If you received a netbook for Christmas, consider using one of the many free and subscription file synchronization services to get maximum utility from your netbook. A small portable computer with excellent battery life and a decent keyboard can be a great thing to have with you at home and on the road. But it is less useful if the client and firm documents you need are not also on the netbook ready for you to review and edit. The easiest way to do this is to use a file synchronization service that will let you designate which files and folders should automatically be synced between your office computer and your netbook over the Internet. The leading contenders are DropBox, SugarSync, Syncplicity, and Windows Live Mesh 2011. While each has its own user interface quirks, all will do the job of keeping your files in sync between your office computer and your netbook. There are many comparison reviews available on-line if you do a Google or Bing search. For example, read this one from PC Magazine. Costs will vary, and often there are basic services for smaller amounts of data offered at no charge. But even the subscription fees are low enough that cost is not really a factor. Microsoft's Windows Live Mesh 2011 is completely free. But the newest version works only with Vista and Windows 7, leaving those of you still on XP out of the mix once the old Live Mesh Beta services are deactivated at the end of March, 2011. UPDATE: I should have added that syncing of documents is also possible, and useful, if you have a tablet computer such as an iPad or one of the new Android OS tablets. For example, Dropbox has mobile versions for the iPad, Android, and Blackberry. The same with SugarSync. My replacement Archos 70 tablet arrived, so I plan to try at least one of these services to see how it works in making my practice-related documents available on the tablet.

Even those who consider themselves tech-savvy sometimes run into glitches that defy explanation. For my home-based appellate practice, I have Road Runner Lightning high speed Internet service from my local cable company, Bright House Networks. It provides 40 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload speeds. That is plenty for normal use, including streaming of audio and video. Recently my cable modem (Motorola Surf Board SBG6580), which also functions as a router, starting dropping its connection to the Internet. I called Bright House and they came out with a replacement modem. That is when the mystery began. I still have three Windows XP computers at home. These are my ThinkPad notebook, Toshiba netbook, and an eight year old Toshiba notebook that still works as well as it did when new. With the replacement modem/router in place, the XP machines connected just fine to the Internet (via a wireless connection) and web page browsing was snappy as ever. Same thing with my son's notebook computer running Vista. But my two Windows 7 PC's (my self-built primary desktop with an AMD quad cord processor) and my son's Acer gaming machine (with an Intel quad core processor) would connect to the Internet, but take forever to open web pages. This was odd because they were wired directly to the Ethernet ports of the Motorola modem/router and should have browsed at least as fast as the wireless XP machines, if not faster. Oddly, speed tests run on the two Windows 7 machines showed download and upload speeds at or near the promised 40/5 maximum. Even stranger, I have Windows Virtual Machine with XP Mode installed on my Windows 7 machine so I can run older software not compatible with Windows 7. When I opened a browser in the Virtual Machine window running XP with only 512 MB of allocated system RAM, browsing was perfect. If I tried to open the same web page in Windows 7, the page would open at least ten times slower on the regular Windows 7 desktop than in the XP Virtual Machine. I tried this with Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. The result was the same with each browser. How could the same connection over the same hardware, but with two different operating systems, be so different when run side-by-side? Three visits from Road Runner's tech support people and at least eight hours on the telephone with their level 3 ("development") support team produced no answers. Yet another modem was swapped in. Same result. The problem had to be the way the modem communicated with the Windows 7 operating system. At this point, Road Runner tech support gave up and said they had no answers and no remedy for the problem. I too was ready to give up. Then I decided to bypass the routing functions of the Motorola device, using it only as a modem to feed the Internet connection to my Linksys WRT400N router and have the Linksys handle routing and wired/wireless networking functions. That process involved disabling what is called "NAPT" mode in the Motorola's browser-based configuration pages. I did that, but could not get the Linksys to pull an IP address from the modem. Foiled again, I gave up and reset the Motorola modem back to NAPT mode. I reconnected everything as it was, resigned to slow Windows 7 web browsing forever. Well, as soon as the modem went back into NAPT mode, Windows 7 browsing returned to normal. The slow web page loading problem was completely gone. No explanation. No logic. It just happened. Something about disabling then re-enabling the NAPT routing feature of the modem cleared-up the problem communicating with Windows 7 computers. Strange, but true. A few days later, after installing the new Internet Explorer 9 (beta) browser, I experienced the rapidly flashing hourglass icon next to my mouse pointer that indicates a background Windows process running wild. Checking the system event viewer, it was clear that the Windows Live Mesh Remote Desktop Service was continually crashing, restarting, crashing, restarting - over and over again. This created a drag on the computer by consuming a considerable amount of RAM and processor cycles. I'd been using Microsoft's Free Live Mesh file synchronization service (soon to be replaced by Windows Live Mesh 2011) for over a year without problems. Why was this happening now? The first clue in tracking down such mysteries is to look to recently installed or upgraded software. The only major change recently was the IE9 upgrade. Sure enough, a search of the web found several reports of incompatibility between the IE9 beta browser and the Live Mesh Remote Desktop Service. As soon as I uninstalled IE9, everything returned to normal. The lesson is never give up trying to solve a mysterious tech problem. There will be an answer, even if the answer makes little sense. The secondary lesson is that even experienced users often run into problems that are hard to diagnose, much less solve. So don't bee too much in awe of anyone who claims expert status. They have their share of tech failures, just like the rest of us.

