Office Efficiency

People often compliment me and tell me what a great memory I have. While my memory’s respectable, what’s even better is my note-taking prowess. That’s my real secret. I am a voracious note taker in every business situation.

One executive at Vickie Milazzo Institute boils it down to, “The person with the best notes wins.” With that thought in mind, I not only always have a legal pad and pen handy, but also a stack of sticky notes, even in the most informal of meetings. They serve as my external memory, one that doesn’t get erased by sleep, an office crisis or a box of hot glazed donuts.

Have you noticed that as a society we are becoming less skilled at listening? As a legal nurse consultant you can’t afford to be or risk becoming a poor listener.

When you’re talking with an attorney, they must be the center of your attention and you should appear smart and “all in” the conversation. Think about the last time you were talking to someone who was looking past you over your shoulder, checking her Blackberry or appeared to be day-dreaming. Remember how you felt? That’s exactly how the attorney-client will feel – unimportant – if you appear to not be “all in.” You also risk missing a key communication, such as an important issue on your medical-malpractice (or personal injury…) case or worse yet, a deadline. Just like taking notes during the CLNC^® Certification Program increased your exam score, taking notes when you are speaking to your attorney-client will dramatically improve the points you score with that attorney.

Whenever you are in your attorney-client’s office, pull out your Mont Blanc pen (or “be like Vic and buy a Bic”) and your notepad (legal size of course) and take notes as you discuss the case or a future assignment.

If you switch conversations to a different case, switch to a different page. You might be killing an extra leaf on a tree or slaying a forest, but it’s a lot simpler and ultimately more efficient to have only notes for one case per page. That way when you get to your office, you can just file your notes with the corresponding case without having to rewrite a single note.

The more you practice note-taking, the more natural it becomes and soon you can talk, maintain eye contact, smile and take notes all at the same time. The same people in my office who see me take notes all day, every day in every meeting or hallway conversation, are the same people who credit me with a great memory. The notes have become invisible and all they remember is that somehow, day after day, I remember everything we discussed.

Note-taking is a powerful business tool for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. Start today.

Success Is Inside!

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, do you use Google^® to search on a regular (or exclusive) basis? If you’re like me, you’re tired of seeing only 10 results per page. You know, scan the page, click next on the Gooooooooooogle link and then see the next 10 links, repeat – next 10, repeat – next 10, repeat – ad nauseum and if you’re as tired as I am of that basic white Google homepage that offers little in the way of excitement other than an occasional logo change, it’s time to take matters into your own hands. Open your Internet Explorer^® or Firefox^® browser and point it to Google. Next, create an account with Google. It’s quick, easy and it’s free (plus they know all about you anyway – they’re Google after all).

After you create your account, go back to Google and click on iGoogle (in the top right corner of the page). You may not need to, it may take you right to iGoogle^TM. When you get to iGoogle (you’ll know) you can select a theme from the “Create your own homepage in under 30 seconds” box. Check a few of the options in the Select Interests box. You can change them later. When you’re done click on “See your page.”

Once you do you’ll see that your new iGoogle homepage has changed considerably. There will be new content like a useless clock, perhaps weather, news from CNN or perhaps your local paper or The New York Times. Ignore these changes for now, we’ve got important work to do.

First, go to the top of your new iGoogle homepage and click on either Preferences or Search Preferences (depending on which one you see). You can then tell Google to display 100 (really 100!) search results per page. You can also tell it to open search results in a new window. This is way cool – your original 100 results remain in place and each link opens in a new window. This way, as you evaluate each result for a case you’re working on for your CLNC^® business, you don’t lose the original results and can close each page (or follow its links) as you wish. Save your preferences and go back to iGoogle.

Next, you can select your theme or change your theme. You’ll have pages and pages of customizable themes (header images and page colorations) that will change the way you look at Google forever (or at least until you change themes). Vickie loves trekking and hiking in the mountains so she selected a cool theme that reminds her of the Bhutanese Himalayas. I’ve got an electro-techno-looking theme that charges me up. Some themes are static – the same all the time. Other themes change throughout the day. (Try Pocoyó for a fun, changing theme). You can search the themes by keywords to find one you like.

