Great Twitter Client for Windows Mobile
I use a Windows Mobile smart phone (the Moto Q9c from Sprint). And I love Twitter (I’m aflusche).
I’ve been looking for a good Twitter client for my phone. Twikini fits the bill.
Twikini has a great set of features. It works with Twitpic and your phone’s GPS. Of course you can view updates, profiles, and links.
An early version of Twikini totally screwed up my phone. But the developers fixed that bug, and I haven’t had any problems since.
I suggest giving Twikini a try. You might just like it.
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Review of the Asus Eee PC 1000HE
I’ve had my Asus Eee PC 1000HE
It’s awesome!
Before I dig into the specifics of the Eee, remember what a netbook is. It’s a mini computer. It can do virtually anything a full-size machine can do, except it has limited processing power and screen size.
I purchased the Eee to use as my travel computer. I have a beefy Dell Inspiron laptop for in-office computing needs. But it’s too heavy and bulky to easily carry around. I wanted a lightweight computer that I could take to court with me, grab for a quick meeting at Business Playce, or easily use on an airplane. The Eee meets my needs.
Since your needs and wants are probably different than mine, here are some specific observations about the 1000HE.
Battery life
I need a netbook that can easily make it through 3 or 4 hours at court. Ideally, I wanted something that could last longer for an all-day meeting or seminar.
The Eee’s battery easily lasts six hours, and it’s supposed to go for 9.5 hours. The best gauge I have is when I bring the Eee to the living room in the evening for some light catch-up work. I bring it down around 6pm and head to bed around midnight. The battery lasts all that time and still has more than an hour left on the meter.
As with any laptop, you can squeeze more juice out of the battery by turning things off. Right now I have wireless and Bluetooth off. The screen is set to about 45% brightness (which is my usual setting – plenty bright). I’m typing this blog post in Word. I’ve had the Eee running for about 15 minutes, and the meter shows 8:12 hours remaining.
In addition to the awesome battery life, the Eee recharges fast. I use it all day on some Saturdays. A couple of 30-minute breaks to recharge give the Eee enough juice to make it. If you had an all-day seminar, you could easily use this machine with a quick charge-up on your lunch break.
Screen size
The Eee’s screen isn’t big, but it’s quite workable. I’ve started using a couple tricks to maximize what I see:
- Minimize the Microsoft Word ribbon (right click to the right of the toolbar titles and select “Minimize Ribon”). This gives you plenty of space to see the document you need to manipulate.
- Use Firefox in full-screen mode (F11). The window title, toolbar, Awesome Bar, tab list, status bar, and Windows task bar take up a lot of screen space. Do you really need all that when you’re just writing an email or browsing Facebook? Nope. You can still use keyboard shortcuts in full-screen mode: CTRL+Tab to change tabs, CTRL+L to go to the Awesome Bar, etc.
Keyboard
Small computers come with small keyboards. The Eee’s keyboard isn’t full size. But it’s perfectly sufficient.
I’m a fast typist with large hands. I use a regular keyboard at my desk. But I can easily type just as fast on the Eee.
Admittedly, it’s hard to quickly switch back and forth between the Eee and regular keyboard. But I only stumbled with that while I was customizing the Eee, installing programs, etc. Typing is really no problem whatsoever.
One caveat: the Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down buttons. I use Home and End quite frequently to go to the start or end of a line or input field. I didn’t realize how much I used them until I started using the Eee. And they weren’t there!
The Eee keyboard has these keys assigned to the arrow keys. You press the “Fn” button and the appropriate arrow key. It took me a while to get used to this, but it’s workable.
Computing power
The main programs I use on the Eee are Firefox, Word, and Acrobat Reader. They hum along just fine.
I haven’t upgraded my RAM, so it’s still at the default 1 GB. But I’m very happy with the performance I’m getting. It sometimes takes a second for Word to open, but that’s to be expected.
The one performance issue I’ve noted is with Remember the Milk in Firefox. I guess RTM is using lots of AJAX or something because it bogs down a bit on the Eee. It’s still usable, but annoyingly slow sometimes. It runs fast on my Inspiron, so I think the Eee is just a little under powered for it.
Traveling
Since netbooks are primarily for travel, how does the 1000HE stack up? It’s great!