Local Legal Technology Expert Will Help Serve Columbus Bar Membership Columbus, Ohio – December 10, 2010 - We are proud to announce that one of Affinity Consulting’s founding Partners, Barron K. Henley, Esq., has recently been appointed to the Columbus Bar Services (CBS) Board. CBS, Inc. is the entrepreneurial arm of the Columbus Bar Association (CBA) which focuses on developing services that will ultimately benefit members of the Columbus Bar economically - either by funding existing projects or by helping to keep dues affordable. Henley, a nationally recognized “legal technologist”, has consistently advocated for the power that technology has to bring efficiency to the practice of law. Over ten years, Henley has built a proven track record of looking for “what’s next” in legal technology which uniquely qualifies him for this position. “We are fortunate to have Barron join this Board,” said Columbus Bar Association Executive Director, Jill Snitcher McQuain, “as a lawyer, Barron understands the needs of the legal professional; as a technologist, he understands what these tools can do; and as a business owner, Barron has a special perspective on how to operate with focus and efficiency.” “I’m looking forward to joining this team,” said Henley. “The CBA does great things for its membership. The more we can do to provide value-added services to both members and consumers, the more we are doing for the legal profession in Central Ohio.” CBS has brought many services to the Columbus Bar membership including CBS Agency, Inc. which provides discounted insurance plans; Columbus Bar Staffing Solutions which helps lawyers and law firms find legal support staff to meet workload demands; and, ColumbusLawyerFinder.com: a site dedicated to providing basic legal information for consumers as well as online profiles of Columbus area lawyers. About the Columbus Bar Association & Columbus Bar Services: A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Columbus Bar Association, CBS, Inc. is the entrepreneurial arm of the CBA that develops innovative services of economic benefit to Columbus Bar members. Revenue generated through Columbus Bar Services, provides financial support for various CBA projects and keeps dues affordable for members. The Columbus Bar Association strives to be the leader in providing excellent, innovative and cost effective services to members of the legal profession and the general public in central Ohio. Through the active involvement of a broad and diverse membership, we will focus on professionalism, education, advocacy and community service in order to advance the justice system for all. For more information, visit www.cbalaw.org or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it About Barron Henley & Affinity Consulting: Barron K. Henley, Esq. is an attorney, a “legal technologist” since 1990 and a founding member of HMU and Affinity Consulting. Henley heads his firm’s HotDocs document assembly and software training departments. Affinity Consulting Affinity Consulting Group is an alliance representing the pinnacle of law office technology and practice consulting services for small and mid-sized law firms. With six offices throughout the United States, Affinity brings its clients depth of experience and expertise resulting from a combined client base of several thousand law offices. Affinity offerings include solutions for the following areas: practice management; time, billing, and accounting; document management and scanning; litigation support; document assembly; software education including Affinity University, training; voice recognition and speech solutions; network administration; remote computing; law firm retreat planning and productivity and financial management consulting. For more information, visit www.affinityconsulting.com

