laptop

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

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

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

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

Keep on techin’,

Tom

The holidays are officially here: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us and the Christmas/Festivus/Hanukkah season is just ahead. I know that some of my CLNC^® amigos will be asking Santa for something electric under the tree so here are some tips on how to select that special something.

If you’re buying a new computer, you’ve got to make a choice between a laptop and a desktop and the deciding point for you deciders is whether or not you want to sacrifice form for function. Desktops are cheaper and easier to upgrade. Laptops need lots of accessories adding to an already higher price. If you travel a lot or haunt Starbucks^® for peace and quiet, consider a laptop – otherwise stick with the desktop.

No matter what you buy, you’ll be making some choices about memory, hard disk size and graphics cards. When it comes to memory (commonly known as RAM), more is better. No matter desktop or laptop, stuff it full of as much memory as you can afford – think of 4GB as a minimum with 6-8GB (or more) as ideal. The more RAM you have, the faster your computer will seem to run.

Hard disks are great places to store your legal nurse consulting work product, photographs and music. Get a pretty good sized hard drive – a 320 GB drive is small by today’s standards so, whether laptop or desktop, go bigger and faster. 7,200 RPM is recommended if available. For now, stay away from solid state drives (SSDs). These have no moving parts but are limited in terms of data storage and you’ll find yourself regretting the purchase later (it’s already later).

Central processing units or CPUs can be a grab bag with dual-cores and quad-cores in the mix. Most laptops will probably be dual-core units; while desktops are most often quads. What matters is the CPU speed. Look for something fast, but if there’s a big price difference for an incremental speed difference (3.0-3.2 GHz), save the money and go with the cheaper unit. If it’s a major difference in speed (2.3GHz-3.2 GHz), go for the faster unit. It’ll pay off in the long run.

The fastest CPU in the world won’t help too much if you have a slow graphics card. This is what “harvests” your FarmVille^® crops. If you’re planning on gaming, go for a fast card with a larger amount of RAM than the “stock” card. If you’re a normal user, you can probably get away with a 3-D capable card with at least 512MB of RAM minimum. Desktops should have two DV-I ports to plug in your new dual monitors.

Finally, speaking of monitors, if you have a great computer but a small single monitor you won’t enjoy your PC as much as you should. Spring for a new, bigger, brighter monitor (or two) so that you can enjoy those Blu-ray^® DVDs the way they’re meant to be enjoyed – while checking Facebook^® on the other monitor. Remember, computer specs change constantly so your new purchase may be obsolete before you leave the store or the UPS driver delivers it. Always check with your salesperson for the most current specs.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

CLNC^® consultants often ask me, “Tom, should I buy a laptop or desktop for my legal nurse consulting business?” As always, my answer is firm and definite: “Well, my CLNC^® amigo, it depends.” I love my laptop, but then again, I’m a mobile user shifting between the home office, the office office, the airplane office and the road office. On any given day I can be working from my lap in some mobile location. I’ll be logged into the Institute’s network through my Verizon wireless card from a conference room, camped out on the couch in our hotel room and once (well, maybe twice) in the backseat of a hotel’s airport shuttle, crunching away on a deadline.

To get that flexibility I have to give something up, and that’s performance. Believe it or not, I’m not as demanding on a computer as some folks. Like most Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, I’m busy creating and editing Microsoft^® Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. I also process email, lightly edit photos from the CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminars and surf (I mean research) the Web. I don’t have a single game on my computer and I don’t play World of Witchfare in 3D or download videos of cats and duct-tape from YouTube^®.

In short, a good old-fashioned laptop works for me. To speed mine up, I’ve loaded it with as much memory as it can hold and popped in a high-speed 320GB hard drive, but that’s about the limit of my upgrades. I could go to CostCo^® today and for less than I paid for my laptop (and all the accessories I need to travel the world with it), buy a smaller, more powerful machine off the shelf, load in Microsoft^® Office^® software and probably work faster. However, my laptop is set up how I want it, it works for what I need and it has paid me back in increased productivity in what would otherwise be time lost forever so there is no need to upgrade (yet).