Planes
I’ve written this entire blog post on an airplane in a cramped non-first-class seat. I’ve tried using a regular laptop on a plane, and it just isn’t easy. The screen and keyboard are too big to fit on the tray table and still leave room for typing.
The Eee easily fits on the tray table, leaving plenty of room for my long arms to reach the keyboard comfortably. And my drink still fits on the table too!
Outside
The Eee has a matte screen. This was one big reason I went with it instead of a Dell Mini (in addition to the Eee’s superior battery life). My Inspiron has a glossy screen (as do the Mini’s), and it’s impossible to see in bright light. I wanted a netbook that I could take outside and use on the patio or wherever.
I used the Eee on our patio a couple days ago. It was awesome! I sat there, enjoying the morning breeze, checking my email, and drinking my coffee. That’s a good life.
Court
I now take my Eee with me every time I go to court. All my client files are on it. I take notes on it right in front of the judge’s bench. It’s small and light enough to hold in one hand to review a document. And you can hunt-and-peck with the other hand to type a quick note. Plus, it’s discreet.
Any questions?
That’s about all I can think of to write for now. Do you have any specific questions about the Asus Eee PC 1000HE
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EchoSign Customer Service To The Rescue!
EchoSign has a killer product. And their customer service rocks too!
On Friday at 11:53pm, I wrote this post about EchoSign not giving small users access to their API. I wanted to integrate their e-signing system with a total law firm management solution that I’m developing. No dice. Yep, I was a bit angry.
On Saturday at 10:11am, the EchoSign CEO and Co-Founder, Jason Lemkin, commented on my post. He explained why they limit access to their Enterprise API system. And then he added that third-party developers CAN integrate their applications with EchoSign’s API for no charge. Eureka! (Services like Box.net already let users send documents for e-signing through EchoSign with just a couple clicks.)
I then exchanged a couple of private emails with Jason where he further explained the distinction in the API systems. It turned out that we just had a big misunderstanding.
On Sunday at 2:23pm, EchoSign’s support team sent a developer API key and developer’s kit. Awesome!
To recap, I posted a gripe on my humble little blog. Within 39 hours over the weekend, the EchoSign CEO and support team completely resolved the issue.
Stellar customer service!
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How to Alienate Your Vocal Supporters
Update – 4-27-09 – This was apparently a major misunderstanding. Check out my new post: EchoSign Customer Service To The Rescue!
It’s simple: just focus too much on big businesses.
I love EchoSign for e-signing documents. My clients love it too, so that makes me love it even more. I even wrote about EchoSign over at my law firm website. And the EchoSign folks picked up the article on their blog.
But I’m not feeling the love from EchoSign right now. They let me down.
I’ve been a loyal EchoSign user since I discovered their service last summer. I’ve sent dozens of documents through their system to lots of different people all over the world (every document sent through the system has their branding tastefully in the email). I know quite a few people who are using their service because of my recommendation.
But they’re alienating me. I consider myself a member of their tribe
EchoSign made the choice to only allow their big business users to access their API. Yep, to use the API, I would need to upgrade to an account that costs $299 per month!
Why do I care?
An API allows programs to talk to each other. I’m developing a custom law firm management system that will integrate all my key programs.
The main systems that I use all have APIs. And every program (except for EchoSign) allows any user to access the API.
Remember the Milk (to do lists) – check
Google Calendar – yep
BatchBook (contact management) – sweet
FreshBooks (invoicing) – done
MailChimp (email newsletters) – perfect
I had a nice exchange with a customer service rep who informed me that EchoSign’s product isn’t built to allow API access for a solo user like me. I asked if there’s any way they could give me access, and it’s just not happening. Apparently the API is inextricably tied to the big business Enterprise account.
What a silly mistake.
I understand why companies try to court big business clients. But that can alienate vocal solo supporters. EchoSign could probably get lots of business from other solo users, especially people like freelance designers, programmers, and other web workers. But alienating supporters isn’t the way to make that happen.
EchoSign is still my choice for e-signing. However, I will be keeping an eye out for a system that will integrate with my other programs.
Or maybe the folks at EchoSign will see this and make a way to let everyone use the API.
