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1. No matter what platform you use Dell probably has the best deal on monitors around The UltraSharp line is every bit as good as the competition see below at far more reasonable prices The Dell UltraSharp 24 monitor is plenty large to fit two full size pages on the screen at once although you certainly won t regret going bigger Apple 27 LED Cinema Display It s not cheap at a buck under 1 000 at Apple stores or slightly less here on Amazon but it sure is beautiful And big With a MacBook Air it makes an awesome second screen or a primary screen with the t e we _ I MacMini Comes with built in iSight and microphone for video and for using Apple s developing FaceTime application Read more about Apple on Lawyerist Tablet Apple iPad 2 There are no compelling reasons to get a tablet other than the Apple iPad 2 For most lawyers the Wifi version will suffice especially if you already have Wifi at the office and at home Get at least 16GB 32GB if you want to keep all the family photos handy Cost 599 Wifi only 32GB Read more about the iPad on Lawyerist Stylus Page 8 Lawyerist Media LLC Boxwave Stylus Adding a stylus to your tablet makes it double as a legal pad The Boxwave uses a rubber nib instead of a fuzzy ones found on some others That makes it precise with a good feel when writing on the screen ours Cost 15 00 in four availabl
2. the power cord While you may prefer the 27 model because of its large screen the 21 5 inch Apple iMac is plenty big and likely all you need As with all Apple products expect to pay a premium for its great functionality and the beauty of its design A Page 1 Lawyerist Media LLC decently decked out 21 5 inch iMac will run you about 2 000 which includes AppleCare recommended and some basic office software Read more about Apple products on Lawyerist Laptop You ll notice we are big fans of compact laptops If you are going to be carrying your computer around get something that won t add much weight to your load If you aren t get a desktop Lenovo ThinkPad X220 or X1 Lenovo ThinkPads are probably the most durable laptops on the planet and if you ever do have a problem with the hardware the customer service is second to none The X220 is a compact laptop with a battery slice that makes all day and into the evening computing possible Lenovo claims 9 hours and independent reviews back that up Plus it is small and light so you can take it anywhere The X1 is a brand new cake slicer of a laptop If the battery life isn t quite as good as the X220 it makes up for it with a bigger screen 13 3 and a super thin chassis Your Macbook Air toting friends might even be a little jealous MacBook Air 13 3 This is a sweet laptop extremely thin and light and exceptionally powerful f
3. me question my love affair with Dropbox However I think it words best as a remote backup server Installation is a snap you just plug it into your router and plug an external hard drive into the Pogoplug You could even use a little USB flash drive if you want to keep it as compact as possible Set up your Pogoplug at your home or better at the home of a relative in another state Set up your computer to use it as a backup drive and you ll have the security of remote backup without the concern that some third party company has your client s data on its servers Page 4 Lawyerist Media LLC Billing Invoicing Freshbooks While there are plenty of alternatives to painless billing Freshbooks we always come back to it as the number one recommended cloud based billing and invoicing system It is drop dead simple and integrates with numerous other online applications plus allows clients to pay online or if you are old school can send out invoices by snail mail for a small charge Cost Free 3 clients to 39 95 month for unlimited clients and an additional staff user If you are just starting out try the Seedling account at 19 95 month for up to 25 clients Read more about Freshbooks on Lawyerist Contact Relationship Manager CRM Highrise You can t beat Highrise for an easy to use CRM Like Basecamp it is fast simple and intuitive 7 j H igh rise software as a service You c
4. Lawy eristLAB com liao tne lawvyering TvI sory Doard 99ELOOF qIod y 2011 Lawyerist Media LLC Top Tech Upgrades Lawyerist is well known for its tech tips and recommendations But with technology seemingly changing every fifteen minutes determining where to invest in technology can overwhelm a busy lawyer This LAB Report is our technology product guide It s packed with recommended technology tools from desktop computers to practice management software and from free to pricey Where we can we supply pricing and a link to the product for more information or to purchase We ve also gathered Lawyerist posts on specific tech subjects and link to them for more information If you are looking to upgrade your law firm s technology keep reading Desktop Computer Dell Inspiron 560 with Windows 7 Pro When it comes to a Windows based desktop PC you don t need to worry too much about what you buy Get something cheap but one step above the cheapest and make sure it has Windows 7 Professional stay away from the Home version of Windows You don t need to pay more than 500 to get a oe great PC That said Dell makes great computers for great prices and it s hard to go wrong with the Inspiron Right now the 560 looks like a great deal at about 400 with Windows 7 Professional Apple iMac 21 5 The Apple iMacs are all in one desktops So much so that you have one cord to plug in to make it work