If I was a CLNC^® power-user or budget-conscious Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, I’d be flying a desktop, one of the big old ugly boxes that has lots of room for upgrading. You can load in or add lots of RAM memory to make it run super-fast, you can upgrade the video card, add additional adapters so you can have more monitors (I’ve seen as many as four at once!), add additional hard drives and basically turn that old-fashioned looking box into the fastest, meanest machine out there.

Laptops just don’t have that flexibility. Everything is built-into the motherboard and stashed under the keyboard. You can add some memory or upgrade the hard drive but that’s about it. Your number of available USB ports, video cards, etc. are pretty much decided by the manufacturer. With a desktop, once you open the box, you’re only limited to your imagination and what’s compatible with your brand. Desktops are cheaper and faster.

How do you make the choice? Budget and travel. If you’re on a budget buy a desktop. If it’s important to take your work, or ability to work, with you as you move about, buy a laptop. There are many choices in each – just buy what works best for you.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Certified Legal Nurse Consultants have long known that one of the issues with laptops is that you must occasionally close them. When you do, the screen collects dust and worse, marks develop from the pressing of the screen against the keys. The longer you run it while it’s docked and shut, the more dust it seems to collect – kind of like little techie dust bunnies. When you finally open your laptop up in an attorney’s office, on an airplane or in the hot tub (just kidding), the screen will be marked and dirty. Kleenex^® doesn’t cut it for cleaning (you really need microfiber cloth) and if you use it (even it’s clean) you’ll end up working in a haze or fog.

I’ve long wished for a solution and I’ve finally found something for my CLNC^® amigos that does triple duty, working to protect the screen from marks and at the same time functioning as a mousepad and a screen cleaner. It’s called the 3-in-1 mousepad from HumanToolz.

Vickie and I each have one and not only do they do a great job of protecting the screen, they’ve mysteriously decreased the number of those annoying dust bunnies. As a bonus, each time I open my laptop I can wipe the screen and get straight to work. Buy one for every laptop you use in your legal nurse consulting business. They come in a variety of sizes and colors and you can easily find them on Amazon.com by searching for “HumanToolz mousepad.” In the words of Jimmy Cliff, “I can see clearly now…”

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I had a chance to stand in line and look at the iPad^® this past week. As I always am with Apple^® products, I was very impressed with its quality and its display. It seemed to be an iPod Touch^® with a monster steroid problem, a little big to clip to your belt and too limited to replace your laptop.

Other than the ability to use its 802.11n Wi-Fi connection (and optional 3G) to download books in full color (as opposed to Kindle^®‘s gray-scale), surf the Internet, do email, watch videos, listen to music and download Apps from the Apps Store, I’m not sure what to think of it. It still won’t multitask and doesn’t support Adobe^® Flash^® which is a disappointment. If you properly synch it, it will do the same calendar functions as your iPhone, BlackBerry^® or other phone so, I ask, is it the future or just another half-step?

I’d like Certified Legal Nurse Consultants to let me know what they think of the iPad and how they might apply it to their legal nurse consulting business, versus personal use. One thing I came up with would be its terrific ability to show graphics to an attorney-client when trying to explain an injury. I’m sure Apple will eventually authorize Skype for the iPad – that’ll change how we make video calls. What can you think of?

If anyone out there plans on buying an iPad, click here to comment and tell me. If you’re dead-set against buying one, click here to comment and let me know why not. Either way, I’d love to hear what uses the CLNC^® community will come up with for this nearly way-cool device.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

The other day, an Institute staff member came into my office and complained that her computer was running slowly. I asked her if it was slower than normal and she looked at me sort of funny, then said yes. We went back to her desk to assess things. She had her usual 30 programs running with more open windows than a New Orleans nunnery in the summer.