The Institute has also developed a theme specific to Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. You can get the iGoogle CLNC^® theme by logging into the NACLNC^® Community. Once logged into the Community, click Member Seal and Other Downloads. Select the iGoogle CLNC^® theme to easily upload it to your iGoogle homepage.

Now that iGoogle’s looking different, your next step is to address the new content that’s been added to your homepage, courtesy of iGoogle’s Gadget APIs (you’ve learned a new tech word. Now, instead of saying “I can’t go out with you Friday, I’m washing my hair,” you can say “I’m staying in Friday to use Core JavaScript Features and Standard XMLHttpRequest class objects to customize the APIs for my iGoogle homepage.”)

The APIs allow you to drag and drop, add and delete and even resize feeds on your iGoogle homepage. To take advantage of this, the first thing to do is navigate to Vickie’s Blog and click the Subscribe to Feed link at the top left. Now, instead of subscribing by email, select the option under Subscribe Now! to read the blog with your iGoogle or My Yahoo! web-based reader. It’ll then take you back to your iGoogle homepage and should show a box listing the last four headlines. You can then grab the “Vickie’s Blog” box with a left click and drag it anywhere on your page. Use the little icons in the top right of each feed box to delete a feed from your page or to move it around your iGoogle homepage.

Now visit other blogs, news sites (NYTimes.com) or alert sites (FDA.gov) and add their feeds to your homepage. Do a Google search for medical-malpractice news and feeds or other types of cases that interest you to find a wealth of news, facts and opinions. Almost all of these information sources for your Certified Legal Nurse Consulting business can be added to your new homepage. On mine I keep the local weather, a stock market ticker, global and local (Houston Chronicle) news and legal feeds. As you learn of new, interesting feeds you can add them, deleting the feeds you no longer need.

I haven’t tried this in IE8 yet, but in my Firefox browser I have multiple tabs that open each time I start Firefox. My homepage and primary display tab hold legal feeds, my secondary is tech feeds (natch!) and the last is news and current events (like movies). Every time I open a browser, I take 2-3 seconds to scan the headlines and then get to searching. One more tip is to use both IE8 and Firefox. I’ve set IE8 to Google, and Firefox to Yahoo!^® and I’ve got different content on each browser. My ultimate search destination (legal, news or research) helps me select which browser to open.

This blog has primarily been about Google but, with the exception of themes and colorizations, you can customize Yahoo! just as easily as you can Google.

Remember, use a combination of search engines to get the best results. You’re cheating yourself out of information gathering otherwise. Customizing your homepages will put more information at your fingertips. Just make sure it’s useful.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Any legal nurse consultant who owns a computer running the wonderful Windows^® operating system (OS), has, at some point been faced with the little pop-up that tells you something to the effect that “high-priority updates are available for your computer, would you like to download and install them now?” My answer is a whole-heartedly qualified “Yes! I sure would in certain situations.”

I live behind a firewall, I’ve got eight real servers, a couple of virtual ones and any number of different “legacy” (geek-speak for older) programs running across 25+ computers at any given time. Before I can do an OS update or upgrade, I’ve got to make sure it doesn’t “break” anything (geek-speak for causing an older program to no longer run correctly) causing your users, then you, much pain and grief. This update/upgrade issue is compounded by our numerous websites designed to be viewed with various versions of any number of different browsers (Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.) running different web services to collect and transfer data. So, when Windows asks me if I want to add a new service pack to my XP operating system, or high-priority updates to my Office programs or even to upgrade to a new level of Internet Explorer, I have to step back and think about it.

However, if I was a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant running Windows XP or Windows Vista and the Office family of productivity software (talk about an oxymoron!), I’d have a different answer. As an individual user not connected into any “legacy” software and whose system is working with existing printers, scanners, etc., I would install every service pack for Windows XP and Vista that comes down the line. Service packs are upgrades to the operating system itself and usually contain fixes for other issues that have arisen since the last service pack. They’re designed to cure deficiencies in the original program and make it into something safer and more stable than the prior version. In Windows XP’s case service pack support has been discontinued and only high-priority updates will be issued in the future. Service packs are a way to upgrade to a newer and better version of your operating system (keep your Vista service packed up). If you’re worried that an existing program won’t run correctly after a patch, do a Google search before you download and install the latest version to see if the new service pack is contraindicated for your software. If not, go ahead, download and install that sucker.

