to run on your PC even if you don’t pay the annual subscription fee, but they lose their ability to protect against any new threats. And since new viruses, Trojans and spyware are being developed all the time, not keeping your security software up to date instantly puts you at risk.

If you don’t want to pay an annual fee, install a free anti-malware program. There are several good ones, including Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG Free and Avast!. Macintosh users may want to consider the free Sophos Antivirus for Mac.

• Update your software – Cyberscum often rely on flaws in software to put spyware and other evil code on your computer. One of the best ways to prevent this is to make sure you operating system and the apps that run on it are up to date.
Both Windows and Mac OS X update automatically by default, though users can override that. A word of advice: Don’t. Many of those updates have security fixes and not installing them puts you at risk.

Because operating system updates run automatically, the bad guys are turning to flaws in the software that runs on the OSes. You may recall the serious flaw in Java that had even the Department of Homeland Security urging swift action. Because of this, it’s just as important to keep your applications updated.

Today, launch each one of the apps you use most often and have it check for updates. Some applications – particularly common plug-ins for browsers, such as Flash – check automatically. When you see a popup from an application that wants to update, don’t delay – let it run ASAP. The data you save may be your own.

-Dwight Silverman Houston Chronicle TechBlog

Cybersecurity: Every GC's Responsibility

Firms must accept they will have to change their client's most critical asset is electronic, and its a lawyer's duty to protect while its in the law firm's network.  Take steps now to protect your law firm's network:

• Limit administrator access on all PCs. Its convenient for everyone in the firm to be able to download apps and update software on workstations.  
• Require responsible password habits.  These include randowm secure password generators or unique passwords that change frequently.
• Go partially offline.  If there is a way to segregate extremely sensitive data on a network that does not have Internet access, the firm should do so.
• Don't blindly trust that a website will take responsible precautions.  While firms have been hacked, the public has not seen the kind of embarrassing data breach at a firm that causes real economic and lasting reputation damage.  But like it or not that incident is coming.

Firms that are serious about client service need to ditch the cavalier attitude about computer network security and button up their network security and button up their network to protect against the very real threat of hacking.  A GC's due diligence should include hard questions about whether  outside counsel are ahead or behind the curve.

Erin Nealy Cox is an executive managing director and firmwide cybercrime practice leader at Stroz Friedberg in Dallas.

Think You Know How Your Website is Doing? Google Analytics 101

The first step to understanding Google Analytics lies in knowing what to look for. Though I'm sure many of you know the basic user interface, here are five things you may not have known about Google Analytics.

1. The true definition of a visit.
Seems simple enough, right? A visit is the distinct number of times someone interacts with your site. However, there's actually one more part to this definition. If the person is inactive for more than 30 minutes, that visit is over. For example, say you go to lunch and leave www.hotdogs.com open and you're gone for 30 minutes, your visit is over. If you come back and click on another page, that becomes a whole new visit.
"Think of this like the number of times people enter the front door of a store," said Jonathan Weber from Luna Metrics, a training presenter. They can come in and realize they forgot their purse, and then go out and get it. Hey, that second time entering the store is a new visit.

2. A unique visitor may not be what you think.
Unique visitors are all about cookies. These visitors really aren't about the number of people visiting the site, but the number of unique cookies recognized. Many don't clear their cookies for two years or so, therefore, these users are only counted once over a specified time period, even if they visit your site multiple times.
"Unique visitors are only as accurate as the cookies," Weber said.
What this means is that if a person views a site from the office, then the same site from home or even via Internet Explorer and then Chrome, he/she is counted twice.

3. Tracking traffic is not always straightforward.
Many companies and organizations have newsletters that are sent via email. But it's hard to measure the success of these campaigns depending on where the email ends up.
For example, if a user clicks on the newsletter URL through Outlook, that will count as direct traffic. Yet, if the email goes to a person's Gmail account, it will be counted as referral traffic. How do you to get around this? There's a nifty tool called Google Analytics URL Builder, which will generate a trackable URL.
Just follow the three steps below. Shorten your link as needed in bit.ly, and email away. If there were a newsletter called Hotdog Weekly, I would enter the URL in step one and then have a consistent source and medium for every issue, for example, source=newsletter and medium= email. It's all case-sensitive so e-mail and email will create different URLs and not bring all of the data to one place in your analytics.



4. Comparing relative success is relatively easy.
Google Analytics enables you to compare metrics for traffic sources, pages, etc., against the site's average. In the screen grab below, it shows how this feature gives you the ability to see how visits from different traffic media compare with pages/visit.
The line down the center represents the average, and in general those pages in the green are performing well and those in red are doing poorly. Don't fret. This can help you tell your story and figure out how to improve content on your site and where to put your focus.
This screenshot shows that although referral traffic sent more than 2,705 visits in the last month, visitors aren't going much further than where the URL they clicked sent them. Though organic search sends more than 65 percent, visitors are viewing more pages upon visiting.