Now that major-brand Android tablets are about to become available, the question is - are they worth the price? The well-designed and full-featured Samsung Galaxy 7" tablet will be available from major cell carriers very soon, but it will come with either a high price, and expensive data plan requirement, or both. As just reported by Gizmodo, Sprint will knock $200 off the $600 price of the Galaxy tablet if you sign a two-year contract for a data plan running from $30 to $60 monthly. Verizon, on the other hand, is not offering a discount if you sign-up for a data plan, leaving the price of the Galaxy tablet at $600 with or without a plan. Verizon's plans start at $20 monthly - but the low-end plan includes only 1 GB of data. That means a Galaxy tablet without a data plan (in other words, using only its Wi-Fi connection), comes in at $100 over the $500 price of a 16 GB Wi-Fi only iPad. As fond as I am of Android devices, is the Galaxy tablet worth the high price? UPDATE: Leaked info posted by ZDNet suggests that Best Buy will sell a Wi-Fi version of the Galaxy tablet for $500, the same price as the Wi-Fi only 16GB iPad. I suppose one alternative if you want a 7" Android tablet is to buy the flawed, but still useful, Augen GenTouch78 tablet. Although no longer sold at Kmart (unless you find a left-over at your local store), it is now available on-line at Computer Geeks for $169.99. It is a Wi-Fi only device, but that may not be a huge disadvantage. Many users with Android phones have the ability to use them as Wi-Fi hotspots, spreading their 3G data connections to other devices such as notebook or netbook computers and, yes, the GenTouch tablet. I did exactly that with Verizon's $20 per month hotspot service added to my Droid X. So for my initial outlay of less than $150 at Kmart on the GenTouch, plus Wi-Fi hotspot tethering service on my Droid X, I have the functional equivalent of the Galaxy tablet without the high price or data plan contract. And the Wi-Fi hotspot capability does double-duty by providing Internet access for my notebook and netbook computers (up to five devices simultaneously). Of course, the Galaxy tablet is significantly better than the GenTouch in nearly every way - except price. So the choice is whether to live with the limitations of the GenTouch (mostly its somewhat balky resistive touch-screen), or spend big bucks on the Galaxy tablet with its nice phone-like capacitive touch screen. A mid-level alternative might be the soon-to-be-release Archos Internet Table 70. It is $275 seven-inch Android tablet with a capacitive touch screen that should be more user-friendly than the resistive touch-screen Augen GenTouch78. Like the GenTouch, it can be tethered via Wi-Fi to a cell phone for mobile Internet access. Unlike the GenTouch, it also offers tethering via Bluetooth and USB.

LogMeIn is well-known for their free and paid remote access and control software and service. I often use it to remote back to my primary desktop computer from my notebook or netbook when I am on the road. My colleagues here at Affinity Consulting Group use it for tech support through the Remote Support Link at the left side of the home page on our web site. We are now using the smart phone version of LogMeIn Rescue to remote into a client's smart phone to configure it for maximize productivity. Now LogMeIn is making a direct challenge to on-line meeting services such as GoToMeeting and WebEx by offering both free and paid versions of its new Join.me service. It is an on-line meeting and collaboration service that requires minimal setup and configuration. Both home and office users can conduct meetings with up to 250 people – free. To use the software, you go to the join.me Web site, click to share your computer and then get a code. You can send that code to anyone you like and off you go. People receive a phone number for holding conference calls, can send instant messages during presentations and can share control of a screen. The free version offers: screen sharing chat file transfer remote control The paid version offers all of the above, plus: personal link meeting scheduler user management meeting lock This could be an excellent tool for lawyers within a firm, but in different locations, to work together on a case. It could also be a way to work with clients and co-counsel.