Even Apple offers OS upgrades (and patches) designed for the same purpose. According to an article in The New York Times, researchers at Symantec found 26 vulnerabilities in the Mac OS X in 2008 versus 27 for Windows Vista. The takeaway? No matter what OS you’re using – keep it current.

High-priority updates are different than service packs. High-priority updates are just that – fixes for something Microsoft has deemed a high-priority problem. Believe me, if Microsoft thinks it’s high-priority, it is (or was six months ago when it was identified and Microsoft started working on a patch [geek-speak for "emergency fix"] for the issue). Download and install high-priority updates. Always. Period. End of story. Your computer won’t be completely safe, they never are, but it will be as safe as can be as long as it’s fully patched and packed up.

How do you go about setting this up? There are a couple of ways. The easiest is to go into your Windows Control Panel (Start, Settings, Control Panel or Start, Control Panel depending upon what start menu you use) and adjust your Automatic Updates to download and install updates automatically. Then, every Wednesday night, or whatever time and date you set, your computer will contact Microsoft’s servers to check for updates and it will download and install the updates automatically. This is a great way for a CLNC^® consultant to keep his/her computer up-to-date.

If you don’t trust Microsoft to do this (and not everybody should), you can open Internet Explorer and go to windowsupdate.com and follow the instructions to check your computer against the lists of the most current service packs and updates. The computer will do so on its own, just give it permission to install the necessary applets and give it some time. Without releasing any private information to Microsoft, your computer will be checked and a list of “high-priority” and “available” updates will be generated for your computer. I usually select just the “high-priority updates” and then review the list to see what Microsoft feels is high-priority. You can deselect any that you don’t think you need, and then let the computer install them. Sometimes it takes a couple of reboots but I feel much safer afterwards.

If you have a company-issued computer or work for a company and access various programs through a virtual private network (VPN), you’ll want to check with the IT department to see what the company policies are on updates – automatic or otherwise – before you install anything. After all, you don’t want to be the one to “break” the system! Otherwise, if you’re using your own computer – go ahead and patch and pack it up!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

My last tech tip for your legal nurse consulting business was to clean it up, and my recommendation was to blow it out – your keyboard and air vents, that is. Today we’ll look at some different aspects of cleaning up for your CLNC^® business. This time it’s your data, not your dust.

Every document, PowerPoint^® presentation and photograph you create or edit personally or as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant contains what is known as “metadata.” Metadata, or hidden data in Microsoft^®-speak, may include information about the file in which the metadata is included – in other words it’s data about data and may contain information about the quality, creator and/or characteristics of the data it’s contained in. Try this: open Word, click “Open” like you’re opening a file. Then single left click on any file followed by a single right click. In the menu that pops up scroll to the bottom and left click “Properties.” That shows you the underlying metadata telling you when the file was created, edited, who authored the document and when the file was last accessed.

Let’s say you use a legal nurse consulting file template created by someone else to create a document. Are you the author? Not according to the metadata. The author, should we look into the document properties, is the person who created the template – not you. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if an attorney-client asked you who really wrote your report and someone else’s name showed in the Properties as author?

There are ways to avoid this. If you’re using Office 2007 you can inspect the metadata included in any document, clear it out and edit in the “correct” information (or you can choose to delete it). Simply open a Word document. Click the “Office Button” in the upper left corner then click “Properties” to see the simplest metadata. You can edit this to include your correct information. If you really want to get advanced, click “Document Properties” above the display of properties to see all the editable types of metadata you can store on a document. Another way to see the metadata is to close the document, navigate to the document in your Windows^® Explorer (not Internet Explorer^®) then right click on the document and left click on “Properties.” Now, left click on “Summary” in the “Properties” tab and then, click on “Advanced.”

Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, has also given us a couple of ways to remove the metadata when you finalize a document. If you’re using Vista, it allows you to do it simply by bringing up the Properties box and the metadata can be cleared from there. In Office 2007, to clear out the metadata, open the Word document you wish to take to the cleaner. Click the “Office Button,” click “Prepare,” then click “Inspect Document” (if it asks you to save the document, do so) then click “Inspect.” The results box will show the different types of information stored in your document. You can then click the “Remove All” button by each type of information to remove that info. Reinspect the document and you’re ready to send it – without the metadata.