5. Social media is measurable
Google Analytics recently added a feature under the traffic sources tab that breaks down social visits from social networks. Instead of digging in your referral traffic, you can now see all social engagement in one section. There's even a nice line graph comparison of all visits and visits via social referral.
One other cool feature with the social traffic sources is those sources that are social data hub partners (e.g. reddit, Google+, and Diigo), you can click on a tab called "Activity Stream" and see all conversations including links to your site in a specified time period. I recommend that you explore this new feature.
Jackie Roy is a digital content associate at TMG Custom Media. A version of this article first appeared on Engage.

Why Companies Should Know Where in the World Cloud Data Are Stored

By Catherine Dunn

Law.com

For all the implied promises of cloud-based computing, data doesn't just hover in the air -- it also has to have an earthbound home in the form of a server. Because those servers can be anywhere in the world -- and, consequently, under the auspices of local laws -- the location of the servers storing a company's own data and/or customer information can have serious privacy and human rights implications.

"Once you put data on a server in a particular country, you are definitely subjecting that data to the jurisdiction of the local authority," explains Vivek Krishnamurthy, an associate in Foley Hoag's Washington, D.C., office, who authored a recent memo called "Why Every Company Needs a Geolocation Policy."

As the memo details, government authorities typically have a "nuclear option" in order to obtain identifying data about users: either "physically raiding a data center or holding one or more employees in contempt of court for failing to turn over the data being sought." The corollary is that legal frameworks for protecting privacy and freedom of expression vary around the world, including among established democracies.

"There is a lot of concern in the internet user community and the internet activist community about where exactly companies are locating data," Krishnamurthy says.

Companies have a lot on the line, too: the safety of employees and their interest in protecting the integrity of company data, including proprietary information. "I think companies should also be wary about where they locate sensitive internal data," he says.

As companies expand into overseas markets and the demand for remote computing services grows, they face "two different pressure points," Krishnamurthy says:

1. Engineering pressure: For performance reasons, companies need to locate data as near to the end-user as possible. "Nobody wants to wait 15 seconds for something to load," Krishnamurthy says. "You want it now."
2. Regulatory pressure: Some countries, such as China, require companies to obtain operating licenses in order to set up shop, and a common requirement is that companies locate servers in-country. In other words, "if you want to operate here, you have to play by our rules," Krishnamurthy says.

Issues surrounding the impact of data geolocation on rights of user privacy and freedom of expression have been brewing for several years. In 2007, for example, lawmakers excoriated Yahoo for supplying information to Chinese authorities about Chinese dissidents. The company subsequently settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of the dissidents, who were imprisoned in China. (Foley Hoag was involved in resolving the litigation related to that matter).

More recently, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion made headlines in India and Canada for reportedly bowing to pressure to give access to private instant messages to Indian government authorities.

This isn't an issue for technology companies alone. Banks hold information on clients' mutual funds. Airlines know where customers travel. Retailers keep track of purchases. "Many brick-and-mortar companies are becoming technology companies," says Krishnamurthy. "They collect large amounts of data about their customers that is personally identifying."

And the information that technology companies big and small possess can be even more revealing, down to a user's thoughts captured in blogging, note-taking, and email services.

In order to protect both users' and the company's good name, Krishnamurthy recommends that companies conduct a human rights impact assessment before locating data in a new jurisdiction:

Such a review should begin by considering all local laws governing the disclosure of information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in normal and emergency circumstances. If concerns are identified, the company should consider serving that market from a nearby jurisdiction that affords greater protections for human rights.

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are spotlighting the importance of such assessments as members of the Global Network Initiative, which was formed in 2008 to help protect the privacy and free speech rights of internet users. Member companies commit to an outside audit of their policies with respect to internet freedoms.

"Pursuant to the GNI, these three companies have developed very detailed policies on where they locate servers and where they locate user data," says Krishnamurthy. "Those policies don't say that companies won't locate data in country X," but they do establish that if a company is considering locating data somewhere, it will conduct a review first.

"The key thing is to actually think about it," Krishnamurthy says. "You may well decide it's worth the risk, but you should know there are risks."

10 Video Sharing Apps You Need to Know About

From Pr Daily

Pinterest and Instagram are two of the hottest social platforms of 2012.

Their success has spawned hundreds of imitations, with developers (and investors) trying to get a piece of the increasingly lucrative image-sharing pie. Thus far, we've even seen a mash up of the two in the form of the aptly titled Pinstagram.

But now its time to wrap your head around the next emerging trend—video-sharing apps, which are also known as “Instagram for video.”

The big question is, which one will emerge as the superstar of the pack?

Let's meet the pack, so you can decide for yourself.

10 “Instagram for video” apps to watch

1. Viddy. Of all the new-breed video-sharing options out there, this is the one that looks and feels the most like Instagram. It has all the features you'd expect, including Facebook Timeline integration. If celebrity interest is any indication, Viddy might become the “it” platform. For some mind-bending content, check out Britney Spears' channel (only available on iPhone at this stage).