Update – 4-27-09 – This was apparently a major misunderstanding. Check out my new post: EchoSign Customer Service To The Rescue!
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My Short Email Experiment
Email is a necessary part of my law practice, but it takes up a lot of time. I decided that one way to cut that time is to cut the length of my emails.
My email signature now contains this line at the end:
Why is this email 5 sentences or less? http://five.sentenc.es/
My goal is to limit every email to no more than five sentences. The results have been mixed.
The limit is hard. It’s been difficult to limit every email to five sentences. Some emails just need more than that. Or maybe I should pick up the phone and call the person. There’s an idea…
I broke it. In some instances, I’ve found myself running way over five sentences with no hope of trimming my email. What’s a guy to do?
Remove the signature. Yep, I cheated. I have taken on the nasty habit of deleting the five.sentenc.es line from my email signature when I need more room. That defeats the whole point of the exercise.
Or forget. But the worst thing is when I clearly write more than five sentences to someone and forget to remove the signature line. Nobody has called me out for that yet, but I know I’ve done it several times. And I’m sure people have looked at it thinking that I’m a buffoon.
The funny thing I’ve realized through this experiment is that writing less in an email actually takes more time. That’s no surprise to most people, but it does seem counter-intuitive. My brain likes to ramble, and I type pretty fast. So I can write a lengthy email pretty quick and click “send.” But to pare everything down to five sentences takes some serious thought.
However, once we develop better writing habits to communicate in a concise manner, the writing flow will quicken again. That’s my theory with short emails. I have already noticed a quicker thinking and writing process when trying to cram my message into five sentences.
All in all, I am going to continue this experiment. I believe it will help me to be a better communicator, and it should help me to be more productive with email. Hopefully.
This post was 33 sentences (by my quick count). What if I had just written five instead?
I am conducting an experiment where I limit my emails to five sentences. The results have been mixed so far since some emails are difficult or impossible to make that short. I’ve also found that it initially takes more time to write less. But I think my writing will improve over time, and I should pick up more speed. I’m going to keep this up in the hope that my email becomes more productive.
What about you? Have you ever tried to limit your communication like this?
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Virtual Receptionist Free for a Month
I run my own law firm with no staff. It’s hard to answer the phone, go to court, and work on client matters.
To solve this problem, I hired a great virtual receptionist service: Ruby Receptionist.
Ruby has been answering my phone for a week now. I’m thrilled!
They answer promptly and professionally, saying whatever custom greeting I want. Then they connect callers to me wherever I am (office line, cell phone, Skype, vacation house, whatever!).
I’ve been extremely pleased to use this great virtual receptionist. And then today I received this gift in the mail! Ruby really knows how to give awesome customer service and keep their clients happy.
Admittedly, I have only been using Ruby for a short time. But I think their live virtual receptionist service is proving to be a vital part of my practice. Their great service will help me to provide great service to clients.
Maybe I’m just easy to please, but Ruby definitely impressed me. My one complaint is that their voicemail and receptionist message emails use Pacific Time (Ruby is in Oregon) instead of my local time. But that’s a minor issue that they might fix in the future.
If you want to try Ruby free for 30 days, fill out this form. You’ll get a 30-day trial with no obligation whatsoever. This offer doesn’t expire, but you definitely should give Ruby a try soon!
Update – 4-22-09 – I’ve now been with Ruby for 5 weeks. I’m an official paying customer, and I couldn’t be happier!
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State and Federal Trademarks – Guest Post
If you have a brand, you should be concerned about protecting it. That’s what trademark registrations do. They protect your brand from misuse.
But what’s the difference between a federal and state trademark? Why would you choose one over the other?
Ip’s What’s Up just published a guest post of mine on that topic: State and Federal Trademarks – What’s the Difference? I hope you find it useful!
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Learn How to Build a Solo Law Practice
Lawyers around the world rejoiced today as Solo Practice University (SPU) announced its tuition. On March 20th, “the practice of law school” will open its doors to a flood of solo (and hopefully solo) practitioners. Are you enrolling?
What is Solo Practice University?
In a nutshell, it’s an online university where law students and lawyers can learn a wide variety of topics related to running a successful solo law practice. There are courses, faculty, discussion groups, blogs, videos, comments, and lots more!
