Many CLNC^® consultants have opted to buy laser printers for their home offices and legal nurse consulting businesses. I’m a big fan of laser printers – they’re usually faster than inkjet printers and are inexpensive and affordable. If you buy an all-in-one, you can combine it with a scanner and fax machine (Yes Virginia, some people still use faxes). Your attorney-clients will prefer to receive your legal nurse consulting reports on laser-printed paper because they can highlight the important deviations from the standards of care without the fear of the smear.

One of the disadvantages of laser printers that Certified Legal Nurse Consultants are sure to discover is that laser printers, or their cartridges, will eventually leak toner. One way to avoid or minimize the chance of toner spills is to use only new, brand-name cartridges rather than refilled cartridges. Spills will still happen, though. Usually the leaked toner just stays inside the printer, gathering in the low areas, and will remain there until you move or otherwise disturb that printer.

Sometimes, when changing your laser printer’s toner cartridge, you’ll spill toner either in the machine, all over yourself or worse on your carpet. It can happen if you have a bad or broken cartridge, use way too much force or simply bungle the job. (Note to self: never hold cartridge over head and shake.)

When the dreaded leak does occur, you’ll end up with toner on you, your desk, printer table and probably the floor. The natural reaction is to run and get the vacuum cleaner and try to vacuum it up – DON’T DO IT. A typical household vacuum isn’t designed to capture particles as small as toner and, although it will suck the toner in the front just like it should, there’s a really good chance it will blow it right out the vent in the back thus spreading the toner around your home and office and onto people who won’t be happy about it.

So, how do my CLNC^® amigos clean a toner spill? If it’s on a hard surface (Yee-haw, you’re home free!) like a desktop, simply sweep it into a plastic garbage bag or other receptacle using a dry cloth or piece of heavy paper. While you’re doing that, be very careful not to spill it onto your floor or carpet. Don’t use a wet cloth, it might cause smearing or dissolve the toner onto the surface you’re trying to protect.

If it’s on your carpet, first sweep up what you can using the method above (hard paper onto a dust pan) but very, very carefully. Then get on the phone to your favorite carpet cleaning company and be brutally honest. Tell them you’ve spilled laser printer toner and need them to come immediately with a toner vacuum. Don’t step in it, spread it around or sweep it with a whisk broom. Also, keep it off your fingers and clothing and finally, don’t attempt anything involving liquid. Remove small children, pets and spouses with power tools (e.g. lawn blowers or shop vacs) from the immediate area and keep them out until the professional carpet cleaner has done their job.

Toner spills will happen; they’re inevitable. Cleaning them up correctly is optional.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I recently had to replace Vickie’s super-small laptop with a cool fast machine running Windows^® 7. In our home office she runs it from a docking station like I do. Part of the laptop replacement process involved running the new laptop side-by-side with her old one until we were sure all the settings, programs, etc., were identical on both machines.

When I’d matched it all up and it was time to swap them out, I realized that although the new dock has lots of USB ports there’s not one good-old-fashioned PS2 port (PS2 connectors are those round plugs full of pins used to connect your keyboard and mouse). The station also didn’t have a VGA (video graphics array – old school) plug for the monitor, but Vickie’s cinema-sized monitor has a DV-I (digital video interface – new school) connector and it plugged right in, as did her rollerball mouse, external speakers, Dragon Naturally Speaking headset, webcam, charging cables for her iPhone^® and her BlueAnt^® headset and extension cables for her digital camera and Flip^® video recorder.

All was going exceedingly well until I went to plug in the keyboard, which of course turned out to be PS2. Being a techie I have many keyboards around the office (they stack up like firewood for some reason). So I jumped into the global warmer, rolled by the office and grabbed the first USB keyboard I could find, brought it home, plugged it in and it was fine – until I noticed that most of the keys weren’t labeled. All the little white letters had been rubbed off by some miscreant who obviously used a toxic hand lotion while typing. I knew Vickie wouldn’t want an obviously used keyboard so I was off to the computer store, company credit card in hand (Techie Nirvana).