I then asked when she had last turned off her computer. This was a trick question because policy at the Institute is to let computers run overnight (to download updates, etc. that our techies shove out) and then restart them every Friday at the end of the day. That way when staff members log in on Monday, the installation process is either complete or it goes pretty quickly. She told me it had been two to three weeks since the last shut-down. Hearing that, I immediately told her that both she and her computer had memory leaks and she needed to shut the computer down for at least two minutes, then restart it.

Next, I went back to my office to sit on my laurels and wait for her call. A few minutes later she called to let me know it was running as fast as it used to with no hint of residual slowness. My memory-leak diagnosis was right.

One of the issues that legal nurse consultants will run into are memory leaks (both with themselves and their computers). The brief and overly simple explanation is that the longer a computer runs without being restarted and also the more programs you have open at the same time, the better the chance that some program, driver or piece of hardware won’t let go of its allocated memory when you’re done with it. You will not be aware this is happening, but your available memory can be eaten up by programs or devices that technically aren’t in use, causing your computer to run more slowly.

The way that a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant cures this leak is to first, make sure to have the most current versions of all software and second, to restart your computer on a regular basis. Whether you have a desktop or laptop for your legal nurse consulting business, my advice remains the same. Shut it down at least once a week or whenever it starts to run slower than a teenager mowing the lawn. I know a lot of laptop users who simply put their computer into sleep mode or hibernation. That won’t solve the memory leak issue. You need to shut it down and let everything clear out of the system.

If your computer is still slow, follow the steps in my earlier Tech Tip on cleaning up your computer system. In fact, this should be one of the first things you do in this new year (even before you get around to breaking your resolutions).

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I don’t like restraints; I’m a mobile user. I can pick up and go at a moment’s notice and I don’t like to be held down. Vickie snaps her fingers and I say, “How far are we going and how light are we packing?” That means my laptop and wireless card go with me just about everywhere. I use them on planes, trains and even in speeding automobiles (with someone else driving). I use my laptop at home, at work and at the CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminars. I also use it at Starbucks^®, preferring the security of my own wireless card’s network to one that might possibly be spoofed by some villain.

At each of these locations, I have a different configuration for the program icons on my desktop. What this means is that I have my mobile (laptop only) configuration. At home I have my w-i-d-e screen monitor (docked) configuration. At the office I have my dual monitor (docked) configuration and at the seminars I use the laptop screen as one monitor and have an extra monitor shipped ahead for me (come on, once you go dual, going single is cruel).

Here’s the issue. Every time I boot the laptop I end up with a different arrangement of my icons. Even if you’re one of those BORING legal nurse consultants who have right-clicked in an open part of your screen, then selected “Arrange Icons By” and then selected “name” and “align to grid,” chances are if you move to a different screen-size or screen resolution those icons will shift around. Maybe there’s a little OCD working here, but gosh darn it, when I line up my icons logically, I want them to be in the same place even if I’m not. You don’t want to end up spending your legal nurse consulting business’s billable hours looking for certain icons. Early this year I downloaded and installed RocketDock to get most of those icons off my desktop. That works pretty well but I’m lazy by habit, if not by nature, and still keep some icons on the desktop representing short-cuts to certain programs that either won’t run on the RocketDock or that I just don’t want to have to fish for.

Having icons go wild can also be caused by Windows^® issues. Sometimes after you’ve installed or uninstalled a program or when you boot Windows, it may completely rearrange your icons for you, no explanation – just sorry dude here’s your new layout. Then you have to spend hours (well, minutes) laboriously rearranging them until they’re “just so” once more.

If you’re like me and don’t like Windows rearranging your icons at will and wish you could find some way to restrain them, now there is! You can follow this link to CNET and download a wonderful FREE product called DesktopOK. It will allow you to set and save different layouts for your desktop icons. You simply arrange them the way you want, fire up the program, hit “save” and it will save the layout for you by screen resolution (I haven’t figured out a way to rename the layouts yet to simple things like home, loose, drudge, seminar, etc.).