The end is near, but not imminent. Users of Microsoft's free Live Mesh Beta service to synchronize their files and folders between multiple computers, and to remotely control their computers, have until March 31, 2011, to "upgrade" to Windows Live Mesh 2011 or switch to a different service. Why is this date important? If, like me, you are a happy user of Live Mesh Beta and at least one of your computers runs Windows XP (as do both my notebook and netbook), you will be out of luck with Windows Live Mesh 2011. It doesn't support XP. You need either Vista or Windows 7. That wouldn't ordinarily be much of a problem. Windows 7 is a very nice OS ( I run Win7 Pro on my desktop PC and like it very much) Upgrading from Vista often makes sense. But if your portable machine is a netbook over a year old, odds are it came with XP Home preinstalled and there is not easy upgrade path to Windows 7. You have to do a "clean install" of Windows 7, unless you want to upgrade first to Vista, then to Windows 7, a somewhat convoluted process that has little to recommend it. And then you have the question of whether your pre-Pine Trial netbook or aging notebook will be able to run Windows 7 adequately. If your netbook or notebook runs XP just find with its 1 GB of RAM, it will struggle with Windows 7, and you may not have the hard drive space for Windows 7 plus all of you apps and data. So what is the solution? Perhaps it is time to buy a new netbook or notebook? Well, I think the hardware in my ThinkPad R61i (XP Pro) and Toshiba Mini 10 (XP Home) still have plenty of life left in them. At least running XP, they do. I doubt that either would be especially good at running Windows 7, although both have 2 GB of RAM, at least making that a possibility. But why invest between $100 and $200 into each, go through the bother of a clean install (backing everything up, installing Windows 7, reinstalling all of my many applications, then restoring my data, if I cannot be sure Windows 7 will perform adequately? Maybe the answer is to switch (at least for the next year to 18 months until I am ready to upgrade to a nice Windows 7 notebook or netbook) to another file sync service. The leading contenders are Dropbox and SugarSync. There are several comparison tests available on the web between these two services. A comparison review from January picks SugarSync. Another comparison in February is neutral. Yet another from July adds Syncplicity to the mix, but leans a bit in favor of SugarSync. Of the available options, it seem as if SugarSync works the most like Live Mesh Beta. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be quite as seamless in letting me to simply right-click to select folders in Windows Explorer I want to sync between my three computers. There is a similar process with SugarSync, but from the on-line info, you need to be in SugarSync's manager application to select sync folders. SugarSync has a free 30 day trial, so my next step is to give it a try (perhaps running it along side Live Mesh Beta) to see if it will work for me. I will report back on my findings.

I've written in the past about how much I like using Microsoft's Live Mesh Beta service to sync my current client folders across the three computers I regularly use in my practice (desktop, full-sized notebook, and netbook). Microsoft is in the process of transitioning this beta service into its more full-featured Windows Live Mesh 2011 service for Windows 7 and Vista PC's, but not for computers still running Windows XP. XP users wanting to keep the Live Mesh Beta service will soon be out of luck or will need to upgrade to Vista or 7 . Once Windows Live Mesh 2011 has been out and in use for a few months, Microsoft is expected to terminate the original Live Mesh Beta service. XP users could switch to a non-Microsoft file and folder sync service such as Dropbox that remains compatible with XP. My full-sized notebook and my netbook are still on XP, so I will have to make this decision myself very soon. Like the Live Mesh Beta, Windows Live Mesh is free. In addition to the very useful remote desktop and file syncing features of Live Mesh Beta, Windows Live Mesh 2011 adds the ability to sync your Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer settings across multiple computers. If you use more than one computer, you know what a nuisance it can be if Office is not set up exactly the same way on each computer or if you set IE favorites on one computer, but they don't appear when you open IE on your other computer. The inability to sync favorites/bookmarks was one of the reasons I switched from IE to Firefox a few years ago. Now, if you have a computer at the office and at home (or have a notebook or netbook in addition to your primary desktop), you can use the free Windows Live Mesh 2011 service to do the following: Keep your client or firm files/folders (this includes PDF's and other files in addition to MS Office format files such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint) in sync between your office and home or portable computers. Connect to and remotely control any of your computers you have assigned to your Windows Live Mesh account, even if they have a "home" version of Windows Vista or 7 that does not directly support a Remote Desktop connection. This would substitute for a service such as LogMeIn or GoToMyPC. Keep your MS Office and IE settings consistent across each of the computers you use. Also worth mentioning is the 25 GB of free on-line storage provided by Microsoft's SkyDrive which integrates well with Microsoft Office's web apps for collaboration and sharing files with others.

OfficeMax has the versatile home office/small office Brother MFC-7840w laser all-in-one printer on sale for $229.99. I've relied on the predecessor to this model as my workhorse printer/scanner/fax machine in my solo appellate practice for several years. I don't use it for major scanning jobs such as trial transcripts (my ScanSnap S500 is much better for that - today you'd want to buy the newer S1500), but for a few pages or something that needs a flatbed scanning option, it is great. OfficeMax also have my favorite budget wireless mouse, Microsoft Mobile 3000 model, for just $12.99 Sunday and Monday only in a variety of colors. Video conferencing is becoming a great way for lawyers to save time and money when meeting with clients and co-counsel rather then physically traveling to the same site. Free applications like Skype now support HD (high definition) webcams. You can buy any of several Microsoft LifeCam HD webcams on sale now at Best Buy from $39.99 for a lower-end model to the very nice LifeCam Studio 1080p HD Webcam for $69.99. If you need a battery-operated portable printer, head over to Office Depot this week. The HP Office Jet Mobile Printer is on sale for $249.99, and this price actually includes the lithium ion battery. Making this deal even better is the offer to take another $50 off the price if you trade in any old printer. Most of use have an old inkjet printer laying around. If not, buy one at your local thrift shop for $10, trade it in, and still come out $40 ahead. That is what I may have to do, having recently donated a couple of decade-old inkjet printers to a local charity.