It’s been a long time since I purchased a keyboard and I was surprised by the selection: mini-keyboards not much larger than the one in her old tiny laptop, gaming keyboards with all sorts of rollers and buttons to speed your gaming, wireless keyboards to operate your computer from your recliner across the room, and ergonomic keyboards with funny shapes to help relieve hand fatigue. There were keyboards priced from $9-$99+. I couldn’t make up my mind but immediately ruled out wireless because I didn’t want to be changing batteries.

Finally I chose a sleek, modern, ultrathin, back-lit keyboard with shortcut buttons to open Outlook, Word, iTunes^®, speaker volume and more! She’d never have to take her fingers off the keyboard to reach for her mouse again. It was truly worthy of the CEO of Vickie Milazzo Institute – until I saw the price of $79.99! I was stunned but figured she’s worth it. Installed, it was every bit as cool as I expected. I put on some Barry White music, turned down the lights to set a certain mood and showed her the back-lighting feature that would allow her to type in low light. Things were going my way until she tried to type on it. Turns out I overlooked a wrist-rest extension along the bottom of the keyboard designed to help reduce carpal tunnel. Her movable keyboard tray already has one of those and this pushed the keyboard so far forward she had to uncomfortably extend her arms to use it. Luckily I saved the box and trimmings (a tech tip by itself – always save the packing materials until you’re sure it works).

So it was out into the pouring rain to the computer store. Next I came home with a thicker USB keyboard but without the extra extension. This one had many of the same shortcut buttons as the last one, but as an added bonus it was mechanical, meaning it was more like the old PS2 keyboard in terms of tactile feel and had guaranteed connections. It would never fail or wear out and at only $49.99 seemed like a bargain. I installed it and tried some test typing – it was louder than a typewriter and clackier than a court reporter! I knew there’d be no way I could work in the same room without feeling like a victim of the Chinese Typing Torture.

Back to the store again. Finally I came back with another cool, flat keyboard that looks like it was designed by Apple^® but came with a Wal-Mart^® price of $15.99 and like they say at McDonald’s^® – We’re lovin’ it!

The moral of the story for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants is that when it comes to keyboards, price doesn’t always mean much and size does matter. Some are more expensive simply because of the brand name. Others are expensive because they have multiple shortcut buttons and spiffy features (like an LED clock so you can watch your billable hours) but if you’re not going to use them don’t get them. If you have small hands, you can consider a smaller-size keyboard to reduce fatigue. If you like the firm contact of the keys, you might want a mechanical keyboard.

If you share your legal nurse consulting business’s computer with your family, you may need one that’s soft drink-proof and has larger, kid-friendly keys. Backlighting is nice but not bright enough to allow you to consult your Core Curriculum for Legal Nurse Consulting^® textbook while you work in the dark. Finally, wireless keyboards are terrific because you don’t have to crawl through the dust bunnies under your desk to string the cables, but the batteries will run down in the middle of your legal nurse consulting report so you’ll need to keep plenty of spares.

When you select a new keyboard for your CLNC^® business, don’t be afraid to take them out of the box and try them right there in the store (ask for help though). Also, take a good look at where you plan to install it (look for those pesky wrist rests). Don’t worry about the price – I’ve got $9.99 keyboards (like the one with no letters) that have been in service for years so higher prices don’t necessarily mean higher quality. When you make your decision, base it on what works best for you, your needs and your budget.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Some days I love email. Other days, I believe it represents the end of intelligent life on earth. Email, like texting, allows us to communicate in real time without the hassle of actually speaking to another person and therein lies the rub.

Recently though, I (and everyone else on the email exchange here at the Vickie Milazzo Institute) witnessed a conversation that shouldn’t have been conducted via email. Let me tell you about it.

A meeting was scheduled here at the Institute. It’s a recurring meeting so the dates are selected far in advance and a calendar notice is sent to all attendees. One of the participants is an outside consultant without access to the company’s internal calendar. Let’s call him Bjorn to protect his identity.