This program works on Windows XP and Vista (I don’t know about 7) and is easy to install and download. You can set it to run when Windows starts up (which I like) or whenever you want to trigger it. Then, next time your icons are more scrambled than the eggs you had for breakfast, you simply left click the DesktopOK icon in your Windows tray. When the program pops up on your screen, you then double-click on the screen resolution setting you’re using and it will reset your icons back to that state. Cool!

I will toss out my usual warning that this is pretty much unsupported freeware so you use it at your own risk. I’m taking the risk and I like it!

Keep on techin’ (in good order),

Tom

Last week I talked about what to do when you or someone not close to you anymore, spills a drink onto your laptop. This week I’ll discuss something that’s even more common – a wet cell phone. We’ve all seen or heard legal nurse consultants on their cell phones in the restroom, working by the pool, in the rain or snow or just being careless. Eventually, during your legal nurse consulting career, you’re going to do one of three things (four if you count throwing it at a difficult attorney-client) to your cell phone: drop it and break it, lose it or drop it into something very wet and bad for it.

Just like a spill onto a laptop, there are varying degrees of nastiness that can happen with a wet cell phone. It all depends on what we’ve dropped our phone into. A simple spill or dunking in water or other plain unsweetened liquid may not be so disastrous. Simply pull the battery out as quickly as possible. Don’t stop to say goodbye to that attorney-client if you’re on the phone when you step into the deep pool of water. You want to avoid shorting out any electronics. Keep the back off the phone, pull out the SIM card if you can (slide the holder back then lift out the card), shake the water out of the phone and disassemble it as much as you can (usually it’s not much). If it’s an iPhone (I don’t know why any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant would want one of these), you should try and open it up. You can use any small plastic wedge along the seam to do this – I recommend using plastic and not something metal. What’s the right piece of plastic? Our contract techie used a guitar pick on his – but he said he was just taking it apart to see what was inside, not because he dropped it in the loo (yeah, sure).

Next, set the pieces in a warm dry place. Avoid direct sunlight as you want to keep condensation from forming on the unseen parts. Let it sit for a day or so and then (here’s the fun part) bury the pieces in a large bowl of dry, uncooked rice (white or brown, long-grain or short). Yes, I did say dry, uncooked rice (Note to self: Cooked rice did not work). Let it sit buried for at least two days, three if you can. While it’s drying out, dry yourself out from your cell phone addiction. Let people know you’ll be off the grid for a couple of days. You can even tell them “I’m drying out” to see what reaction you get. After the third day, pull the phone out, wipe and blow out (mouth or canned air) any dust or other residue from the rice, reassemble it, put in the battery and let there be talk, email, apps, music and all the other stuff that your phone does for you (if the CLNC^® gods and goddesses are smiling at you). If it doesn’t fire up – take it back to your phone shop and tell them, “It just stopped working.” They’ll know what really happened.

If you happened to drop your phone into your margarita during the party your favorite attorney-client threw to celebrate winning that big medical malpractice case, or if your two-year-old slam dunked it into the toilet with her toys or if you just spilled your half-caf, double-shot, triple-caramel-whipped latte into it, we’re back to square one. Again, get off the phone, open it up and shake it out. Get out that can of circuit board cleaner you bought at RadioShack^® and wash out the sugar, sweeteners, cream and or saltwater (if you were deep-sea fishing). Wash it out with the circuit board cleaner. It’s already wet and now you’ve got to get out the gunk. But don’t dip it or soak it, that’s a recipe for further disaster. After you’ve rinsed it with the cleaner, follow the steps above to dry it out and fire it overhand into the rice bowl! With any luck, it’ll work when it comes out and you can get back into the swing of your legal nurse consulting business without too many days off the grid.

I’m hoping that all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants never have to dry out or dry out their phones or laptops. But, if you ever do spill your drink – at least we now know how to recover a phone or laptop. If you drop your attorney-client into the pool, recovering the business might be more difficult.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

A couple of months ago I jumped on an airplane to Las Vegas for the Institute’s CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Program. I normally work on flights. I carry my own water, jack my iPod^® Classic into my Bose^® sound-reducing headphones and crank up Prince. I’m so self-contained that the only thing that can ruin my flight is when the guy in front of me leans his seat back into my lap so he can sleep.