Staples is one of my favorite places to buy the tech products I need for my appellate practice. It is also my primary source for supplies such as paper, pens, etc. I have no affiliation with Staples other then my appreciation for the fact that they had the wisdom to open a store in the strip mall closest to my home/office. Now Staples is selling Amazon's market-leading Kindle ebook reader. The Wi-Fi only model is $139 while the Wi-Fi plus 3G model is $189 (a better value for the ability to download ebooks easily while traveling). It is available in-store only, so as not to compete with Amazon's on-line sales of the device. But this development gives you the chance for a hands-on test before you buy - something that was not possible when Amazon's web site was the only Kindle source. While I think the much more expensive Kindle DX (apparently not available at Staples stores) has more appeal to lawyers because its larger screen makes it easier to read PDF files (our format of choice for digital documents), the latest versions of the regular-sized Kindle also include native PDF reading capability. And it is possible to email PDF files to Amazon for conversion to Kindle's "text flow" format and then wireless download the converted document to your Kindle for easier reading.

Many of us are familiar with the Skype Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software and service to make calls from a computer. We also now have a similar service from Google. Calls from computer to computer are free. Calls from computers to telephones (cell, land line, etc.) cost very little (and are, for now, free using Google's service). In a previous post, I wrote about how useful Skype has been in my home-based appellate practice. What about using VoIP on your cell phone to make free (or cheap) calls using your phone's data connection instead of using valuable voice minutes? For obvious reasons, cell carriers are reluctant to permit this path around their largest source of revenue. But there are a few options available. As reported in the the Tech Crunch blog, Skype launched an application for Android phones to make free calls to other Skype users and send and receive IMs, one-to-one or with a group. The app is not available in China or Japan. While available in the U.S., here it only allows calls over Wi-Fi, not your phone's cellular data connection. Earlier this year, Skype and Verizon Wireless teamed up to provide Skype mobile service for Verizon Wireless customers. It allows unlimited Skype to Skype calls and cheap international calls to regular phones. Mobile Skype to Skype calling within Verizon's network makes little sense because regular voice calls from one Verizon phone to another Verizon phone do not use voice minutes anyway and are going to be easier to make and probably of higher voice quality than Skype calls. But calls from Mobile phones to Skype computer users, or other other way around, is a nice plus. For example, if your assistant at the office has Skype installed on his/her computer, you can use Skype mobile on Verizon to make unlimited calls back to the office without using voice minutes. Now to the real story of this post. Skype VoIP competitor, Fring, has announced its Android app for cheap one-cent-per-minute calls from cell phones to any other type of phone - worldwide. The service is called fringOut. It works over a 3G data connection or Wi-Fi. Payment is made by setting up an account at Fring's web site and payment is by credit card or PayPal. While this is of minimal benefit to those who never use all of their voice minutes in their cell plan, it is much cheaper than overage charges if you exceed your voice allotment (often .35 to .65 per minute). For the sake of convenience, those who regularly exceed their voice minutes should go with a higher-level plan. But if you only risk overage charges once or twice a year (say while on vacation as you phone back into the office), creating a fringOut account on an Android phone (also on Symbian and coming soon to the iPhone) may be a wise move. As you approach your monthly voice limit, switch to fringOut calling for a penny a minute.