Bjorn ran into a scheduling conflict and wanted to change the date of the meeting so he sent an email (1) to the meeting organizer. Let’s call her Lisa to protect her identity. Bjorn included all the other meeting participants and asked to reschedule to another day that week without proposing an actual date. Lisa sent an email (2) back to Bjorn (including all the participants) that she’d be out of the office that week but didn’t suggest an alternative date. Bjorn sent Lisa back another email (3) (including everyone) stating that he could do it any other time but the scheduled week. Lisa returned another email (4) (including everyone) asking whether Bjorn could meet on another day during the week he said he was out. Bjorn suggested another date to which Lisa replied she was unavailable (and we all saw both those emails (5 and 6)). Bjorn then suggested (7) (including everyone) three dates which conflicted with everyone else’s dates (because many of the participants were in Atlanta teaching the CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminar and NACLNC^® 2-Day Apprenticeship). Lisa then replied (8) (including everyone) that Bjorn’s been consulting with us long enough to know to check our website for seminar dates for conflicts before proposing meeting dates. Before Bjorn could reply to the last email (8) (and include everyone), Lisa proposed another date (9) (including everyone) and asked if it would work. Bjorn replied (10) (including everyone) that it would to which Lisa replied with a thank you (11) (including everyone) and Bjorn replied with a “no problem” (12) (including everyone).

Once they settled on a date, we all received a Microsoft^® Outlook^® meeting request (13) with the new date. This generated six separate email meeting acceptances (which we all got) (14-19) and one (20) cancelling the prior meeting.

If you’re exhausted from reading about the email exchange, think about the fact that no fewer than seven people were involved in the exchange. This means that a grand total of 140 emails were distributed and read (or deleted) by the parties who were included. I don’t know how you handle email, but I believe that 20 emails to reschedule one meeting is a little on the extreme side.

My point here, and it’s not just on top of my head, is that if Bjorn had called Lisa when he originally needed to reschedule (or if Lisa had called Bjorn), they both could have looked at their calendars and rescheduled the meeting at once – rather than in an email exchange that extended over three days. Think of the time this would have saved all the involved parties.

Now, think about the implications for your practice as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. If you need to schedule or reschedule a meeting with an attorney-client or attorney-prospect, email is normally the way you’d do it right? Maybe it won’t be after reading today’s blog.

A quick phone call to an attorney allows you to reschedule quickly and smoothly. Even attorneys don’t like to say “no” over the phone or in person. I’ll quickly delete or turn down an email invitation (unless it’s Vickie) but when the sender calls and talks to me, I find it much harder to do so. In other words, while email would seem a simpler method for a CLNC^® consultant to communicate with an attorney, telephone calls still have a place in today’s society.

If you get the attorney’s voicemail, leave a message with the issue and give him a convenient time to call back when you know you’ll be available. Savvy Certified Legal Nurse Consultants also know that phone calls retie the connection – giving you a chance to ask about his family, other cases and just to remind them that you’re out there.

So, the next time you get ready to send out an email, think about it first. Then put down the device and reach for your phone instead. You’ll find it to be a much more satisfying and efficient experience.

Keep on techin’,
Tom

Out of all the web browsers, Internet Explorer^® (IE) and Firefox^® lead the pack in number of users. Tech-types and cool Certified Legal Nurse Consultants play with Google^®’s Chrome^® browser and a few use Apple^®’s Safari^®. Just like opinions, everyone has one – a favorite browser that is.

I’m a Firefox fan because Internet Explorer is too riddled with security issues. I’ve toyed with Chrome and find it easy to use, stable but terribly invasive. Safari for Windows^® seems underdeveloped so I’ve given up on that one and prefer to play with the big three (Chrome, Firefox and IE8). I have downloaded the Web of Trust add-on for all three browsers to help me avoid websites with bad reputations. I recommend that you do the same to protect your legal nurse consulting business’s computer. Web browsers are prime points of entry for malware and Web of Trust can help Certified Legal Nurse Consultants avoid trouble.

But the purpose of today’s blog is how to get more out of your favorite web browser – that is if it’s IE8, Firefox 3 or Chrome. For the websites that you visit on a regular basis, you probably have them bookmarked so that you can quickly start a browsing session. Wouldn’t you like to open your top three or even five or more sites all at once? To quote Alec Baldwin’s character in It’s Complicated, “I like it” and I’m sure you will too.

Web browsers now have the ability to open many different webpages or different websites in what are called “tabs.” You can have multiple “tabs” that look like old-fashioned file folder tabs running along the top of your web browser and each tab can be a different webpage. If you use tabs when you first open your browser, it can load all the pages you want at one time. Then you simply switch back and forth between tabs.

