Articles by Tom_Ziemba

I’ve long (and long windedly) blogged about the advantages of tabbed web browsing. Well my CLNC^® amigos, I’m bringing the joy of tabbed browsing to one of the software tools you use the most – Microsoft^® Word. Download and install the free utility Tabs for Word and you will never click on View, Switch Windows to change documents again (plus you can easily see what documents you have open).

Certified Legal Nurse Consultants will love Tabs for Word and should share the Tech Tip love with their favorite attorney-clients. Just remember, you heard it here first!

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

There are many web pages I’d like to save and read later but don’t particularly want to bookmark or save to read offline. Likewise, how many times have you tried to print a webpage, either to read it later or to place it with your legal nurse consulting research, but find it loses all its formatting and wastes a lot of paper when you do print it? Probably more times than you care to admit since it’s trial and error learning whether a webpage prints correctly or not.

Well my CLNC^® amigos, your faithful Tech Tipper Tom is riding to your rescue! #TechTipTom The next time you find a webpage you want to commit to paper simply copy the page’s URL and paste that URL into the address box at PDFMyURL and hit Enter (don’t click on the fancy “Artist formerly known as Prince-looking” button to the right of the box).

After a pause to generate the output PDFMyURL will do exactly what its name implies, create a PDF version of the page you just visited. Then, assuming it looks the way you want it to, you can print or save the PDF to your computer.

I must warn you though that while this is a great tool for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, it’s not perfect and only works about 7 out of 10 times. Unless you upgrade to the paid version, your PDFs will only print in landscape. The good news is that you get to see your results instantly and when you print the generated PDF file you have complete control over which pages to print and how many of each.

Bookmark PDFMyURL today – you won’t regret it! #Techtip

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

One of my earlier blogs discussed what Certified Legal Nurse Consultants should do when their Internet isn’t working. First, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, “Don’t panic!” Second, if you are panicking, “Stop now.”

Rest assured, there’s only one of many things it could be. I always start with the assumption that the Internet is completely down – worldwide – somehow, knowing that Al Gore and I are both suffering always makes me feel better. Then, I’d take some steps to isolate the issue (some of you – no, not you – may have missed the most important point) and get back online.

Assuming, arguendo, my CLNC^® amigos, that you’re at home or your legal nurse consulting office and not out free-ranging on your 5G wireless USB 6.0+ card, the third step I’d take (panic having been well-stopped and breathing resumed) is to unplug the power from your DSL/cable/fiber-optic broadband modem and your home router. Then, I’d wait about a minute (one Mississippi, two Mississippi, fifty-three Iowa, sixty OK Go) and plug the modem back in.

After the modem powers up and all the lights are blinking brightly, plug the router back in. The reason you wait is to allow the modem time to acquire the proper signal. Once it’s stable (like a patient), it’s time for the router to take the field.

Now, after you’ve plugged your router back in, let it stabilize. Finally, it’s time to go to your computer, open a web browser and start Googling (again).

Life is meant to be good – if you don’t believe me, Google^® it yourself.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

For those CLNC^® consultants who use Microsoft^® Outlook, I’ve already given you a Tech Tip describing how to color-code or prioritize your email. That simple tip turned out to be one of my most popular ever – until today! Today, my Valentine’s gift to you is more tips on how to better organize your email inbox. I’ll give Vickie her Valentine’s gift later – in private. #valentine

First, open up Outlook and go to your Inbox. Right-click on Inbox and select New Folder from the drop-down list. Type the name of your new folder in the empty box under Name and select OK. You’ll see that you’ve just created a legal nurse consulting project folder in your Inbox in which you can drag and drop relevant emails! Now instead of cluttering up your Inbox you can drag email related to a particular attorney-client or CLNC^® subcontractor into the proper folder to save them. You can also right-click on any existing folder and create a sub-folder. #Outlook #Winning

Did you know that you can now automatically route incoming email into those folders? Yes we can! If you’re a daring legal nurse consultant who pays close attention to your Inbox you can set up a Rule in Outlook or a Filter in Thunderbird^® and Gmail^®. Filters and Rules automatically send email that meet a criteria that you create into a folder of your choice.