5. an share your contacts with someone else and attach notes and tasks to contacts You can also work on cases and deals just other ways to organize your people based projects If you are trying to automate and streamline your intake process your client retention system or anything else that requires people centric management give Highrise a try Office Productivity Suites LibreOffice If you want powerful open source and free there s no other alternative than LibreOffice formerly known as OpenOffice org Read more about LibreOffice on Lawyerist Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 Whether you loath it or like it MS Office is the standard bearer for most business office suites If you are still using Office 2003 a lot of attorneys Page 5 Lawyerist Media LLC still are it s time to make the switch At around 250 it s well worth the upgrade to MS Office 2010 Unless you need Access most lawyers don t buy the Microsoft Office Home and Business edition Cost 210 Read about law office productivity on Lawyerist PDF Creation Formatting Adobe Acrobat X Pro If you are a civil litigator or if you are trying to operate a paperless office invest in Adobe Acrobat X Professional It s well worth the 400 cost especially if you need to do any redaction metadata cleaning or Bates numbering which Acrobat makes easy peasy If you can find Acrobat Professional 8 or 9 buy them They w
6. bout Dropbox on Lawyerist On the Horizon We re also looking at Cor a secure file storage and document management service for solo and small firm lawyers It is not yet in beta We re also keeping an eye on iCloud the new file sync and push service Apple recently announced but is not available until the fall Read more about cloud computing on Lawyerist Page 3 Lawyerist Media LLC Online Backup Carbonite or Mozy Carbonite and Mozy are very similar online backup services Both have similar feature sets and both offer about the same pricing model though Carbonite is slightly cheaper and offers unlimited backup space while Mozy allows for monthly pricing and charges for 50GB 5 99 month and 100GB 9 99 month worth of space Entry level accounts on both services are limited to one computer so you ll need to upgrade from the basic or home account if you need to backup more than one computer Another option is SugarSync which we ve written about before on Lawyerist SugarSync has a great comparative chart showing lt a the differences between it and the other major online backup Suga rSync services SugarSync is a bit more expensive with a basic plan offering 60GB of storage for 9 99 month or 99 99 per year Pogoplug The Pogoplug is like having a file server without the need for an IT person to to installation and maintenance It s the only product or service I have tried that makes
7. dmit is steep for an online forms portal Too expensive If you have a WordPress site consider Gravity Forms starts at 49 for one site or the free plug in Contact Form 7 Both work extremely well with Gravity having a much more powerful and thus paid feature set Browsers Google Chrome Stop using Internet Explorer Google s Chrome browser is speedy easy to use and uncluttered But we ll forgive you if you retain Firefox Cost Free Download Google Chrome Tech Books Guides Digging Into WordPress Digging Into WordPress is the Bible of WordPress books with entire chapters on seemingly mundane but important topics as RSS Feeds and keeping your site secure If you want to learn how to design a WordPress site run your current site more efficiently or modify your site to make it do exactly what you want this is the book to buy Cost 75 Print and Digital or 27 Digital Only Read more about WordPress on Lawyerist Page 10 Lawyerist Media LLC