You might think of SPU like an educational Facebook for solo lawyers (and law students). It’s a combination of a blog community, social network, and online university.
What will be taught?
Lots of things! Here is the current course offering, and I’m sure it will continue to expand.
Substantive Law
Intellectual Property and Cyberlaw
The Art of the Deposition
Entertainment Law
Jury Selection
Creating a Niche Practice in Reproductive Law
Personal Injury 101
Introduction to Products Liability Litigation
Trusts & Estates
Appellate Practice and Procedure
Criminal Law From an Ex-Prosecutor’s Perspective
Federal District Court Practice
Class Action Law
Consumer Bankruptcy Law
Trial Techniques
Legal Malpractice
Creating A Social Security Disability Practice
Marketing and Management
Social Media for Lawyers
Legal Blogging
LawBiz Management
Marketing for Lawyers
Collaboration and Networking
Creating Online Video for Lawyers
Pen and Perception – Copywriting and Branding
Client Relations 101 and Ethics and Professionalism 101
Unbundling Legal Services
Technology
Virtual Law Practice
Leveraging Technology To Win
Macs in the Law Office
Using Web 2.0 Technology to Organize Your Law Practice and Your Life
Trial Technology
Real World Legal Research
Trial Technology and Visual Presentation
Work/Life Balance
Staying at Home, Staying in the Law
Career Planning for Lawyers
Legal Sanity Career Strategies
When can you enroll?
March 20, 2009. You can sign up at Solo Practice University in just 10 days!
If you enroll before April 17th, you’ll get lower tuition that is locked in for life. No brick-and-mortar university offers that!
Are you in?
I’d love to know what you guys think of SPU. Are you planning to enroll?
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Why Lawyers Cost So Much
Last week I had a simple motion to present in traffic court in Virginia. My client just needed a little extension of time to pay his fine.
It took about 30 seconds to actually explain my motion in front of the judge and get his approval.
I had to be at the courthouse at 8:00 AM.
My motion wasn’t heard until 10:05 AM.
I had to wait for 2 hours and 5 minutes for a 30-second motion. And of course I couldn’t do anything productive during that time. You just have to sit there and wait.
This is why lawyers cost so much. We spend hours stuck waiting for things.
How could the legal system be improved?
Telephonic / webcam motions
There’s this awesome thing called the telephone. Why can’t attorney’s handle routine motions like this via telephone (or even better – webcam)? We could save driving time. And even if we have to wait on hold on the phone or in a webcam queue, we could still doing other things in our office.
Nah, that makes too much sense. Government can’t operate like that.
For the record
Two quick points for the record:
1. I didn’t charge my client anything for this court appearance. I consider it included in the flat fee he already paid for his traffic trial. Sadly, many attorneys probably would have billed the client for 2.1 hours for the same 30-second motion.
2. The waiting I had to do isn’t the fault of the specific judge or court. It’s just a fact of our slow, inefficient legal system.
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File Bankruptcy With a Bankruptcy Lawyer
Free bankruptcy case evaluation: (866) 200-5729
Are you in debt over your head? If you’ve exhausted all your other options, it might be time to consider consulting with a bankruptcy lawyer.
File bankruptcy as a last resort
Before we go any further, please don’t think that I’m advocating that anyone should file bankruptcy without heavily considering all their options. Bankruptcy can wipe away most of your debts, but it will show up on your credit report for years to come. Thus, before you consult with a bankruptcy lawyer, you should think about other options:
- Stop spending – This may seem like a no-brainer, but many people just don’t have a handle on their personal finances. If you just stop incurring discretionary expenses, would your financial picture improve?
- Earn more – If you’re in a temporary financial pinch, you could look at getting a second job or some other source of income to try to make ends meet.
- Find relief – There are lots of organizations these days that help people recover from debt problems. Be sure you go with one that is reputable. Debt relief groups can sometimes help people out of desperate situations.
If you’ve been through different options and still can’t find a way out of debt, you can have a free case evaluation from a local bankruptcy lawyer.
Talk to a bankruptcy lawyer
Bankruptcy is a complex legal process that is difficult to navigate. You definitely want to have an attorney’s help when you file bankruptcy.
Photo by iandavid
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About Andrew Flusche
Lawyer, bicyclist, husband.
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