You can create folders for each of your attorney-clients and set a Rule to send email from that attorney straight to that folder. You could set them up departmentally or by category (i.e., newsletters, mom-spam, etc.). The trick is that if you’re running Rules you have to live by them and make sure you watch those email folders for new mail notifications in each.

To learn how to set up a Filter in Gmail follow this link. If you’re using Thunderbird click here.

To learn how to set one up in Outlook follow these 13 steps (which may vary by version):

1. Click Tools on the top menu.
2. Click Rules and Alerts.
3. Select Email Rules and click New Rule.
4. I usually filter by sender so under Step 1: Stay Organized highlight Move messages from someone to a folder.
5. Under Step 2: Edit the rule description, click the underlined text under Apply this rule after the message arrives from people or distribution list.

6. If the person is in your contact list select their name from the list that pops up or simply type their email address into the From box and click OK.
7. Next click the underlined text move it to the specified folder and either select a folder you’ve already created and then OK or click New and create a new folder, type its name in the box and click OK.
8. When you’re finished and it looks like the image above, click Next. Now you’ll see a box like this:

9. My CLNC^® amigos you’re almost home so hang in there. If you’re sure the condition is correct, click Next to get this box:

10. Now make sure that what you want to do with the message (move it to the specified folder or some other action) is selected and click Next.
11. You’ll see the Exceptions box. If there are no exceptions click Next and then finish the rule by naming it.
12. Now that you’re done, you can choose to run the rule against all the messages in your Inbox or just run the rule as messages come in!
13. Select your action and click Finish.

Now, Certified Legal Nurse Consultant Outlook experts, your rule will run when you open Outlook and as your email comes in.

Rules and filters are a great way to organize your email Inbox but do require an organized mind and the discipline to check your email boxes. It’s a great way to route email from a particular attorney-client or firm to the appropriate legal nurse consulting project folder. #Office #EpicWin

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

I’ve already given you a Tech Tip on how to use tabbed browsing to enhance your legal nurse consulting research. I’ve also Tech Tipped on how to recover your work in your web browser in the event that you accidentally close it out. Today’s tip works in Firefox^®, Chrome^® and wonder of wonders, in Internet Explorer^® 8. If you accidentally close a tab, before you shout Holy Tech Tip Tom! Simply hold down your Control button, your Shift button and hit the T (for Tom) key. Each time you give your computer the <Ctrl><Shift>T salute it’ll open up the last tab you closed in your web browser. If you’re a Safari^® user, you can only re-open the last tab you closed, but at least it’s a simpler salute <Ctrl>z (for Ziemba).

Okay my CLNC^® amigos, armed with these Tech Tips you’ll never lose a second’s work again!

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

According to Bloomberg Business, the top selling iPad2^® app over the Christmas holidays wasn’t Angry Birds, it was an app named Quickoffice. What’s Quickoffice have to do with Certified Legal Nurse Consultants? Easy – with more and more of my CLNC^® amigos turning to the iPad as an auxiliary device, you need a way to view and edit your Microsoft^® Office documents and Quickoffice provides it.

Using Quickoffice, CLNC^® consultants and their attorney-clients can open and edit documents from Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It also has the ability to store, access and share documents in the “cloud” with a functioning tie to Dropbox^®. At $19.99 it’s not a cheap app, but then your business isn’t cheap and neither is the cost of missing a deadline because you couldn’t get back to your computer to correct a document.

When I get my iPad3^® this spring (hint, hint), Quickoffice will be one of the first apps I install and I recommend you do the same. It’s also available for phones but who really wants to edit documents on a phone? I sure don’t and I’ll bet you don’t either.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

As Certified Legal Nurse Consultants travel the information superhighway researching cases, you’ll run across many billboards, banners and advertisements. What you don’t see are the insidious ways that your movements are tracked by various parties, honest and nefarious. Flash cookies and browser cookies are one thing, but there’s another “invisible web” made up of tracking beacons, web bugs and rogue pixels hidden in web pages by website publishers, advertising networks and behavioral data providers that track your activities. Is there anything wrong with being tracked? Not really – after all, if you’re honest you have nothing to hide – but do you really want those tracking bugs slowing down your browsing experience? Time is money to legal nurse consultants and seconds add up over a busy work-week.

