Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Yo’ Mamma, Get YoWindow Working for Your Legal Nurse Consulting Business
I’ve got a confession to make. I love unique applications, so long as they aren’t malware (Remember the flying toasters screen saver?). I’ve updated my Windows® XP machine to mimic Apple’s® Dock and added emulations that give me some Windows 7 functionality. I’ve loaded add-ons to my Firefox® web browser that tell me the weather, allow me to share websites on Delicious, trust a site or not with WOT, save a site with iCyte and use a cool program I’ve never shared with anyone else called FireShot to snag images of websites that even include Flash® animations. In short, I could be a tech support nightmare, but I’m not because I only download my tools from well-known sites (like CNET.com) and only after I investigate their reputations on the web at large.
It’s with this love of quirky apps in mind that today’s Tech Tip is written. If you’re a hard-working Certified Legal Nurse Consultant you may not lift your head from your work for hours at a time. In fact, I’ve seen Vickie go an entire day without looking out a window because she’s fully engaged in a project. I’ll even confess that sometimes I get like that.
As CLNC® consultants, you know what I mean – you get so caught up in writing a report or doing research for your favorite attorney-client that you forget to eat lunch, go to the restroom and do anything except grab another cup of your favorite caffeine-containing beverage (hot or cold). Or maybe your office is a cubicle, or in a room that doesn’t have a window to the world or perhaps you’re just so caught up in Second Life, Farmland or Spacebook that you forget what’s going on in your real life or at least out there in the great wide open.
Well for those of you who need a reality check, reality reinforcement or just don’t have a window handy, check out a program called “YoWindow.” This is an easy-to-use screensaver that will show you the weather outside your own window (or at any other location in the world you choose) in real time. It sets the weather against a rather bucolic farm scene and realistically renders snow, rain, night and day, etc. and even reflects the season! Here’s the weather in Houston when I wrote this blog:
This is one fun little weather tool that is almost as cool as the “1-ClickWeather” Firefox add-on from Weather.com (which I really like).
YoWindow even allows you to scroll forward and see the forecast so you’ll know if you need to take an umbrella to an interview with your hot attorney-prospect when you go to show how your legal nurse consulting business can help him win his cases.
I’m an old-school tech-type and tend to use the Windows “Starfield” for my screensaver because it doesn’t put a strain on my processor or video card like some of the 3D screensavers used to (such as the floating, rotating, reflective “3D Text” saying “Tom Rocks!” that I put on Vick’s laptop this morning). YoWindow is different in that it seems to be fairly simple, if you’ve got a decent computer the clouds and weeds will blow in the wind and the effects will render nicely. The developers promise more backgrounds in the future but in the meantime you can substitute your own photo or background of your choice and the weather will lay over it.
If you want a quick weather app, YoWindow is fun and easy to install and use. Give it a try.
2 thoughts on “Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Yo’ Mamma, Get YoWindow Working for Your Legal Nurse Consulting Business”
Tom: I really enjoy your articles about computers and how Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can do our jobs better. I will try the weather trick. I understand not looking up/not breaking when one gets involved in a case. Vickie taught us to us discipline with our business time.
Question: my plan is to store all my cases on a back up hard drive. Organizing to an easy find. Safe from computer crash/virus. Should this work be saved on back up hard drive as you work on it or as the case finishes? I am new at this, and not computer savvy. But I have had a computer crash during a cash. That hurts! Thank you.
Thank you for the compliments, it’s a pleasure to write the Tuesday Tech Tips.
Regarding backing up to an external hard drive, I think that’s a great idea. If you purchase a newer drive it should come with software that will automatically back up your information on an incremental basis, that is add to the current back up only what’s been changed since the last. That way your historical information is backed up as well as the projects you are currently working on. I’d also recommend burning a copy of any final work product to a CD or other media and keeping that with your case files.
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*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
Keep on techin’,
Tom: I really enjoy your articles about computers and how Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can do our jobs better. I will try the weather trick. I understand not looking up/not breaking when one gets involved in a case. Vickie taught us to us discipline with our business time.
Question: my plan is to store all my cases on a back up hard drive. Organizing to an easy find. Safe from computer crash/virus. Should this work be saved on back up hard drive as you work on it or as the case finishes? I am new at this, and not computer savvy. But I have had a computer crash during a cash. That hurts! Thank you.
Harriet,
Thank you for the compliments, it’s a pleasure to write the Tuesday Tech Tips.
Regarding backing up to an external hard drive, I think that’s a great idea. If you purchase a newer drive it should come with software that will automatically back up your information on an incremental basis, that is add to the current back up only what’s been changed since the last. That way your historical information is backed up as well as the projects you are currently working on. I’d also recommend burning a copy of any final work product to a CD or other media and keeping that with your case files.