When I suggested this concept on the State Bar of Michigan Family Law Section listserv (email discussion group) earlier this year, several members responded that accepting credit card payments at the court house, real estate closing, etc., on a lawyer's cell phone seemed "unprofessional." While I can sympathize with that increasingly quaint notion, the reality is that we need to get paid in order to continue to serve our clients. There is nothing particularly professional about going bankrupt because we failed to utilize all reasonable methods to secure payment for our services. The issue of credit card payments via cell phone came up again yesterday while I was attending the State Bar of Michigan annual meeting in Grand Rapids. I checked my email and there was a message from a neighbor who is also a fellow board member in a non-profit organization that supports our local National Park. This guy is, to say the least, financially sophisticated, having retired not too long ago as CEO of the New York Stock Exchange. He passed along to me a link to an article by David Pogue in the New York Times about Square. Square is a credit card processing service that works using a small card swipe attachment that plugs into the headphone/microphone jack of an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Android phone. The merchant fees charged by Square are reasonable. For each transaction, Square charges you 2.75 percent of the total, plus 15 cents. That’s a lot simpler, and usually cheaper, than actual merchant accounts, where you might pay 3 or 4 percent, depending on the kind of card, plus 30 cents a transaction. The account itself is free, and so is the swipe attachment. You can also accept payments without swiping the card (such as via telephone) if you have the card number, expiration date, and security code, but the fees are a bit higher. The reason my fellow non-profit board member brought Pogue's article to my attention is that our group will be selling hand-made ceramic bowls as a fundraiser at an upcoming event and also soliciting new members. It would be much easier to sell bowls at $12 each and sign-up new members at $25 annually if we could accept credit cards at the event, which is at a local botanical park. The only way to do that would be by cell phone. So I signed up on behalf of the non-profit organization and, according to Square, my swipe attachment to use with my Android phone is on its way. I will let you know how it works. I continue to think that this would be a great way for lawyers to get paid, especially for those single-event representations such as certain criminal family, and real estate matters can to be. You finish your work and, if you have not been paid up front (always preferred), or if the task took longer than the initial payment would cover, you can accept payment via credit card using your iPhone or Android phone before the client departs (sometimes never to be seen or heard from again). Does this seem a bit awkward? Perhaps. But a decade ago some lawyers still thought that accepting credit card payments at the office was improper. Maybe some still do. I know that the first year my two-lawyer firm started accepting credit cards in the mid-1990's, our gross revenue increased by about $100,000 over the prior year. That answered the question for me. It also helped that a good client (we handled his divorce and subsequent child custody battle) thanked us for accepting credit cards. His fees to my firm earned him enough airline miles to pay for his honeymoon in Hawaii when he eventually remarried. Now that is a "win-win" proposition.

Whether you thought it was a convenience or an annoyance, you will within a few days have the option to turn off the threaded or conversation view in Gmail's web interface. In this view, all messages in a conversation are grouped together. Email traditionalists (wouldn't that have been an odd phrase just decade ago?) complained that they often couldn't find new messages in the threaded view. Others liked having all messages in a given exchange lumped together for easy access. Whichever side of this divide you are on, Google will over the next few days roll-out to your account the option to turn off threaded view. Details are in the official Gmail blog.

Some solo and small firm law offices have telephone systems lacking the ability to make conference calls. Or in some cases the process for joining more than two people in a call is too cumbersome to easily use. If so, consider using Skype's Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) inexpensive subscription service to make conference calls to regular telephones, cell phones, or other computers from your computer. If you download the latest version of Skype for Windows (Version 5 Beta), you can also use Skype to make multi-party video conference calls to join an entire case team together including clients, co-counsel, experts, etc. I've been using Skype in my solo appellate practice for many years. For $2.99 per month (with a 15% discount if you prepay annually), I can call any land line or cell phone in the U.S. or Canada (computer to computer calls have always been free worldwide). For voice-only calls, I use the same headset I use for my Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software. For video calls, I skip the headset and use the microphone built into my Logitech web cam. Most headphone/microphone combinations will work for Skype calls. Skype is less demanding of microphone quality than NaturallySpeaking. Because Skype is a VoIP service, occasionally audio artifacts will intrude into your calls. The faster your Internet connection, the less likely this will happen. You can also change your Quality of Service (QoS) and other settings on your office or home router and computer to improve Skype or other VoIP calls, making these artifacts less likely to occur. Skype will let you import your Contacts from Outlook to provide simple one-click calling. Adding people to a call in progress is also just a couple of clicks, or you can pre-configure groups if you have regular calls with specified contacts. I have often used Skype for conference calls involving cases, to plan seminars or written CLE materials, and for communication with my son and daughter at college. Other useful Skype features include instant messaging, file sending, and screen sharing. Even if your office phone system handles conference calling well, a Skype subscription for your home or portable computer is a cheap way to add conference calling capability to your home office or travel setup.