A free add-on for just about every web browser called Ghostery provides you with information about who is tracking you on any website and gives you the option to block or allow that tracker.

I’ve found it handy and I use it to block trackers at almost every website I visit. A caveat, my CLNC^® amigos, is that some websites will need components of the blocked functions to display properly. Luckily Ghostery makes it easy to allow or block. It displays a simple “ghost” in the top right of your browser showing associated trackers for each webpage you visit. They’re all blocked by default, but you can click each one to learn more about them, what they do and whether to allow or keep blocking. Some you must allow to make a particular website work for you. Here’s a screen shot:

You can read more about Ghostery and the “invisible web” at the Ghostery website.

I heartily recommend it to all tech-savvy Certified Legal Nurse Consultants.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

A few Tuesday Tech Tips back I mentioned that I routinely disable the touch pad on my laptop. Since then Certified Legal Nurse Consultants have been clamoring to know not just why?, but also how?

Let’s start with the first question first. The why – because I don’t like touch pads. Sorry CLNC^® consultant Apple^® users, I know touch pads are useful, but on my Windows^® machine I’ll be typing away in the middle of a Tech Tip, unknowingly drop my wrist or thumbs (much to the consternation of Mrs. Giles my piano teacher, may she rest in peace) which then come into contact with the touch pad causing my cursor to jump to some other point on the page, all while I keep typing merrily away, in the wrong sentence or paragraph. Believe it or not, I find that frustrating.

To avoid the hated touch pads, I carry a laser mouse (along with my charger and other accessories) in my Codi Mobile-Max rolling computer case. But when I’m working in airplane mode (me, not the laptop) there’s no room on my tray table for a mouse so I’m reduced to using the pointing stick in the center of my keyboard (instead of the touch pad). By disabling the touch pad I eliminate the frustration of messing up my perfectly-composed pages and retyping my perfectly-written prose. I don’t disable the buttons by the touch pad so I can still use them to make left-click/right-click selections; I just disable the touch pad itself. The pointing stick also functions as a left mouse button depending upon the pressure you put on it so tread, or point, lightly.

Now that the first question is answered, let’s work on the second – the how. As with every different computer model, the actual steps may differ; so, my CLNC^® amigos, I’ll talk in generalities (this works in both Windows^® XP and 7) and hope to lead you to what you’ll need by example. I recommend you only attempt this exercise if you have a mouse plugged into your legal nurse consulting computer in case you mess things up – that way you’ll have a workable way to move your cursor when things go south.

Before plugging in your mouse and making sure it works, confirm you indeed have a pointing stick on your laptop’s keyboard. That’s the little thing that looks like a dirty pencil eraser somewhere in the middle of your keyboard – usually between the “G” and “H” keys for some reason. If you have one, make sure it works by using that pointing stick to mouse over to, and open Start (Pearl button in Win 7), Settings then Control Panel. Once you’ve got the Control Panel open, look for a selection named Mouse and double-click on that. That should open up a box labeled Mouse Properties or something similar. Inside that box look for Device or Device Select, and then Touch Pad and make sure the radio button labeled Disable Device is selected. You can also select Disable Touch Pad/Stick when USB pointing device is present (that will only disable it when a mouse is plugged into the laptop). Then click Apply or OK and before closing out the various windows try the touch pad to make sure it no longer functions. Try the pointing stick to make sure it does function and then unplug the mouse to make sure everything keeps working (pointing stick) and not working (touch pad). If everything is set the way you want it, close out those windows and you’re good to go!

Now not one Certified Legal Nurse Consultant will ever suffer from misplaced cursor while typing again!