2. SocialCam. This is the other “hot” video-sharing app at the moment, thanks in part to the team behind another popular video-based service, Justin.tv. The “leaderboard” function shows you who has the most followers on SocialCam, which at this point is led by The Roxie a “SocialCam Rockstar.” It’s available on iPhone and Android.

3. Klip. This should have been called Klipstagram or Klipterest, because it is the closest to a mash-up of Instagram and Pinterest you'll see. It’s another iPhone-only app, except you do have the ability to connect Klip with YouTube or upload directly from Kilp.com (something that Instagram has avoided).

4. Looplr. A combination of the first three apps profiled here, Looplr allows for simple “shoot, share, and watch” capability from your phone, supported by that familiar Pinterest-style viewing interface on the Web.

5. Tout. Tout is a little different from the first four; it’s more of a “Twitter for video sharing” app, enabling users to upload 15-second video status updates. Ex-NBA star Shaquille O'Neal was one of the first big names to join Tout (under the direction of Amy Jo Martin, a.k.a. Digital Royalty, one of sports most respected digital marketing experts).

6. Veetle. This is slightly different from the others in that it focuses on “live video broadcasting” among your social networks as opposed to recording and then posting (in a similar fashion to qik.com).

7. MyVidster. Again, this one is slightly different because it started as a Web-based video-bookmarking service, but it has recently launched a mobile app to allow sharing on the move.

Social video discovery specialists

There are a few similar Web-based apps that focus more on discovery than creation, which shouldn't be overlooked.

8. Shufflr. While this is available on mobile, the most interesting element of Shufflr is the Facebook integration that sits within your profile and serves up your daily video fix based on your interest.

9. Chill. One of the more talked about Web apps recently, Chill borrowed some inspiration from Pinterest and made video content sharing more “personally social” than the behemoth YouTube.

10. Frequency. This Web-based aggregator brings video content together from professional content creators such as BBC, ESPN, and the NBA. It’s hard to categorize this one, and it does feel similar to the current YouTube interface.

A version of this story first appeared on AdamVincenzini.com.

Get a Mobile Site! This is Why

It's time for online law firm marketing to go mobile. Vendors shipped 488 million smart phones in 2011, compared to 415 million PCs according to market research company Canalys.

"The numbers are staggering," writes Samantha Miller on the Law Firm Marketing Solutions blog. "The mobile market is exploding. And for law firms, especially solos and small firms with two to five lawyers, a mobile-compliant website is now an absolute must."

"Think about it. If consumers are happily searching for deals, coupons and/or restaurants on their Smartphone while standing in the middle of a crowded shopping mall, how do you think they'll search for a local attorney or law firm if they're involved in an accident on the way home?" writes Miller, a Senior Director of Product, Web Visibility Solutions at LexisNexis.

Large law firms are moving tentatively into the mobile app space, more tentatively than small and medium sized firms, according to the Law Firm Mobile blog. Of the megafirms on the 2011 AmLaw 200 list, only 37 firms have with mobile compatible web sites -- a huge marketing shortcoming. The mobile-friendly sites have been generally mini-versions of the firm website.

More than a quarter of Internet-connected Americans now follow news on mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and e-readers, according to the Pew Research Center's annual State of the News Media report.

Those users track the news on a much more frequent and consistent basis than any other news consumers, including those surfing on PCs.
Smartphone and tablet users visit more pages in a given sitting and return to news sites more often than those using computers, according to Pew Research's analysis.

"We're nearing a tipping point in the way consumers gather information - and that includes the way they research legal topics and look for lawyers. With Smartphone and tablet sales surging, mobile browsing will continue to surge as well. Solo or small law firms had better have a website that's easy to navigate, regardless of the mobile device, or they'll be left behind," writes Miller.

IPads are Changing the Way Lawyers Do Business for the Better!

A southwest regional law firm, Fennemore Craig, is changing the way lawyers do business by harnessing the power of the Apple iPad.

Gone are volumes of paper and 24-hour wait times for a client to get a return call. Now, legal materials live on a fleet of iPads that Fennemore Craig pre-loads and loans to clients and adversaries. Communication with lawyers occurs instantly through the built-in FaceTime app or Skype.

The firm’s innovative use of the iPad caught the attention of Apple which is currently profiling Fennemore Craig in a case study on Apple.com/business. “The iPad has revolutionized the way we communicate with our clients and resolve cases,” says Marc Lamber, chair of Fennemore Craig’s Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Practice Group. “The iPad technology allows us to gather evidence faster and engage our clients even more thoroughly,” adds James Goodnow, Lamber’s partner.

View the Fennemore Craig case study on Apple.com/business

James GoodnowLamber and Goodnow, who focus on catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, provide iPads to clients creating instant “red phone” access to the Fennemore Craig legal team. The iPads enable clients to provide key information as it happens such as photos, video logs and signed release forms. It’s instant access to information for clients to receive and provide information and a lifeline which helps level the playing field against those with unlimited resources. Clients—many of whom are hospitalized—also use the iPad to collaborate with their attorneys through e-mail, instant messaging and video conference apps.