Almost every Microsoft Office 2007 document, PowerPoint and Excel document can be purged in this manner. If you’re using Office 2003/XP, there is a plug-in available from Microsoft to remove metadata just like Office 2007.

Beside Word documents, CLNC^® consultants routinely send out contracts as Adobe^® PDF documents rather than Word documents so as to be sure that the party receiving them cannot edit them. Adobe PDF documents also contain metadata that can be removed or edited prior to sending. Simply open the document with Acrobat, click File, then click “Properties” and you can edit the data. You’ll need Adobe Acrobat^® 8.0 or higher to do this (or a third-party application).

If you’re not scared enough by your legal nurse consulting documents, wait until you see what’s hidden in your digital photos! Try this. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to any photo stored on your hard drive. Right click on the photo to select it and in the menu that pops up, scroll to the bottom and left click “Properties.” Now, left click “Summary” in the “Properties” tab and then, here it is, left click “Advanced.” You may see the date the photo was taken, the type of camera, whether a flash was used and more information. Some of the newer digital cameras can even add GPS data to tell where a photo was taken. Think about that next time you snap a vacation pic – if you like the spot you can always use your GPS to navigate back to the exact spot the photo was taken (and so can anyone who you share that photo with via email or on the Internet).

Luckily there’s a simple application named JPEG & PNG Stripper that you can download and install on your computer. It does exactly what its name implies and strips the metadata from your photos. This is mandatory before posting them on the Internet or sharing them with friends/family (because they can be shared ad infinitum).

Metadata isn’t as persistent as you’d think but if you’re not aware of it you may be giving away more information than you wish to when you give away your documents and photos. Time to take steps to stop the sharing.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Okay, I’ve got to admit something. You’ve heard me brag about my dual 20″ monitors on my desk. Here’s the confession. I’ve gotten to the point where I cannot work without two monitors staring me in the face. In my office, I keep my email open on one monitor (the right) so I can do the ADD thing as soon as something important that requires me to drop what I’m doing and immediately attend to someone else’s problem, drops into my email box. I do turn off the sound so the pinging doesn’t drive me totally bonkers.

The left (really center) monitor is my workspace. This is where I do the important things (write my Tuesday Tech Tips, surf the Internet and occasionally some real work). I’m constantly mousing back and forth between the two monitors. If I’m editing documents, I’ll keep one document open on one monitor and drag another to the other. I even accidentally discovered that in Outlook you can right click the calendar or email icons at the bottom left and open either in a new window! That way when I’m putting a deadline from an email into my calendar or preparing another list of my availability dates to send to President Obama, I don’t have to depend on my bad memory, I just look back and forth.

Legal nurse consultants, if you haven’t tried duals you’re missing out. These are even more fun than using tabbed browsing in Firefox to look at multiple websites. The possibilities are endless. I haven’t tried spreading a spreadsheet across the two… maybe later. Think about working on your reports for your attorney-clients. You can have the scanned medical records on one screen and your report on the other while doing research in the background.

“Tom,” you might be wondering, “you’re a lowly laptop user – how did you plug two monitors into a laptop?” Well the answer is simple. I’ve got my dock, and my dock has two different outputs on the back for monitors – a standard VGA output (old school) for the monitor I put on top of the dock’s built-in stand and a DVI output (modern). Probably the designers figured people would have one type of monitor input (VGA or DVI) so they were building-in choice. By buying a second monitor with the DVI output, I was able to plug in a second monitor!

Newer docks are already on the DVI bandwagon and often come with two DVI outputs as well as the one good old VGA output. Check carefully before you buy. After you get your dock, you simply match your monitors to the output and away you go!

If you don’t yet own a dock (or port-replicator in geek-speak) you can still run duals on your laptop. You simply plug a second monitor into your laptop’s output (VGA or DVI) then boot up the laptop keeping the screen open. Once it’s booted, right-click anywhere on the screen (desktop in geek-speak). Click Properties, click Settings and tell it to Extend my Windows Desktop onto this monitor or specify both monitors as Attached depending upon what you see. If you plug a keyboard and mouse into the laptop, you don’t have to keep it up close and can even mount it on a laptop stand to raise the screen to eye level.

