Google

One of the chief complaints I hear from legal nurse consultants about Gmail is that unlike Outlook, Thunderbird or other email clients, you have to be online to access or work with your Gmail email. If you’re a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who wants to use your Gmail without the Internet (like when you’re on an airplane or in some inferior coffee shop that doesn’t have free Wi-Fi), follow these steps:

1. Log into your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Click Labs in the top right corner.
4. Look for the selection for Offline Gmail and set the button to Enable and then click Save Changes.

Your web browser will then reload and there will be a new link that says Offline^0.2 in the top of your Gmail screen. Click on that new link and follow the instructions (you’ll need to download Google Gears but Google will help you) and download your Gmail email. Before you know it, you’ll have offline access to your Gmail no matter where you are! If you ever work from an intermittent wireless connection this could be a lifesaver. Of course, you can’t send or receive email while in offline mode.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

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

Friday I came home from work, docked my computer, fired it up and went to check the movie times at the dollar theater for my big date with Vickie. Fired up Firefox – nothing. Opened up IE8 – nothing. Tried Safari – still nothing. Looked at the DSL modem and router – all seemed fine (all das blinkenlights vas blinken und flashen). My first reaction was that my end is working, it must be that the Internet is down.

Since I was in a hurry to catch up with Vickie for dinner and a movie I didn’t have time to adequately diagnose the problem. Now, I can go a month without cable television. I only watch “The Weather Channel” anyway (it brings my blood pressure down getting “Locals on the 8s”). But the prospect of a weekend without the Internet terrified me. How would I know what was on eBay, what the Octomom was up to and how was I going to download the latest LOLcat in my Fam-spam?

All through dinner and Star Trek I thought about the problem. Was it limited to my computer? Did I have a cable pulled out? Had I paid the bill? Was there any construction on the street yesterday that could have cut my lifeline to Google? Was the Internet really down (there wasn’t anything on the radio about it) or was it something even more sinister?

I put it out of my mind and managed to have a fitful night’s sleep. The next morning, after a cup of healthy green tea to stimulate my mental processes (well process anyway), I attacked the problem fresh. First, I rebooted my computer. Still nada. Second, I fired up Vickie’s computer and, while it was booting, checked all the cables running into my dock/port replicator – all were in place and my network connection light was blinking properly. Third, I looked in the system tray in the bottom right of my screen to see if my LAN (local area network) connection was functioning – LAN was okay.

Fourth, I checked Vickie’s computer – no Internet there either. Problem duplicated so I know it’s not isolated to my computer alone (good news – maybe).

Next I called AT&T to hear the Internet outage report. No problems in my local area. Even though AT&T gave me a clean bill of health, I called them back, punched through all the voice-prompt systems and finally talked to Elvis from Bangalore. Elvis (who’s actually a really nice guy in Toronto who can’t pronounce “Toronto” in Canadian), tells me that he is showing a strong signal going to my router. In other words, it’s not AT&T’s fault I can’t get online, it’s me.

“So,” I ask Elvis, “what’s the next logical step?” He tells me it’s easy – just reboot my modem and router and see if that’s the issue. That’s what I was hoping not to hear; that’s the dirty job, involving crawling under the desk through a passel of dust bunnies to check all the cables on my DSL modem and my router. Elvis wasn’t up to it (but he did offer to stay on the line until the issue was resolved) so someone else had to do it. Vickie was still downstairs drinking healthy green tea oblivious to the impending disaster that would befall us if I couldn’t get the Internet back on. The job fell to me. Everything else had tested negative, it was time to tuck my red cape into my shorts, take Elvis’s advice and pull the plugs.

First, I unplugged the router then unplugged the DSL modem. Das blinkenlights are no longer blinken. I waited a minute to allow any dynamic memory to clear itself out. Once everything was still (not blinken) I took a deep breath, plugged the DSL modem back in and let it fire up (start blinken). Then I plugged the router back in and let it acquire a signal from the modem (and start blinken). Next, still holding my breath, I walked back to my computer, fired up the browser and…Yahoo! It’s back! I started breathing again, thanked Elvis profusely and got on with my day. I also have a WAP – a wireless access point (to give me wireless in the backyard) plugged into the router so I rebooted that too just for good measure.

What’s the takeaway for the Certified Legal Nurse Consultant? When your Internet is unavailable, don’t call your computer manufacturer’s help line. Instead follow these steps:

1) If you have a second computer sharing your network, see if it can connect to the Internet (I know, I didn’t do that first).

2) Reboot your computer to make sure it’s picked up any connections.

3) Check your physical network connections (your LAN) to your computer (skip if you’re connecting wirelessly).

4) Call your Internet service provider (ISP) to see if there are any network outages affecting your area.