The attorneys also deliver iPads with comprehensive “video settlement demand packages” to opposing counsel, insurance company adjusters and mediators complete with computer-generated images, Keynote presentations, video interviews, scene diagrams, expert witness interviews and photos.

In courtroom situations, Lamber and Goodnow use apps like iJuror to track prospective juror responses during jury selection and then during trial, the duo link their iPads to multimedia systems bringing exhibits and presentations to life on individual screens for juries, opposing counsel and the judge. At mediation, court dates and legal conferences, Lamber and Goodnow . They use apps like iAnnotate PDF to edit and highlight documents and capture digital signatures, add highlights and notes, make corrections and changes to PDFs.

Clients view the new connectivity as an unexpected upgrade. “I can reach my lawyers instantly anytime, anyplace and spend less time in their office,” said Melissa Frankel, a Fennemore Craig client in Phoenix.

Lamber and Goodnow have paved the way for other practice groups at Fennemore Craig that have also adopted the use of iPads for clientele. Fennemore Craig is the only law firm selected by Apple to be profiled concerning uses of iPad. Other companies featured include Grupo BBVA, Medtronic, GE and The Benneton Group.

Email Overload? Use These Tips To Handle it

Recently I received a disturbing email from a friend informing me that he had replied to 7,545 emails in 2011. Included in his email—and the irony is not lost that he sent an email—was an analysis of how much time he had spent replying to those emails.

By his “conservative” calculation, he estimated he had devoted a full 45 days (19 percent of his annual workable time) replying to email last year. Of course this is just the time spent replying to emails; it does not account for his time reading all his incoming emails.


Below are some suggestions for managing email:

Stop and evaluate

Not every email needs an immediate reply, but every email needs an action from you. You can reply, not reply, or save it for later. When determining which to do, keep the following questions in mind:

• Who sent it? If it’s from your boss or client, reply within a reasonable amount of time.

• What is the urgency? Is the email so crucial that you should you drop what you’re doing and respond immediately? Probably fewer than 10 percent of your emails require such attention.

• What is the context? Is the email important to the work I am doing or will be doing soon?

• What is my “call to action”? If I reply, is my reply clear? For example, do I need more information from the sender? Am I going to forward this to my boss? Am I going to put an action on my task list for next week? Be clear to yourself and to the sender about your next steps.


Set ‘to’ and ‘copy’ expectations

This is an important and challenging step. If you’re a manager, it’s vital that you’re clear about which types of emails your subordinates should copy you on and when you would prefer an email to a phone call or meeting.

For example, I tell my colleagues that I want to be copied on all important client deliverable emails—those including a case study article, press release, etc. That’s it. I don’t want emails about their professional development or employment terms; we’ll discuss those issues face to face.

Set these expectations to reduce the emails from your team members. Do the same with your supervisor. Setting clear expectations and following through are essential to any project, and email is no different.

Consolidate topics and actually talk

Whether you are a manager or a subordinate, remember: If you send a lot of emails, you’re going to receive a lot of emails. Try picking up the phone or talking face to face, especially if you have multiple topics to discuss.

Block off ‘email only’ time

You should set parameters for when you will be reading and responding to emails. Communicate this to your supervisor, team members, customers, etc.

Unless I have a meeting, my colleagues know that my time for actively checking email is from 8 to 9 a.m. and from 4:30 to 5 p.m. If I don’t reply to an email during that time and they have an urgent issue for me, they should come find me.

Tailor your communication

After considering steps No. 1 and 2, you should tailor your communication based on the person and the context. For example, I would not advise using email to communicate potentially sensitive or negative news, if you can avoid it. Likewise, email is not the forum to fully detail your five-year strategic marketing plan.

If your goal is to impress your boss and you’ve determined that email is the best avenue, be sure you write sharply and concisely. Remember: Email can be quick, but a phone conversation or an in-person meeting can be more rich and effective. Consider your audience, the topic, and the urgency of the matter.

Be clear

This seems obvious, right? Emails are often written quickly and without much thought, creating a challenge for the recipient.

Murky emails can cause ambiguity, confusion, stress—even an obstacle to productivity. Don’t add to the confusion and the dysfunction. Be clear about whom you are addressing and what you’re requesting or assigning in your email.

Also, specify deadlines. Take a few minutes to craft one well-written email to move the process along efficiently, rather than hastily sending out three incomplete emails.

Below are some additional tactics you can use immediately:

1. Include a strong subject line. Be concise, and use compelling words to get attention. Your email’s worthless if no one opens it.

2. Use numbers or bullet points. This is essential if you’re covering multiple issues; doing so will help the recipient address each one individually.

3. Watch the clock. If you take more than 15 minutes to write an email, it’s better to condense it and augment it with a phone call or in-person meeting.

4. Be careful when forwarding. If you’re forwarding an email chain and there is something of importance in that chain, don’t just use “FYI below” and expect the recipient to see what you’re hoping they see. Point out what they should pay specific attention to.