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

The Internet is an indispensable tool for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants researching their legal nurse consulting work product. Web browsers are getting better and faster than ever. No matter which browser I’m using, I like to use tabbed browsing and am always opening links in a new tab. This practice keeps me from losing my search results by following links too far forward and not being able to get back to my original search results.

One of the issues I run into (and I’m sure my CLNC^® amigos do also) is reflexively closing the browser instead of the particular tab you mean to close. Fess up, I’ve never met a nurse who hasn’t made a med error and I’ll bet I’ve never met a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who hasn’t accidentally closed out an entire hour’s worth of research by closing the browser instead of the tab. Well curse no more my CLNC^® amigos. Here’s a way to rescue your work – if you’re willing to put up with a little inconvenience.

Firefox users have the best options, so I’ll start with you. Open Firefox, click Tools, then Options. Now click Tabs, make sure the radio button next to Warn me when closing multiple tabs is selected and then click OK to close the options. Now when you accidentally attempt to close your browser instead of the tab you’ll get the pop-up warning You are about to close X tabs. Are you sure you want to continue? You’ll also get the option to continue closing the tabs or stop and save your work. Woo-hoo!

Your second option is to do the Tools, Options thing again and this time click General. Then select the dropdown box next to When Firefox starts and select Show my windows and tabs from last time. Now when you close Firefox (accidentally or not) the next time it starts you’ll recover all the tabs and windows that you were viewing. If you select the box next to Don’t load tabs until selected, it won’t preload the tabs so your browser will open just as quickly as before and you can recover or close the tabs you don’t want. One drawback is that this option will eliminate your customized home page(s), but hey – your work’s more important right?

Chrome users don’t have the same range of options. You can simply click the little wrench in the top right hand corner of your Chrome browser, then Options, then Basics (if it’s not selected) and select the radio button next to Reopen the pages that were open last. Now, when you accidentally close your browser you simply need to reopen it to open all those tabs you had painstakingly researched and opened. The inconvenience here is that you’ll lose your customized home page and, if you constantly keep a large number of tabs open, it may slow your browser’s load time. You decide what’s more important to you.

For the last two Internet Explorer^® 8 users out there, your options are limited to simply being warned before you close multiple tabs. Click Tools, Internet Options, General, then on the Settings button in the Tabs section next to Change how webpages are displayed in tabs; make sure the radio box next to Warn me when closing multiple tabs is selected, then OK your way out. Now when you accidentally try to close out you’ll get the warning Do you want to close all tabs or the current tab? and you can choose.

Finally, Safari^® for Windows^® users also have that same option to receive a warning before closing multiple tabs. Click the gear in the top right corner of Safari. Then Click Preference and Tabs. Then select the radio button beside Confirm before closing multiple tabs or windows. Do that and you’ll get a warning telling you how many tabs you have open and the option to close Safari or not.

Now there’s no reason to accidentally close a browsing session again.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

One of my favorite Christmas gifts for Vickie in 2011 was a Hercules X-Stand Ergonomic Portable Natural Airflow Cooling Stand (trust me, that’s a sexy gift coming from a tech-geek). Vickie lugs her laptop with her to all of our CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminars, vacations, business trips and our annual Christmas Migration. When she’s sitting at a hotel desk or table working away, the laptop gets hot. At home her computer’s dock helps prop it up for proper ventilation, but on the road it lies flatter and hotter than a stretch of West Texas highway in the summer. Hotter running temperatures lead to hardware fatigue and my CLNC^® amigos all know there’s nothing worse than hardware fatigue.

But, the Hercules X-Stand doesn’t just provide adequate space for airflow underneath and around the laptop, it elevates it slightly to give Vickie a better typing angle (to help ward off carpool and tunnel syndrome) and viewing angle. It’s small, portable (you should have gotten that from the name) and folds up nicely to fit in our Mobile Max rolling computer bag.

This may not be everyone’s idea of the ideal Christmas gift, but it did put a smile on Vickie’s face (plus she got some other really cool stuff too). Buy one for the traveling geek, I mean Certified Legal Nurse Consultant in your family (I did), and I guarantee she’ll like it (she did).

Keep on techin’,

Tom