Now it gets cool. You can drag the monitor icons on the Settings screen left or right. This allows you to place your second screen to the left or right of your main and then roll your mouse off the left or right (depending upon where you place your monitor) of your screen and right onto the second monitor. Your cursor can fly through the thin air between two monitors!

Desktop owners, don’t start crying in your beer (or Perrier) yet. You may be able to do the same trick since most newer desktop computers support dual monitors right out of the box. You could be ready and not even know it. Look on the back of your computer (don’t sneeze from the dust). If you can find more than one VGA or DVI outputs on the video card that sticks out from the back of your computer, then you’re ready to go. Buy a second monitor with inputs that match your free output, plug it in and follow the steps above to activate it.

If you only have one output (VGA or DVI) you can haul your computer to the local geek store and they can drop in a second video card or replace your current one with a card that has dual monitor support for under $100. If you really want to create monitor envy in your friends, instead of replacing your old single card – add the second dual port card. Then, if you have the wall space, you can have three monitors! You’ll triple your work output.

There is one other option for the spacially challenged. At home, I don’t have the desk space for duals, instead I had to compromise and install just one freakin’ huge 26″ wide-screen monitor. YEAH, BABY! It’s like sitting in the first row of a movie theater and I love it. It’s big enough that I can open two slightly narrower versions of the dual windows I use at work without feeling (too) compromised by the smaller space and it keeps me from getting claustrophobic. If you don’t have enough desk space for duals, take my advice and do the next best thing, “Go wide, young CLNC^® consultant!”

Time to tech-out here, so think about the duals. I’ve got to warn you – they’re addictive. Now, when I’m on a plane, train or automobile and I’m working from my laptop’s single (but wide) screen I can just about scream from frustration when I can’t work in the dual manner and style to which I have become accustomed.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

P.S. Comment and share your experiences with dual or more! monitors.

If you’ve moved to Microsoft^® Office 2007 with its suite of upgrades, enhancements and head-banging, you’ve probably noticed the so-called “Ribbon.” This replaced all the good, old-fashioned, easy-to-use command buttons in Office 2003. I’ve been using this suite for about 10 months now and still misplace commands and I never remember where the darn “advanced options” can be found. If a techie is flummoxed, what’s a legal nurse consultant to do?

Well, fire up your favorite web browser and head on over to Microsoft’s excellent Get Started web page and check out the tutorials created for people just like us. Trust me – when it comes to software, you’re more like me than I am myself.

Look at Basic Ribbon Training. It will help you track down the commands that you can’t or won’t find on the new Ribbon. These are two terrific links and I keep them both bookmarked in my IE7 browser. I usually use the Firefox browser but found that for some strange reason Microsoft’s websites work best when using the Microsoft IE browser (something funny about that).

While I’m on the topic of Word 2007, do you ever use the little (?) help symbol up in the top right hand corner of your Office 2007 programs? This replaced the “Help” button and the “Type a question for help” box that was found in Word and some of the other Office 2003 programs. It’s a pretty good tool, but as many times as I’ve used this to search for a solution, I don’t always find what I want right away.

Here’s an example. When I insert a headshot of Vickie into a Word 2007 document, all I see is an empty box (in Windows-speak a “placeholder”) – not the photo.

Now, I’d really like to see this photo of Vickie so I can figure out how to wrap the text around it to make best use of the space on the page. When all I see is an empty box, it’s not much help. I can’t use any of the cool feathering tools, etc. on this darn box.

So I did an online search by typing in “I can’t see my inserted photos in Word 2007″ and I got some good leads, one of which told me to “Open the advanced tab under Images and un-click show placeholders.” The perfect answer right? Except in 2007 there is no “advanced tab” under the Image tab!

Giving up on that, I decided to use the built-in Windows help function. I clicked the little (?) and typed “show placeholders.” I got nothing. I typed “view placeholders” – got nothing, typed “view images” – got nothing. I finally remembered the Windows bar doesn’t say “images,” it says “pictures.” I typed “show picture placeholders” and I got the answer to “Go into advanced options and remove the checkmark for ‘view picture placeholders.’” Gadzooks! That’s the answer. Now all I need to do is find the “advanced options” and I can fix my problem. It’s simple. Click “tools,” click “options” and darn. There are no “tools” or “options” in Word 2007. So it’s back to the online “Basic Ribbon Training” page to use the Find Word 2003 commands in Word 2007 link to find my “options” and “advanced options” (they’re at the bottom of the Ribbon under “Word Options”). Now I see how to play with my inserted headshot of Vickie (not image of Vickie, duh!).