5. Get closure. Include calls to action and deadlines.

6. Avoid multiple sends. Wait for your recipients to respond before sending out another email on the same topic.

7. Wait if you have doubts. If you’re second-guessing your email, there’s probably a good reason. Listen to that voice in the back of your head. Remember: You can’t “un-send” an email. Better to keep it in your draft folder and think about it for an hour than to regret your haste.

Time is everyone’s most valuable resource. By using smart and effective communication strategies for email, we can free up more time to be productive or do the things we want to do.

Matt Spaulding is the president of Spaulding Communications, a strategic, full-service communications firm that combines brand knowledge and business insight with communications expertise for its clients. This article originally appeared on the Spaulding Communications website at www.spauldingcommunications.com.

7 Gadgets That Won't be Around in 2020

Hindsight may always be 20-20, but you don’t need particularly great foresight to know many of the gadgets on today’s market won’t be around in 2020 given how quickly the tech industry keeps changing. In the first half of the 2000s, retailers were buzzing about the prospects of MP3 players and netbooks, but by the end of the decade, those products had largely been replaced by smartphones and tablets.

As tempting as it may be to imagine otherwise, some of the gadgets you may rely on most right now will likely suffer the same fate and be killed off or made obsolete by the end of this decade. Sure, you may still be able to find these products for sale in certain niche stores, but they will no longer be produced for a mass-market audience.

More from MainStreet : 10 Brand Names That Are Gone, But Not Forgotten 10 Ways a Smartphone Drains Your Wallet 5 Things You Think Work, But Actually Don't

“You can still find and buy VCRs and there are people still using mainframes from 1992, so it’s not like this stuff disappears forever,” says Stephen Baker, an industry analyst at the NPD Group. Baker notes that the main reason retailers continue to market and sell outdated products is to cater to shoppers who buy them for nostalgia’s sake, but for all intents and purposes the market has left these products in the dust. So which popular products today will join the likes of VCRs, cassette players and transistor radios in the next few years? MainStreet asked five tech analysts to offer their thoughts on the gadgets that will largely be phased out by the end of this decade.

Photo: mroach/Flickr Standalone GPS Systems The days of spending $200 or more on a standalone GPS device won’t last much longer, analysts say. “Portable navigation devices like those sold by TomTom and Garmin will probably not be sold in 2020, just because mobile phones will have taken on that function themselves and because GPS systems will be standard equipment in cars,” says Charles S. Golvin, an analyst at Forrester, a market research firm. As a result, there won’t be much of a need to buy a product whose only function is to tell you directions. If there is a demand for these GPS systems, it will likely come from a very specific segment of consumers. “Maybe you could argue there will be a market for guys climbing Mount Everest or long-distance truckers or the military, but for the vast majority of consumers, standalone GPS systems will be irrelevant and redundant,” Baker says.

Photo: Jinx!/Flickr E-Readers The e-reader has already undergone significant changes in its short history, evolving from a product with a keyboard to one with a touchscreen and more recently being integrated into a kind of a tablet-hybrid, but according to Golvin, the market for e-readers will mostly disappear by the end of the decade. “The tablet will largely supplant the e-reader in the same way that the iPod increasingly gets displaced by smartphones,” Golvin says. “Tablets will take on the e-reader function of handling magazine, newspaper and book reading.” In essence, spending money on an e-reader that can only handle reading when tablets can do this and more will come to seem as useless as buying a GPS system that can only look up directions when other technology does this as well. Just how small the e-reader market becomes may depend somewhat on advancements in display technology. One of the biggest incentives for consumers to buy a pure e-reader is to have an e-ink display (like reading from a book) rather than a backlit display (like reading from a computer screen), but according to Golvin, manufacturers are already working on ways to merge the two reading experiences and create a tablet that doubles as an authentic e-reader. Even then, there may be still be some e-readers on the market at the beginning of next decade, but not many. “It could be that by 2020 you can still buy a super cheap e-reader for $20, but by and large, the volume of sales will be so close to zero as to be indistinguishable, like CD players are now,” he says.

Photo: Mr.Thomas/Flickr Feature Phones Several of the products that are likely to be phased out will ultimately be the victim of advances to smartphones, and none more directly than feature phones. Tim Bajarin, a technology columnist and principle analyst with Creative Strategies, predicts that 80% of all phones sold in 2015 will be smartphones and every phone sold in 2018 will be a smartphone. This rapid decline will come about thanks to a drop in prices for consumers and an increase in revenue opportunities for carriers. “Even today, the money that is made is not on the phone itself but on the services,” Bajarin says, noting that carriers will opt to “fade out” their feature phone option in favor of smartphones with more services.

Photo: FaceMePLS/Flickr Low-End Digital Cameras When Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S, smartphone competitors probably weren’t the only ones beginning to sweat. Digital camera makers also have much to be worried about. Apple’s newest phone has a killer 8-megapixel camera that takes in more light and records video at 1080p HD video. Until recently, those kind of specs were unique to digital cameras, but increasingly smartphones are taking over the market. “Flip cameras went bye-bye and now low-end camera functions are being taken over by smartphones,” says Rob Enderle, principle analyst for the Enderle Group. Going forward, consumers will have less incentive to carry around a camera when they already have a phone in their pocket that takes quality pictures. “The point-and-shooters – and particularly the cameras that sell for under $200 – will eventually go away and be replaced by cellphones that do the same thing.” On the other hand, Enderle predicts more expensive and high-tech cameras may have a brighter future, though not by much, as a smaller market of photo enthusiasts seek out professional-quality cameras that go above and beyond what’s offered on a phone.