8. e colors Task Management Remember the Milk Remember the Milk is deceptively simple You can easily just bang out a quick to do list but if you want more options there are a ton lurking under the simple interface including the ability to share tasks or lists with others in your firm or family or anyone else for that matter set repeating tasks Remember the Milk also has a powerful search function that lets you save searches as lists for easy access Cost Free no mobile apps or 25 year with access to RTM via mobile applications Teux Deux TeuxDeux pronounced to do is a bare bones but well designed task management application that runs in your browser A paid iPhone App 2 99 allows you to keep tasks synchronized to your mobile Apple device If you want super simple task management Teux Deux does it Read More about TeuxDeux on Lawyerist Online Forms Wufoo SurveyMonkey just acquired Wufoo and it s not surprising that one of the big online players picked up this great online form builder application If you want a robust and powerful online form Wufoo can do it plus integrate with dozens of different online products including Page 9 Lawyerist Media LLC MailChimp Highrise Salesforce and Campfire And integrate with PayPal Authorize net or Google Checkout Downside if you absolutely need SSL encrypted data transmission you ll need the monthly 29 95 package which we a
9. ill also do the job and may be a bit cheaper but beware of getting out of date quickly as Adobe has an annoying habit of upgrading so frequently that you barely have time to learn the newest update before another one comes out Practice Management Software Clio or Rocket Matter rocket fw ATTER Clio and Rocket Matter revolutionized practice management software They make pretty much any other practice management software look like a slow clumsy dinosaur The choice between the two is down to personal f j i preference Both offer similar feature sets at clio similar prices This is one time it is okay to choose on looks because the biggest difference between Clio and Rocket Matter is how you get around in the interface Take both for a test drive and go with the one you like best Page 6 Lawyerist Media LLC Project Management Basecamp Need an application that will help track your to dos and Ss milestones and manage cases and projects with a team or clients all securely and in the cloud Basecamp is one of the Basecamp Project Collaboration best It is easy to use intuitive and provides a secure client portal on cases and projects if you need one No need for a user manual you just need 30 seconds to get started Cost Free 1 Project to 149 mo unlimited projects At Lawyerist we currently use the Basic plan at 24 month for 15 projects older projects can be archived Read more about Ba
10. or its size As with nearly any Apple computer by the time you are gt done with all the configuration options including adding AppleCare and some basic oe software expect to pay about 2 000 Or check out Amazon for occasional deals or for refurbished used Apple laptops We found a lower end new version of the MacBook Air 13 3 Inch on Amazon starting at 1 287 Read more about Apple on Lawyerist Page 2 Lawyerist Media LLC External Hard Drive While just about any external hard drive will be fine Western Digital makes a no frills line of drives called WD Elements You can get 2 TB for under 100 and that should be all most firms ever need Phones iPhone 4 The Apple ecosystem may not be for you but the iPhone 4 is No other phone combines speed durability and quality components quite like the iPhone It s camera will rival your point and shoot and it has all the apps you will ever need Get an Android phone if have a specific reason Otherwise go with the iPhone File Sync Dropbox You cannot beat Dropbox in price and ee simplicity Installs effortlessly on your lt Dro pDOX desktop or laptop or mobile device giving you up to 2GB in storage and file synchronization for free Then just drag and drop files into your Dropbox folder and the files are available wherever you have an internet connection Cost Free for 2GB storage 9 99 month for 50GB storage Read more a
11. secamp on Lawyerist TeamworkPM TeamworkPM is a great alternative to Basecamp and even comes with a built in function to import existing data from Basecamp Plus it comes with 256 bit encryption even on the basic free account Add Teamwork s client portal and you have the potential for a virtual law office for less money than the major VLO providers Cost Free 2 projects to 149 mo unlimited projects Try TeamworkPM now Remote Access LogMeIn While cloud based file sync services are making remote access to office EELT Oma computers less important you may still want to access applications on LogMe your office computer that you don t have anywhere else LogMeIn will let you log in to your office computer and run it as if you were sitting at your desk and the LogMeIn Ignition application will allow you to control any computer from your iPad Works with all major browsers but we ve found it to work best on Firefox Cost 69 95 per year LogMeIn Pro2 for 1 computer Read more about remote access on Lawyerist Scanner Fujitsju ScanSnap S1500 or S1500M In our mind the only choice for a scanner is whether to get the Fujitsu ScanSnap 51500 in black or white We ve been Page 7 Lawyerist M recommending it for years and have no reason today to suggest any other brand Cost 410 S1500 for PC 419 S1500M for Mac Read more about the Fujitsu scanner on Lawyerist Second Monitor Dell UltraSharp 24

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