Here’s how you do it for IE8, Firefox 3.5+ and even Chrome 5.0+:

Starting with Internet Explorer, open IE and click Tools then Internet Options. Next make sure the General tab is selected. You’ll see this screen:

Simply type in the URLs of the websites you want to open each time you start IE8 on a separate line and in the order you want them to open. Then click Apply.

Next click the Settings button under Tabs (it’s a little lower on that same screen). Make sure to check the boxes as checked in the screen shot below. Some people might want to check the box, “Warn me when closing multiple tabs.” This will alert you that you have multiple tabs open and will keep you from losing all your open tabs when you attempt to close one tab in your browser. This is a common mistake people make when first adapting to tabbed browsing.

Click OK, then on the next screen click OK again. You may need to restart your IE8 browser, but it will be worth it.

If you’re a Firefox user, it’s a little more difficult yet easier at the same time. In Firefox 3.6 (it should work with earlier versions but 3.6 is the version I’m on so I can’t tell you) you simply start Firefox, click Tools, Options and then General. In the Home Page box, type in the URLs of the websites you want to open when Firefox opens in the order you want to see them. Separate each one with the “|” character, usually found on the “\” key above the “Enter” key on your keyboard.

Next click Tabs at the top of the Options page and make sure the boxes shown below are checked:

Click OK and restart your Firefox browser. Your pages should open right up. If it’s your Facebook or another page that needs a login and password, you can store them in your browser.

If you’re one of those high-tech-tipping Certified Legal Nurse Consultants who uses anything Google because it’s cooler than anything else (except CLNC^® Apple-product users) start your Chrome browser and click the monkey-wrench-looking Tools icon, then Options. Next, on the Basics tab, click the radio button beside “Open the following pages.” Then click the Add button. You can either type in the URLs of the pages you want or select them from your history or bookmarks. When you’ve selected the one you want (or typed it in), click Add and you’re ready to add in the next URL. Click Close when done.

Safari users are out of luck – unless someone can give me a tech tip on how to enable this feature in Safari. The browser supports tabs, I’m just not sure how to make it open multiple tabs at once.

One more tip for legal nurse consultants that comes from a previous Tech Tip, set your browser (or even tweak your Google settings) to open links in a new tab and you’ll never lose your original search results again. You can also mine that Tech Tip for more browser tips.

Now my CLNC^® amigos, you’ll work smarter, not harder when you open your favorite pages all at once, you’ll save time searching through your bookmark bar for those pages. Using this Tech Tip, you can quickly scan your prime sites and then get on with your day. As a SysAdmin, I use one browser to make sure all the Vickie Milazzo Institute websites are up and running and another browser to hold my sites of interest.

Keep on Techin with Tabs!
Tom

All Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know I’m a fan of dual monitors. I can’t live without them and when I’m saddled with my laptop’s single monitor, say when I’m traveling or sitting in the back pew in church, I feel the pain. It’s funny. Once you go to dual monitors you never want a single monitor again. Just ask any of the staff members here at Vickie Milazzo Institute.

That being said, the more monitors you have, the more programs you open. The more programs you open, the more difficulty you have keeping track of what’s open. The more difficulty you have, well, you get the idea.

I’ve often wished for a way to install the handy Microsoft^® Windows^® Taskbar at the bottom or side (yes, you can move it to the side) on both my monitors. Recently I learned that the kind people at MediaChance heard my wish and made it come true! If you follow this link to MediaChance’s MultiMon download page, you too can get a free copy of their simple MultiMon, multiple taskbar program. Once downloaded and installed on all the dual-monitor-enabled computers you use in your legal nurse consulting business, it will imbed itself in your Windows start-up menu so every time you start your computer, MultiMon will start automatically with no fuss and no muss!