DVD Players DVD players are in the process of being phased out now by Blu-ray players and will likely be erased from the consumer landscape by the end of the decade. “The DVD player should be replaced by digital delivery,” says Ian Olgeirson, a senior analyst at SNL Kagan, who points to streaming movie services like Netflix as being the future. “Blu-rays and whatever the next generation high-end movie format emerges could prolong the lifespan because of challenges around streaming, but eventually the disc is going to be phased out.” The idea of placing a disc into a DVD player to watch a movie will eventually seem as outdated as placing a record on a turntable, which brings us to the next product on our list…

Photo: alixanaeuphoria/Flickr Recordable CDs and DVDs Using CDs and DVDs to view and store content will soon be a thing of the past. “CDs are clearly not going to make it over the next 10 years because everything will shift over to pure digital distribution, so all those shiny discs will be gone,” Bajarin says. This will be due in part to more streaming options for music and movies and a greater reliance on digital downloads, combined with more efficient storage options for consumers, including USB drives, external hard drives and of course the cloud. “All a CD is is a medium for distribution of content … and within 10 years, you won’t need a physical transport medium,” Bajarin says.

Photo: bochalla/Flickr

Video Game Consoles

Popular video game systems such as the Wii, PlayStation and Xbox may still be in homes next decade, but they will look much different. Rather than buy a separate console, Enderle expects that consumers will instead buy smart televisions with a gaming system built into it, not to mention tablets and smartphones that will continue to ramp up their gaming options.

“It looks like analog game systems won’t make it until the end of the decade,” Enderle says. “You are already seeing the Wii have a tough time holding on to the market and PlayStation has been struggling for a while.”

The gaming systems that will succeed in the future will be those that manage to move away from being focused solely on video games and more on other entertainment options such as movies, evolving from a traditional game console into more of a set-top box.

No Lawyer or Law Firms Pseudonyms on Google Plus

Important post today from Real Lawyers Have Blogs by Kevin O'Keefe regarding Google Plus.

Lawyers and law firms are notorious for the use of pseudonyms on social media.

Why use your real name by which you are known and use to build your reputation when you can use GeorgiaEmploymentLawyer on Twitter? Yes, it's inane, but ill-advised lawyers do it everyday.

Lawyers and law firms won't get the chance to use pseudonyms on Google's new social network, Google Plus.

ReadWriteWebs' Audrey Watters shared this morning that just as on Facebook, your real name will be required on Google Plus.

Tying your real name to your online identity was one of the key differentiators that set Facebook apart early on from other online sites. Facebook (and others) argue that a real name policy helps keep bad behavior online in check by linking online actions to offline identities and relationships.

The official word from Google.

Google spokesperson Katie Watson has confirmed that the company will require real names for Google Profiles, the requisite for people to establish their Google Plus accounts. There is a place in your Google Profile account where you can list nicknames, and that's what Google suggests users do who are interested in listing their other online names and persona. Those who do establish Google Profiles under a pseudonym face account suspension.

Watters argues that there are any number of reasons that people may want to utilize other than their real name.

...[Y]0u're changing your real world name and identity, using your real world name puts you at risk at work or at home, or simply that people know you by your pseudonym, not by your real name.

She cites virtual world expert Wagner James Au for chronicling additional problems with the no pseudonyms on Google Plus policy.

...[T]his is posing problems not just for political dissidents but for many virtual world users who'd prefer to go by their avatar names. His post was a response to a Second Life user, Opensource Obscure, who had his account suspended for "violating community standards."

The arguments for pseudonyms don't apply to you as a lawyer. Your name and reputation mean everything to you.

It's no different whether you are online in a social network building relationships and enhancing your reputation or chatting with a prospective client in a coffee shop or your office. You use your real name.

I don't where Google Plus is headed, but I am getting any number of people adding me to their Google Plus circles everyday. I am very grateful that unlike Twitter each person who is following me (adding me to a circle) on Google Plus is using their real name.

Top Ten PAID iPad Apps for Attorneys

Here is part two of that great post from Judith Leeson of lawdegree.net
If you have a buck or a thousand, the apps also offer something for the attorney and are organized mostly by price tag.