You can download a free “Get Started” tab from Microsoft that you can install right onto the tool bar of your Office 2007 versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. When you encounter a bump in the road or can’t find a command simply click the “Get Started” tab and you’re on your way!

The moral of this story isn’t to buy a Mac^® for your legal nurse consulting business – it’s if you’re searching for something in the Windows Help function, you should use Windows-speak to find it. The more you use the language of the software the more likely you will be to actually find a useful help answer! Something cool about the new online help function is that people can comment and add answers that truly help other people like me who are challenged by help.

So, like I said in the title – don’t be afraid to ask for help, just be careful how you do it.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

P.S. Please comment on your wild experiences riding the Ribbon.

We’re all looking for a few ways to save money – whether it’s the budget for our legal nurse consulting business or our family budget. This week’s Tech Tips will focus on some innovative ways to save money.

A recent headline in one of my tech journals exclaimed that Dell Computers has made over a million dollars (U.S.) from Twitter. Not being a Twitter subscriber, I was immediately curious how they could do this. It turns out it’s pretty simple. Dell has thirty different accounts on Twitter, each with a specific purpose. But if you subscribe to the Twitter stream for Dell Outlet you’ll get special offers on computers and other Dell products. That’s one way to get something useful out of Twitter. For those of us who aren’t “Tweets,” you can also use your blog reader to subscribe to a variety of Dell’s RSS Feeds that offer special deals, support and other information.

My mom was an inveterate coupon clipper (she also collected S&H Green Stamps if anyone remembers those). I have fond memories of her clipping through newspapers and magazines in search of 5 cents off this, 10 cents off that and driving across town to catch double coupon day at the Acme market. If you’ve ever used a shopping cart to check out after an Internet purchase (especially on Amazon.com), you’ll often see a box asking you for promotional claim codes. Ever wonder where everybody else but you gets these? It’s pretty simple – there are any number of websites on the Internet offering coupons (I’m trying to picture my mom and her scissors and a computer screen – too funny) but most are for groceries and other useless stuff.

One truly good site is RetailMeNot.com. This site allows you to search for coupons for a variety of items by category and instead of toothpaste, it offers technology. You can actually search for computers, software, consumer electronics and more. Once you get into the computers category, you’ll find a searchable listing of coupons by manufacturer and by reseller. If you’re willing to spend some time searching you’ll find some great bargains here (I repeat: if you’re willing to spend some time searching). Some of these aren’t really coupons and will point you to special offers by web merchants that you may not have found on your own. They also rate “unreliable” coupons to help keep you from getting outfoxed. Good luck!

My last tip on saving money – other than Mozilla Firefox with its really cool add-ons, Thunderbird for email and most Google Apps – don’t download free software off the Internet. If you must, do a simple Google search for that software and include the words “bugs, complaints, issues, malware” in your search. This is a pretty good way to see if what you’re about to download is freeware or malware. At the risk of painting my pixels with too broad a brush, lots of free software is really malware. You don’t want malware on your computer and the best way to get it is to download a cool cursor, load an off-brand “required player” for a video or song, or sign up for a free virus scan at a website you’ve never heard of before. Free can cost you a lot of money and time when you get your identity hacked or have to dial 1.800.Call.A.Geek or haul your computer off to get it cleaned and vaccinated.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

A couple of Thursdays ago, I posted a blog about my birthday (thanx again everyone). Then Vickie had a birthday and today I’d like to remind everyone of two more birthdays – both are about half my age and both are almost as important as mine. They’re the birthdays of whats, not whos. You either love or hate (or both at once) these whats.

On November 10th of last year, Microsoft^® Windows^® turned 25! Happy belated birthday, Windows. I’m sorry I didn’t send a card but I forgot while waiting to reboot (again). This year, coincidentally on my birthday (January 22 in case you want to mark your calendar), Apple, Inc.’s Macintosh^® computer, turned 25 too! Happy belated birthday, Mac^®, I’m sorry I didn’t send a card but I was loading the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack onto my iPod^®.