Even before we take off, I have my laptop on my lap waiting for the double bell that allows real business travelers to work and fake business travelers to sleep (or suck down as many free drinks as they can if they’re in first class). Vegas can be 3½ hours from Houston and this time I got lucky – no sleepers. I cranked up the laptop, got to work, didn’t look up until final approach into LAS and I didn’t think anything of it.

In Vegas, I was comparing flight notes with another staff member who told me her laptop conked out somewhere around West Texas, about 1½ hours into the flight. We have the same model laptop so I was a little confused why I could work for 3 hours and she couldn’t (no it’s not just stamina). I volunteered to take a look at her laptop (it makes me look good even though it’s my job). After two minutes, I figured out her issues, at least the ones related to her laptop. One of those issues was the strain on the laptop’s battery.

Based on this experience, here are some steps and tips to extend the life of your laptop batteries whether you’re flying across the country, working in the medical library or soaking up the free Wi-Fi at Starbucks^®.

Keep a Low-Power Profile

• Right click My Computer on your desktop, click Hardware and click Hardware Profiles. If you’re undocked, copy the profile you are in and rename it to Undocked-Normal.
• Click Start, Settings, Network Connections and Panel and disable your Wireless Network Connection. (When you’re in the air or out of range of the wireless Internet, the computer will keep trying to connect and runs down the battery trying).
• Highlight the current profile, click Rename and name it Undocked-No Wireless.
• Dim the laptop screen a couple of notches. You don’t need a tan while you work, so maximum brightness is not necessary.
• Click Start, Control Panel and Power.

• Next time you boot up your laptop it will give you a choice of which profile to select so if you’re out of range of wireless, pick the Undocked-No Wireless and your laptop battery will get extended life.

Stick It in Your Ear

• Don’t listen to music on your laptop – get an iPod or Zune^® and use the ear-buds or a Bose headset.

Empty It Out

• Don’t watch DVDs or listen to CDs on your laptop and make darn sure you don’t have a CD or DVD hiding in the built-in player.

Ditch It and Stick It

• Pull out the CD/DVD player and replace it with a second battery.
• Buy the battery with the highest number of cells (6-12) and look for a high watt-hour (WHr) rating. The more cells and higher WHr, the longer it will last.
• You probably won’t be listening to CDs or watching DVDs on the road but if you think you will, just toss the modular player in your computer case and only use it when plugged into a wall jack.
• Some computers have portable battery packs you can attach – consider one.

Juice Up Every Chance You Get

• Use your charger right up to the last second in the airport or Starbucks. Any time spent on the ground using your battery is less time in the air on your battery. Don’t be afraid to top off unless you have an older non Li-ion battery.
• Once you’re on the ground, run the battery(ies) completely down and charge them overnight. Do this each night. It’s always good to run through a full power cycle as often as possible.

Make New Friends at the Airport (You Won’t See Them for Long)

• I carry one of those goofy power plugs from my local hardware store that allows me to plug three cords into one wall plug. If I need to juice it at Starbucks and some sandaled, goatee-type is already plugged into the wall socket I can usually talk him (or her) into letting me share by plugging in the adapter so we can all make nice.

I’ve flown New York City to San Diego on one charge using the above methods and highly recommend them. The only problem is my batteries last so long I can’t use the dead-battery excuse so I can shut down and dig deep into the latest Lee Child thriller.

Here’s one last tip. If your airport doesn’t have free Wi-Fi (a lot do), find the closest airline club, one club-member benefit is usually free, unsecured, wireless Internet. You’ll locate it quickly by looking for the laptop owners crouched against the club’s wall desperately downloading email.

Keep on Techin’, (and I’ll see you at the wall socket!)

Tom