1. Court Days Get a calendar app just for lawyers in this iPad app. It is based upon the California Code of Civil Procedure and allows you to customize date triggers. Available in the app store for $0.99.
2. iLawLibrary Get the Federal Rules on your iPad with this app. They include civil procedure, criminal procedure, and appellate procedure all available with no network connection. The app currently sells for $6.99.
3. iAnnotate While many PDF readers exist on the iPad, this one is often the best reviewed of them all. It comes with a highlighter, pen tool, free form tools, and even comment options, as well as a tutorial for how to use it. For $9.99, get the app that anyone who works with PDFs should look into.
4. Exhibit A Use the app to organize and present information on your iPad. It is intended for presentations in the courtroom, boardroom, and even classroom. It also comes with an easy to use import feature and $9.99 price tag.
5. RLTC: Evidence This image presentation app is built for trial lawyers to organize and annotate documents and images. Appdiscover has more on their blog including screenshots. The app is available for $9.99.
6. Quickoffice If you use Microsoft Office and want to bring your iPad in on it, this app is a must have. In addition to working with many office programs, it utilizes the tapping, scrolling, and dragging options the iPad gives you. It is currently on sale for $14.99.
7. Black Law’s Dictionary Get a legal dictionary on your iPad with this app. On its ninth edition, it is the most widely cited law book in the w orld with over 45,000 terms. It currently sells for $54.99.
8. Fastcase Get a legal research service that puts a comprehensive national law library and more powerful searching, sorting, and visualization tools at your fingertips in this app. The libraries include primary law from all 50 states, as well as deep federal coverage going back to 1 U.S. 1, 1 F.2d 1, 1 F.Supp. 1, and 1 B.R. 1. T Subscription rates for $65 per month or $95 per month apply, but they do offer a free trial.
9. Trial Pad This legal app allows you to organize documents quickly and easily. Use your iPad to present evidence to judges and juries, as well as annotate and display documents. Check out the many demo videos or purchase for $89.99.
10. Bar Max Got an extra thousand bucks just lying around? Then why not download the Bar Max app? It offers a complete BAR exam prep course on your mobile device. However, you can also visit here to get their free MRPE app.

Monday- check back for our review of the new HBO documentary Hot Coffee. I'm so excited about it as it reveals how big business has taken the teeth out of consumer protection laws by artificially hyping bogus lawsuits. Its a must-see for every lawyer!

Top 10 Free iPad Apps for Attorneys

Judith Leeson with Lawdegree.net wrote a great recent post about the very best iPad apps that will not only make your life easier but will make your peers wonder how you find the time to be so ahead of the curve! Technology may be a hassle to keep up with but when it makes your life easier its worth your time to learn- particularly when someone has already reviewed the app for you.

You may or may not have heard of some of these apps for attorneys below, but for free, it literally costs you nothing to check them out.

1. Dragon Dictation Ever wish you could carry a court reporter around with you? Get the next best thing in this app. Simply dictate a message to your iPhone and, almost instantly, your voice is transcribed with amazing accuracy. The blogger at iPhone J.D. has more.
2. BARBRI Are you a student studying for a law degree? Then check out this app which gives you lectures, outlines, and practice questions for your final exams and the MPRE. You can also upgrade to a paid app with more.
3. iTranslate Have a client who doesn’t speak English? Then try this free app to get the next best thing to an actual translator. It lets you translate any text or phrase in 42 different languages.
4. Aji Reader PDF Get an impressive PDF reader for free in this app. It allows you to download, search, and do other tasks with the common PDF document. You can even use it to select and copy text.
5. Dropbox It’s been on top 20 lists before, but Dropbox’s lifesaving app is well worth mentioning again. It allows you to upload your files to their site, access them from anywhere, and share with co-workers and clients. An excellent choice just for the backup alone but has so many other uses.
6. Evernote If you take notes during meetings or trials, an app to help you out is essential. Evernote is a very popular option and offers apps for both your iPad and desktop all at no charge. In fact, it was ranked the best free note taking app by The Easy Mac.
7. Constitution Get just what the app promises. It is a copy of the U.S. Constitution and is required reading for lawyers. It is divided into sections and offers no ads.
8. Memeo Connect If you use Google Docs in your legal education or career, this is the app for you. It allows you to automatically download and store Google docs and view them offline. It even supports MS Office Docs and iWork documents.
9. Pocket Attorney Just need some basic legal information free and fast? Then check out this app that tells what to do in situations such as traffic stops. It also has a database of attorneys in the area.
10. Pocket Lawyer Lite Like the above, this app features tips for representing yourself when a lawyer is just too expensive. Types of offenses, fines, and more are all shared. There is also a paid $4.99 version.

Friday we'll share the next top ten paid apps for iPads!

Technolgy That Won't Let You Make a Fool of Yourself

The Houston Chronicle has a great article today about new apps that can be uploaded onto your Smartphone that will not allow you to "pull a Weiner". read and learn!

Despite a staggering number of sexual scandals involving prominent politicians in recent months, the sexual misadventures of one Anthony Weiner are unique in their confounding detail.

For starters, there's the dethroned Congressman's lousy photographic skills and poor sense of composition (Richard Avedon, he certainly isn't).

Or the fact that his toned physique is as hairless as a mole rat; a species known, oddly enough, for unabashed displays of nudity.

But what is perhaps most shocking about Weiner peddling Congressional erotica to alleged admirers is the degree of ineptitude he displayed while doing it.

