I got to say, I love my iPhone.  It is a great convergence device: phone, music player, calendar, web  browser, camera, map and GPS; all in one device. I previously had the first generation iPhone and after a trip to Denver on launch day (line was too long at the Park Meadows Apple), and a second trip the following day, my wife (another lawyer) and I got our 3g iPhones.

I won’t go in to the third trip to get the white one exchanged for business black model, except to say, it was worth it.  Oh, they only had the white one when you went?  You are right, in a case it looks just like a black one (almost).  It is fine.  Really.

If all of this seems rather obsessive and reminiscent of the “tullip craze,” you just stick with your Treo.

There are tons of 3G iPhone reviews so I will try to direct my mini-review to a lawyer’s use of the iPhone, or “How to Justify Your Techno-Lust to Your Office Manager Without Coming Off as a Total Fan-Boy Whose Income to Expenses Ratio *Really* Needs to be Reviewed.”

I primarily use the iPhone, (un?)suprisingly, as a phone.  Along with a virtual PBX service like RingCentral or GrandCentral, the iphone is a great way to let my clients reach me anywhere I may be without having to rely on a receptionist not picking up a call in time or not being able to find me.  Client’s call one number and it always reaches me where ever I may be.

I also use the Aliph Jawbone 2 Bluetooth headset which lets me take calls on the go.  I have the iPhone mounted in my car which allows me to see who is calling via the very nice, large, clear display.

Which brings me to my second use of the iPhone: the camera.  I use the iPhone to photograph all of my clients and associate the picture with their contact.  So, whenever a client calls, their picture comes up.  It may seem like a little thing but a photograph is an excellent mnemonic for helping you remember who you are talking to and the status of their case.

After or even during a call, I can pull up the Notes application and notate the critical points of the call and then email them back to my office for future reference.  With the Evernote app, I am even toying with the idea of having Evernote folders for each client and just adding phone notes directly from the iPhone which will then sync directly to my desktop.

iPod.  I know what you are thinking, “The iPod is a *non-business* use!”  Au contaire mes amie.  I have used the iPod to listen to CLE courses and I use it daily to listen to podcasts during my commute to stay current on technoligical advances and marketing.  As you probably already know, the iPhone handles calls while listening to the iPod beautifully:  the sound of the podcast fades away (and the podcast is paused) and the phone rings.  After the call, the podcast fades back up.

I cannot even count the number of times I have used the Google maps function to search for businesses.  If I am looking for a doctor’s office, I just enter the name and I get a pin on the map.  I can further select the name and get a phone number, which, I can click and call that office.  Plus with the GPS in the 3G, I can not only get a route to that location, but also see exactly where I am on.  Now the GPS is not as good as a full featured GPS, but you could make that same complaint of the camera not being as good as a stand alone camera.  Both criticisms are correct.  However, both miss the point:   you now have a camera, gps, browser, iPod, datebook, etc in one device aka in one pocket.  Consider how many electronic gizmos you won’t have to cram into your Dockers?  Even Batman does not use a utility belt anymore.

And syncing of events and contacts over Mobile.Me.  Yes, there have been a lot of problems - or so I read.  For me, it has just worked.  If a client needs to change a phone number when I am out of the office, I just update their contact record and the office is updated automatically.  Same goes for adding or changing appointments.  No need to sync to make these changes, they just happen over the air.

But do you really need 3g when many of these functions are available in the 2.0 software.

You are still using a black and white printer, aren’t you?  And your secretary has a 15 inch monitor, doesn’t she?  Is it a CRT?  Dell.com - I’m just saying.

While you do get a lot of the functionality I have described in just by using the 2.0 software on a first generation iPhone, there are several advantages of upgrading to 3G:

• It is significantly faster.  If you ever have to look up a case or address or anything using the iPhone, you will immediately appreciate the speed boost of 3G.
• The sound quality is much improved.  The telephone audio quality is noticeably improved and the speakerphone is much louder, which makes it much more usable.
• If you are on a 3G network during a call, you can still access the web during the call.  If you ever needed to look something up during a call, you will appreciate this function.

If you have read other reviews, you know there is also plenty to criticize Apple over:  no cut and paste (oh come on, it is a year later!), no voice dailing, not turn-by-turn GPS, no teathering, no improved camera, no video, no editing of documents (though I never understood this personally), and fewer devices will charge it.

That is the agony and the ecstasy of Apple:  offering just enough to make you want a product and withholding items so basic that you want to pull your hair out.

If any of these omissions is a deal breaker, then the iPhone is probably not for you.  Otherwise, the iPhone 3G offers solid performance in every feature it offers, with a great UI, great overall user experience, wrapped up in a very attractive package.

I was recently interviewed for Canada’s Lawyers Weekly magazine about how I took my law office paperless.