5) Reboot/restart your cable or DSL modem and any router/hubs and/or WAPs you have plugged into that modem.

Internet outages are rare – the issue is usually something simple, so attack the problem in a logical order and you should get a simple and fast resolution.

Here’s another takeaway – if you’ve gone to VoIP (voice over internet protocol) for your legal nurse consulting business your phone calls are going through your Internet connection. This means that when your Internet is down you’ll need a cell phone or a landline to report the problem!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

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

Tom’s favorite search tool is Yahoo. Our director of education likes Google. My favorite search tool is Tom! Every day we field questions from CLNC^® consultants and even attorneys that are easily found through a quick Internet search. Tom has become a master at searching out the most arcane facts from the furthest reaches of the Internet. He uses a variety of search engines, constantly juggles and refines search terms, and even uses whole sentence searches. If you want to know what species of monkey is endemic to Canada, he’s the one to ask.

If I need a restaurant in Oslo or Poughkeepsie, he’ll not only find me a local review and suggestions on which species of sea urchin tastes best in October, but ferret out the name of the fisherman who sold it to the restaurant. Al Gore may have invented the Internet, but Tom is the one who has harnessed its power for the good of Vickie-kind. I may be exaggerating a little here, okay I’m exaggerating a lot. But with a little bit of mental sweat you can search as well as Tom.

There’s a wealth of medical, nursing, state and federal resources out there. You can learn about who can report Medicare and Medicaid fraud, what’s new in healthcare regulations and find answers to all sorts of questions simply by putting Google to work for you. Before you take the time to fill out that mentoring request to learn the definition of a legal term in your home state of Idaho just do a quick online search. We constantly answer mentoring questions that could have been answered with a simple trip to Google. Get the most out of your CLNC^® Mentoring by doing your search before you request mentoring. What’s good about this is that you will expand your knowledge and at the same time learn you can answer many of your own questions.

I always tell new CLNC^® consultants that, “we won’t do your work for you” and we won’t. We’re here to be your coach and to guide you on how to do the work, handle your CLNC^® business and to answer your questions (things you can’t necessarily find online). Don’t use the mentoring process to replace the thinking process or the nursing process. You’ve been trained to think critically as a nurse, you do it on the job and you do it naturally. Apply the nursing process to the legal nurse consulting process and you’ll come out a winner.

There’s a world of knowledge out there. Use it and use it wisely. Educate yourself and your attorney-clients. But, like Tom says, “Search smarter, not harder and don’t depend on Wikipedia unless you want to be road kill on the information superhighway.” Twitter you later!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment on one interesting search you’ve done recently keeping in mind this blog is rated G.

Okay – this week it’s search engine tips. Google is by far the most popular search engine today. Many legal nurse consultants even use it as a verb (“No Billy I won’t help you spell tuberous. You’ll just have to Google it.”). So, if you’re going to use Google to the illogical exclusion of all other methods of searching, here’s how:

• Limit your searches to use exact phrase searches. Encase your search phrase in quotation marks “certified legal nurse consultant” to only get results that have that exact phrase somewhere in the document. If you leave off the quotation marks, your results will have the words from your phrase throughout the document, in order or not.
• Limit your sources to limit your results. Any general search will turn up pages and pages of results from just about every top level domain (TLD) such as .com, .us, .edu, .etc. You’ll have to sort through a lot of not-so-useful results to get to what you want. Limit your searches to just domains with the type of TLD site you want to search, such as “student loan sources site:gov.” This will give you information from only .gov sites. This works if you know where you want to look for what you’re looking for.
• Limit your searches to specific file types. Lots of government documents are stored on the Web as PDFs. If your initial searches give you the confidence to search for a PDF (or any other form of document) type “filetype:PDF” after your search and your results will be limited to results in that document format.
• Be wordy. Believe it or not I’ll actually type a whole sentence into the search box (with and then without quotation marks). Just about every question you can ask has been asked and answered by someone and this will sometimes take you straight to the answer you need.
• Keep tabs on yourself. I use the Firefox browser as an alternative to Internet Explorer 7, and when I do a search, I like to right-click a link and open it in a new tab. This allows me to do a better job of remembering which links I’ve opened without all the back-clicking and reduces the possibility that I’ll lose my search results page and have to start over.
• Don’t look in all the same places. Use more than one search site for your searches. (You can Google a list of search sites or search engines.) I’m guilty of this myself. I tend to rely on one search site. But different sites return different results depending upon how they index their information. Your best bet when searching is to keep open multiple tabs in your Firefox or IE7+ browsers and use a different search engine in each for the same information. You’ll be surprised by the varied results.

Keep on techin’,

Tom