Windows was really created in 1983, it wasn’t until 1985 that Windows 1.0 came around as a new product. My first experience was Windows 3.1, back in the early 90s. I remember moving very reluctantly from my trusty DOS version of Automenu to the scary Windows GUI (graphical user interface). It was so traumatic that I needed a techie friend to come over, install it on Vickie’s and my computers and teach us to use it.

Next we graduated to Windows 95, then moved up to the popular blue screen of death known as Windows 98. Believe it or not, I still have two laptops running Windows 98! I keep them to run some older programs I just can’t live without (no, one is not Pong). We passed through a couple of server versions and I advanced the users in Vickie’s growing company right past Windows 2000 to the best OS I’ve ever used, Windows XP. Now we have the SP2 version of Vista out (which shows it really is a good OS if you have enough computer power) and Microsoft is set to release Windows 7. All the reviews I’ve seen of Windows 7 say it will (eventually) knock our socks off (even though it’s really just SP3 of Vista).

Although Apple was started way back in the ‘70s, 1984 was the public introduction of the first Macintosh computer (which was the first computer to use a GUI as well as a mouse). Remember the cool “1984″ commercial that ran during Super Bowl^® XVIII? Most of you know I’m not a Mac user (although I did check my email on a Macbook Pro^® in the Apple store in Tokyo last year) so I have no history with them. I will tell you that I believe they’re some of the best computers built and have the best operating system on the market.

Today, technology has given Certified Legal Nurse Consultants many more choices than we had in the 80s and 90s. There are advantages to both systems and with the vast array of software available (like Windows for Mac) there’s nothing stopping you from using a Mac in your legal nurse consulting business. You won’t find Macs in too many big law firms but you’ll probably find them with solo practitioners and possibly small firms. Whichever OS you choose for your business or next computer upgrade, you’ll be in good shape tech-wise. Things will just continue to get better. You can look as cool as you want in Starbucks^® or for your kids – there’s nothing holding you back! One last thing – there are Mac viruses out there (contrary to popular belief), if you’re a Mac user check out this article.

A lot of things have come and gone since 1983/1984, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and Cabbage Patch Kids included. We’ve experienced the frustration and fun (hah) of Windows and Macs for over 25 years. Can you think of many other products, especially in the personal computing field, that have lasted that long while improving themselves? If you do, let me know.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Much of the software out there is so ridiculously expensive that it makes it nearly impossible for most people to get started with even basic computer tasks. Take for example an RN starting a part-time business as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Purchasing MS Office, antivirus software and basic graphic editing tools can easily exceed a $1,000 price tag.

I’m going to show you how you can get by on a zero dollar budget and still have access to amazingly powerful tools.

Office Suite

The most popular suite is Microsoft^® Office and not surprisingly it is also the most expensive. We have several free alternatives here. The most powerful in my opinion are the free online office tools from Google^TM known as Google Documents. Google Doc’s gives you access to word processing, spreadsheets and presentations (in essence replacing Word, Excel^® and PowerPoint^®). My next favorite office suite of applications is another freebie known as OpenOffice. It completely replaces Microsoft^® Office and will save you hundreds of dollars.

Email

Email is a big one. I hate seeing people use the email addresses their web service providers give them. Surely most don’t know better but the reason they are given those addresses is so that they cannot cancel their Internet service (or change it) without losing that email address. Anyone who has changed their phone number or email address in the past knows how big a hassle this is. So go to Gmail^TM and get an account. They usually have better spam filtering and antivirus tools than your Internet provider. You can also incorporate Google Calendar to manage your schedule.

To manage your emails, you should download Thunderbird. This will act like MS Outlook^® and let you download and manage your emails when not connected to the Internet (like when on a flight or out of a wireless network range).

AntiVirus

Norton and McAfee^® are very expensive but unfortunately, there is no way to avoid anti-virus software. Fortunately there is a free alternative known as AVGFree from a company called GriSoft. I have no problems with it and it runs just as well as Norton and McAfee^® in my opinion.