Had Weiner been a "safe sexter" — that is, one who didn't take his social media cues from Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus - he would have known a growing number of smart-phone apps are available these days that allow users to cover their tracks and even their faces. If this is news to you, chances are you either don't own a smart phone or, to put it bluntly, are old.

If you're going to drive recklessly, Anthony Weiner style - a habit we don't advocate - you might as well strap on a seat belt.

Weiner could have started with Pixelate, an iPhone that allows users to create censored photos by blurring portions of an image before sharing it over Facebook, Twitter or e-mail. Perfect for, say, showing off self-satisfied photos of those washboard abs while hiding your slimy visage as you grip your privates in the House members' locker room.

Suppose Weiner wasn't ready to send out his growing stash of nudie photos, but still needed a place to hide them. He could've downloaded SpyCalc, an app that allows you to store private photos and videos behind a working calculator so that they can only be accessed with a secret number combination.

With Super Private Conversations, an Android application, Weiner could have gone a step further and blacklisted his illicit contacts and conversations, removing them from his contacts list, call logs and text message archives. His private correspondences would have been redirected to the app so they never appear in regular call logs or text message conversations. This app includes customized notification - such as icons, ring tones, vibrations or a flashing LED - to further conceal that trail of deceit.

Other apps, like Encrypt SMS for iPhone, would have allowed Weiner to send explicit messages that only he and his virtual paramour could decipher. With iPhone's Voice Changer app, he could have altered his voice so that it sounded like a woman's, compromising his prowess, of course, but keeping his identity a murky guessing game nonetheless.

To be sure, Weiner had his pick of apps to choose from, most available for a couple of dollars.

Not to be outwitted, his wife Huma Abedin could have benefited from a few apps herself. By installing a program like Mobile Spy - a stealth monitoring software for Android, iPhones and Blackberry - she could have tracked his internet usage, phone logs, incoming and outgoing texts and even his GPS location without him knowing. For an extra fee, the phone's screen and location can be viewed on a map in real time

Perhaps then she could have realized why her husband was spending so much time in front of camera phones and mirrors.

With that, let the domestic spy wars begin.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/7615826.html#ixzz1PpGmo7re

10 Best iPad Apps For Lawyers

Here are 10 essential iPad apps that any lawyer should have.

1. iWork for iPad – $30 or $10 for each of the three apps – includes a word processor (Pages), a spreadsheet application (Numbers), and a presentation application (Keynote). This suite of applications will enable you to create fairly sophisticated documents, although it’s probably a better for editing documents, rather than creating full-fledged contracts or agreements on the fly.

2. Evernote – Free – A fantastic program that you can download for your computer, your iPhone/iTouch, and your iPad. This program allows you to save ideas, things you see on the web (on any of those devices), record notes, ideas, and voice memos, and to then share these things across platforms. So if you’re in court or in a meeting away from your computer, and you need to save a note, or a memo, it will synchronize with Evernote on your computer as well.

3. Aji Annotator – $4.99 – Many legal documents come in PDF format. Aji Annotate lets you mark-up, annotate, and add notes to PDF documents, which you can then save and re-share with other people/lawyers.

4. DocuSign – Varies – Until DocuSign comes up with a native application for its electronic signature service, you’ll have to have internet connectivity and the ability to reach the DocuSign website, which the company says is fully compatible with the new iPad.

5. Air Sharing – Lite ($2.99) or Pro Version ($9.99) – Allows you to move files to your iPad (from your desktop) or to your iPhone or iTouch with ease. The early version for the iPad is getting reports of being buggy. The iPhone version which I’ve used works quite well.

6. Instapaper – $4.99 – Works like a charm on the iPhone, and will be even better on the iPad. This app allows you to “bookmark” various webpages, which you then synch with your iPad. Allows for off-line browsing. Slightly duplicative of Evernote, although Instapaper does this one thing really well, whereas Evernote has a broader range of capabilities.

7. DropBox – Free – DropBox allows you to share files via the “cloud” with multiple users on multiple different platforms. Obviously, highly confidential material needs to be treated with more care, and so this may not be appropriate for all documents you use. But for commonly used forms, standard agreements, standard documents, this is a good solution.

8. Desktop Connect – $11.99 – Desktop Connection allows you to use your iPad to interact with your desktop or laptop that you left back at your office. You need to have VNC or RDP installed on the desktop/laptop so that the iPad can see the screen. Also, the quality of the connection will govern how useful this application is. In other words, the worse the connection, the less useful this application will be in allowing you to interact with your office computer.

9. Dragon Dictation – Free – Dragon, the world’s best transcription software developer – has brought Dragon Dictation to the iPad. And it’s free! Dictate memos to yourself. Share them with yourself later at the office.

10. Memeo connect Reader – Free – If you use Google Docs as the home for some or all of your Word and Excel documents, then the problem becomes accesssing those documents when you’re not connected to the Internet. Memeo Connect Reader allows you to download those files so that you can work with them on your iPad.

With these 10 essential apps for lawyers, you’ll be well on your way to using the iPad as more than a toy, and as a genuine tool to help you practice law more effectively.