Once running, it will keep track of the files you have open on each monitor and display them just like the Windows taskbar. If you want to spring for $28, you can get the “Pro” version which is customizeable and does some neat tricks, but I think the free version is more than enough for most legal nurse consultants. In fact, this is one of the best freeware programs I’ve run across. MultiMon will reduce your Windows-related headaches and save you all that time you spend fishing around those cool dual monitors. Now my CLNC^® amigos, as Vickie says, you can get some real work done.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

As all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know, I’ve written myriad tech tips that will save you valuable time for your legal nurse consulting business. Now I’m letting you in on more timesavers I regularly put to good use. For instance, if you want a little more screen depth when you’re researching medical literature for your legal nurse consulting business, you can get an extra 1/4” or so of visible screen (or just as much screen as you can get) with only a few clicks. Just right click the Windows^® XP Start button, then left click Properties. You’ll see a variety of options for the taskbar. Click in the box beside “Auto-hide the taskbar” to make the taskbar disappear until you mouse over it. Now you have the maximum amount of visible screen.

While you’re there uncheck the “Lock the Taskbar” button and click Apply. Then add a check in the “Show Quick Launch” box. It will give you a place to put shortcuts for the programs you use the most. Using Quick Launch, you don’t have to minimize your desktop or navigate through your Start menu to find a program you use on a regular basis. Instead, you simply right click the shortcut you want to place onto the Quick Launch bar and drag and drop it there (select “Create shortcut here”). This only works if your taskbar is unlocked, so once you load the taskbar with shortcuts, you should then re-lock it.

Once you’ve loaded your taskbar with shortcuts for the programs you use the most in your legal nurse consulting business, all you have to do is mouse over the taskbar and left click on the appropriate shortcut to start a program. This sure beats minimizing all your programs or sorting through your Start menu. Remember, seconds wasted build up into minutes and then into hours lost, so the more time you save, the more billable hours you’ll have as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I don’t know about your husband (or wife), but mine is a creature of habits. Some good, some bad and some just…

For all his tech-tippyness, he even has a bad tech habit and I have his personal permission to share this one with Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (Tom, I owe you one!). Here goes: any time Tom starts searching, no matter where he is on the information superhighway at the time, he’ll go straight to either Google^® or Yahoo!^® to start his search. To get there he’ll open a new tab on whichever browser he’s got open and click “Home.” On Firefox^® it’s his customized Yahoo! homepage, on Internet Explorer^® 8 it’s his customized Google homepage and I have no idea what’s on his Safari^® page. Once the customized page has loaded, he starts getting ready to search.

Now, I’ve watched him do this. He doesn’t go straight to the search box and start typing, first he’ll scan that customized page of RSS news feeds, etc. for current updates, weather alerts, checks on how the Dow is doing and then when he’s satisfied that all is well with the world, he begins searching. By this time he’s lost at least two minutes and those minutes build up over a day, a week and a year. Every minute he’s assuring all is right with the world is one he could be spending on the ironing (Just kidding – it’s actually washing the dishes!). In all fairness, he does keep me updated on what’s going on in the world – but at a cost to his efficiency.

One of the things working in the ICU as an RN taught me is economy of movement. When you’re coding or resuscitating a patient you don’t want to be taking three steps to do something you can do in one or two. Seconds count when lives are in the balance. I try to apply economy of movement to my workday to keep me focused on the big things. I could end up needing to work all day every day if I’m inefficient, and that would interfere with my vacation plans!

That’s why when I search the Internet, no matter what webpage I’m on, I go straight to the search box built into the top of my web browser. Tom converted me to Firefox and I love to search right from the browser. If I’m ready to leave the page I’m on, I’ll just type my search term in the built-in search box and “Google” away. If I want to stay on the page I’m on and am just doing some fact checking, I’ll simply click open a new blank tab (Ctrl + t) and search away still using that built-in box. Firefox allows me to select the search engine I want to use:

IE8 picks Bing^®/Live search as its default and I’d have to ask Tom how to change that so I’ve left it on Bing:

I do recommend that you customize your iGoogle^® homepage and Yahoo! homepage to add RSS feeds relevant to your legal nurse consulting business. I also recommend that you search from “inside the box” to stay efficient and free of distractions.

Keep on searching – efficiently.

Success Is Inside!

The more you use your computer in your legal nurse consulting business, the higher the chance that one of your data types will become associated with a program other than the one you want to use to open it. What I mean by this is that your songs may start opening with Windows^® Media Player instead of your trusty iTunes^®. Your legal nurse consulting reports created in Word^® might start opening in Wordpad or your photos may open with some editor you downloaded from the Web instead of Photoshop^® Elements or Microsoft^® Office Picture Manager.