This is a follow-up to my preliminary review of the Augen GenTouch 78 Android OS tablet I purchased at Kmart for $145 (sale price was $150 less $5 off coupon from Kmart web site) in late July. This 7 inch screen tablet with a resistive touch screen (instead of the capacitive touch screens found on most Android phones) has some design flaws out of the box. The most notable was the inability to calibrate the touch screen and the lack of an on-screen menu system with buttons for home, menu, back, volume, etc. Most of those problems were at least partially resolved in a series of firmware updates posted on the Augen web site. Unfortunately, Augen pulled the latest of the updates from its site shortly after they were posted around August 19, leaving users who didn't get the updates out in the cold. Fortunately, a developer/hacker community of sorts has sprung up around this cheap device. One of the independent developers re-posted the withdrawn Augen update and added his own follow-up to restore certain features that the official update removed, complete with installation instructions. Both of these updates were mentioned in a recent comment to my original review (scroll to bottom of comments). I applied both the reposted official update and the follow-up "pirate" update a couple of weeks ago. The improvements are impressive. I now have small, but usable, on-screen buttons at the top of my screen for home, menu, back, and volume up/down. Also added in an earlier update still posted on the Augen site is the screen calibration utility. And while the official Augen update removed several of the Google-brand software from the device, the independent developer's follow-up restored them. Also added are nice recovery and screen rotation utilities. This device is still hobbled by a resistive touch screen (like in the old Palm PDA devices) which requires pressure to be applied to register a touch or keystroke. Higher-end devices and Android cell phones use a capacitive screen that simply requires only a very light touch to register an action. But overall, I'd rate the new firmware with the pirate update as moving this device from a mediocre 2.5 out of five stars to more useful 3 or even a 3.5 stars depending on one's ability to maneuver around a resistive touch screen. Any Android tablet hoping for a 4 star or better rating will need a capacitive touch screen. I use the GenTouch device often for my Gmail and Exchange email, and it works well for both. I also do some web browsing with the standard Android browser. I tried to install the Fennec (Firefox) browser that runs fine on my Droid X cell phone, but it won't install on the GenTouch. I think this is due to lack of available RAM on the GenTouch rather than an OS compatibility issue. At least for now until the Droid X gets its over the air (OTA) update to Android 2.2, both the GenTouch and the Droid X run the same version of Android and barring hardware shortcomings like a lack of RAM, should be able to run the same applications. Of course, my use of the GenTouch has been where Wi-Fi is available. It has no cellular data radio like my Droid X. But its 7 inch screen is useful for reading documents that seemed cramped even on the Droid X's large (by phone standards) 4.3 inch screen. For example, I installed the official Kindle ebook app on the GenTouch and find it very pleasant to read my Kindle ebooks on the device. So much so that my use of my formerly beloved Kindle DX has dwindled significantly. Perhaps the 7 inch screen size on the GenTouch adds just enough in portability over the DX's 9.7 inch screen. Hint: When using the Kindle app on the GenTouch, leave Wi-Fi on. Otherwise, at the end of each chapter, when the app wants to refresh its position in the book, it will crash without the Wi-Fi connection to sync the position info to Amazon's servers. When I first purchased my GenTouch, I installed a spare 16 GB microSD card in the side-mounted memory expansion slot. Onto that card I have uploaded movies and TV show episodes that play fairly well on the GenTouch. The downside is that the GenTouch uses an old style cell-phone sized 2.5mm headphone jack instead of the now standard 3.5mm jack. So to listen with regular portable headphones, you need a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter (available at Radio Shack and elsewhere). But more importantly for my law practice use, I also copied my Word and PDF files from several cases I am currently working on, including an appeal that is coming up for oral argument later this week. I plan to use the GenTouch while at the airport and on the plane traveling to oral argument to review the briefs, case law, transcripts, and exhibits copied to the microSD card. I have done this in the past on either my cell phone (screen too small) or my Kindle DX (nice screen, but larger and heavier device). This trip will let me determine if the 7-inch screen size is "just right" even if the device itself still has a few flaws related to the resistive nature of that screen. This if the first of three upcoming trips where the GenTouch will accompany me. I will report back on how this cheap initial foray into Android tablets does while traveling.