Graphic Editor

Checkout a free online piece of software called SplashUp. It is a highly stripped down version of Photoshop^® (and based on flash) but it allows for some fairly advanced photo manipulation including blending effects, layering and filters. It even ties into some of the online photo storage databases like Flickr^® and Picasa^TM. You can also find free stock images to use for your website or other marketing materials at Bad Neighborhood.

Pretty cool, right? Well…at least to the people who haven’t already shelled out $1,000 for the software they now know how to get for free.

Guest Blogger Profile

Brian Horn is an Internet marketing consultant who specializes in search engine marketing, site optimization, social media marketing, link building and web data analytics. Brian has consulted with Vickie Milazzo Institute for over three years.

Brian also speaks at seminars and conferences throughout the U.S. and Canada on how to use the Internet to improve business.

Back in the days of color-coordinated suits, shoes and purses, Vickie would tell me, “It’s not easy being green. If it was, everyone would do it.”

Funny how just 10 years later all the buzz these days is about green this, green that. I mean we’ve got green cleaners, green light bulbs, green cars and now green computers and green textbooks. Everyone wants to be as green as they can, but other than ride in the backseat while my Dad drives what can you do?

First, let’s talk about green computing. There are lots of ways to save money, but there really isn’t too much “green software.” The most obvious “green tip” is to turn your computer off every night before you go to bed and then turn it on each morning so you can compulsively check your email. I’ve always believed that’s bad for the hardware, but lately I’ve been reading that today’s computers are designed to last over 40,000 power cycles. So, if you turn it on and off twice a day that’s 50 years of life in a world where we trade computers out every 4-5 years, or less. Your computer will outlive itself and maybe outlive you too.

So why don’t we turn our computers off at night? Well, two words, convenience (I know that’s only one word, but here in Texas we can drag it out over a week). We don’t like to wait for our computers to boot up. We want our email and we want it now. Even my computer loses about five minutes after I boot it and log on due to all the start-up scans, and automated crap that runs before I can use it. What is a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant to do if she wants an instant turn-on?

Using your green thumb to turn off just your monitor saves some energy and the computer keeps running so it’s instantly available. Using a screen saver, especially one of the cool ones that generates 3D graphics, uses power because it keeps the screen on instead of allowing it to dim.

Some greenier alternatives include putting your computer into “sleep” or “standby” mode or even “hibernation.” Most computers have variable power settings that you can program to shut down the display, stop the hard drive and put the computer into “sleep” or “standby” mode. When your system goes to “sleep” or “standby,” it’s still running so your active data stays in the RAM (Random Access Memory) and the power stays on – just at a much lower level. I’ve seen reports that state a computer in sleep mode will consume up to 70% less power than a computer sitting idle.

Putting your computer into hibernation is even greenier. Hibernation saves the most power of any of these methods. In hibernation, your computer actually shuts down just after saving your current computer state, session and data to the hard drive (so you’ll need to have ample disk space available to store the information). When you turn the computer back on, everything should return to the way it was when you put it into hibernation.

What’s the big difference? It takes longer to bounce back from hibernation than it does from sleep (just ask a bear). If you’re into immediate gratification, hibernation won’t do. You may even have to log back onto your computing session which slows things down more.

If you want to manage your Windows^® XP^® power settings yourself:

1. Right click anywhere on your desktop (you know the part of the screen where there are no icons). You can also get here by clicking the Start Button, then Control Panel, then Power Options.
2. Select “Properties.” You’ll get the “Display Properties” box.
3. Click Screen Saver and select “none.”
4. Then click the “Power” button in the bottom of the box under “Monitor Power.” You’ll get the “Power Options Properties” box and can create your own power settings there.
5. Remember to save them.
6. Click OK until you’ve closed all the boxes.

If this is too difficult, or you just want some of that feel-good sense you get from driving a Prius (stay out of the way of my global warmer), Verdiem^® Corporation makes a free (yes, I said free, meaning no green money going out) program called Edison that will manage your power for you. It will also show you how much money you’re saving. Simply go to Verdiem.com/Edison and select the program for your current operating system. Download the program, open it and tell it what your Work and Non-Work times are. It will then handle your power management and tell you how much annual savings you can expect. You don’t need to be an Edison-level genius to see how easy Edison makes it to be green.

Keep on techin’,

Tom