In other words, you either installed a program that took over the file association for that file type or you may have uninstalled a program that is still associated with that file type. Here’s another example, you choose to use Safari^® as your default web browser but Internet Explorer^® always opens up saved webpages or links within an email. Some programs are overly intrusive and by default may take over file association. This can make a person crazy.

Now, any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant can remedy this like a CLNC^® Pro! This is for Windows XP but can be done with other versions. Simply, minimize all your programs to your Windows Desktop. Next left click on Start then Settings then Control Panel. When the Control Panel opens, look for Folder Options and double-left click it (depending upon your Control Panel view it may be under Appearance and Themes). Select the File Types tab and it will eventually populate a list of File Types in alphabetical order by their file name extension (.wpd, .wpdx, .xls).

Now, scroll down that list to the file type that is opening with the wrong program. Select or highlight the file type and left click the Change button. Select the program you want to use to open that file type. Make sure the box next to Always use the selected program to open this kind of file is selected. Now click OK then Close and you’ve just corrected that annoying issue!

The Control Panel and File Associations can be dangerous places, but any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant with a modicum of confidence (and care) can fix this file issue with alacrity. Go for it – but just be careful in there!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Every Certified Legal Nurse Consultant running a variation of Windows^® probably has at least one program that, instead of opening up to a full-screen view, pops up in a smaller window, a portion of a window or is just a quarter of its normal size. You then click it to full size, do your work and when you’re done, close the program. Next time you open it that same day, it comes up full size, or not. The next time you open it after a restart of your computer, it opens full-size, or not. Therein lies the rub, it’s not consistent, at least not as consistent as your other Windows programs.

So what’s a savvy CLNC^® consultant to do? If you’re running Windows XP and you use a shortcut to open your program, the solution is easy. First, navigate to the shortcut you use to open the program. This could be in one of three places:

1. Your Windows “Desktop” (that’s those icons on your screen).
2. Your “Quick Launch” toolbar in your Task Bar (that’s in the blue bar at the bottom left of your screen).
3. The “Start Menu” that you use to select your programs (it pops open when you click the Start button).

Mouse over the icon/shortcut for the program that’s giving you size trouble and right click it. When the menu pops up, left click Properties at the bottom and you’ll see the “Properties” box with the “Shortcut” tab open.

In the Run category, left click the Normal window selection and select Maximized. Then click Apply and Okay. Next time you run that program from that particular shortcut, it should open in the maximized, full-screen mode you selected and you’re back where you want to be!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Every CLNC^® consultant using social media to market your Certified Legal Nurse Consulting business, raise your left hand (keeping your right hand on your mouse). That’s terrific! I know a lot of you participate and interact regularly with Vickie on Facebook^® and Twitter^TM. I also know that Facebook and Twitter can be semi-frustrating if you’re using them directly through a web browser instead of an application like TweetDeck or HootSuite^®. Why frustrating? Because you need to refresh the page on a regular basis to see the updates.

Likewise, if you’re a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who’s bidding on business equipment on eBay^® or another auction site and you want to keep ahead of last minute snipers or just watch bidding trends, you face a similar problem. A problem whose only remedy is sitting, mouse-in-hand, and relentlessly clicking the “refresh” button on your browser.

Well my CLNC^® amigos, I have a solution for you, at least if you’re a Firefox^® user. Simply visit the Add-ons for Firefox page for ReloadEvery and install this nifty little add-on. It allows you, by right-clicking on an open web page, to select an automatic refresh interval for that page. You can even set your own custom refresh timings. This allows you to watch your Facebook wall or profile page and keep up with Vickie and your CLNC^® colleagues without the need to click the refresh button. It does have the innate danger of wiping out that half-written, pithy status update you typed in and hadn’t yet sent so be careful when you use it. Internet Explorer^® and Safari^® users are out of luck but I’ve read that the Opera^® browser has this already built-in.

With ReloadEvery installed, you always have the most current page/news in front of you and you’ll never miss a Farmburg Piglet request again. I think this is just another reason to move to Firefox as your web browser for your legal nurse consulting business.

Keep on techin’,

Tom