“I have been practising on my own since 2002 and slowly filling up a wall of shelving with bankers’ boxes of files,” said Colorado Springs, CO-based attorney Tomasz Stasiuk. “When it came time to start another wall of boxes, that started me thinking of going digital.”

“Now, when I receive medical records on paper, they get scanned in, the paper is destroyed and the digital copy is all I keep. I submit records to Social Security digitally.”

Stasiuk reviews documents with visitors on computer monitors instead of printouts. “They’re impressed by the speed, the efficiency, the ‘wow factor’ of my technical set-up,” he said.

Such habits also communicate environmental responsibility, as paper, toner and electricity usage plummet. Stasiuk reckons he prints one-tenth as much paper as he did before committing to digital files.

You can read the entire article here.

My articles about the myths and benefits of going paperless are available here.

As other reviewers have noted, the headset about half the size of the prior Jawbone, which I have been using for the last 8 months or so.  

Style wise, I liked the old “cheese grater” styling of the old model but I can see the new diamond design growing on me.  Headsets have been getting smaller and the new design in more in keeping with current models from other manufacturers. 

Ok, but how does it WORK?

Sound quality is excellent.  Both what you hear and what the person at the other end of the telephone hears.  It is hard to say if the noise cancellation is better on the current model, but you will not be disappointed.

Here are my quick impressions:

Pros:  

• Sound quality is excellent, but that is a given at this price point.  
• The Jawbone 2 is much lighter than the prior model.  It is much more in line with the Apple bluetooth headset from last year.  You can put it on and forget it is there, it is that light.  
• The LED is much more discrete that the Jawbone 1.  Also, you can turn OFF the LED light if you do not want to draw further attention to your cyborg worship by having a intermittently flashing light in your ear.  Just press the main button 5 times to turn off the LED.
• The magnetic power cable attachment is substantial improvement over the clip design in the Jawbone 1.  Whenever I was attaching or removing the Jawbone 1 from the charging cable, I would feel I was about to bend or break a pin.  The cable is similar to the Magsafe magnetic power cables on Apple laptops.  You just place it into the little dock at the end of the cable and the magnets pull the headset in place and keep it there. 
• The buttons (2) are much easier to press that on the Jawbone 1.  On the first model, you really had to squeeze hard to get the buttons to activate.  This also meant that if you wanted to take a call by pressing the headset button, you were really jamming the earpiece and eraser nub into your face before the button would activate.  The Jawbone 2’s buttons are much easier to press and only require a small amount of pressure.  However, this is also a con — see below.

The other option, which I am using now, is to use one of the ear loops from the Jawbone 1.  These wrap around your ear rather than sitting on top of your ear like the ear loops included with the Jawbone 2.

Sorry about the rubbish picture, but you get the idea.  Using one of the old ear loops, the ear piece stays in place and the eraser nub stays on my cheek.

REQUEST TO MY READERS:  Does having technology/law practice reviews or articles on this site bother anyone?  Let me know in the comments.  Thanks!

UPDATE - JULY 23, 2008

I see a number of people are looking for instructions on how to pair the Jawbone 2.  While the Jawbone 2 starts up in pairing mode the first time it is turned on, it is not obvious how to pair in after that initial time.

Fortunately the process is fairly simple:  

1. Turn off the Jawbone 2 by pressing and holding the main button (you will hear a descending tone when the Jawbone turns off).
2. Press and hold both the main button and the button on the back of the Jawbone 2.  There are only the two buttons so, just hold both of them for about 5 2 seconds.  

The light on the Jawbone 2 will start to  blink - alternating between red and white.  The Jawbone 2 is now in pairing mode.

I recently added MacSpeech Dictate, a voice recognition software package for Macs to my technology arsenal. Many readers may be familiar with NaturallySpeaking, a robust voice recognition software package for PCs. I was previously a NaturallySpeaking user, before switching to the Mac. If you are a PC user, NaturallySpeaking Preferred, is a great program for dictating and controlling your computer.

Unfortunately, if you were a Mac user, the voice recognition software options were not as good.

Many users continued to use NaturallySpeaking on a Mac through various workarounds; either through Boot Camp (which allows you to run Windows directly on Apple hardware), or by virtualizing a Windows machine via a program such as Parallels or VMWare Fusion. The advantage to virtualization is that you could run both operating systems, Mac OS X. and Windows (XP or Vista) side-by-side.  But, the dictation was limited to the Windows side: you could not select a Macintosh window, and dictate into it when you were virtualizing NaturallySpeaking.

My, how times have changed. MacSpeech has recently released Dictate, a voice recognition software package utilizing the NaturallySpeaking voice recognition engine. This is a native OSX program that finally lets Mac users easily experience what Windows users have had for years.

I am currently using it to write this post and a Revolabs xTag wireless microphone. The xTag is a is a two-piece unit (microphone and base) which attaches to your computer through USB. the base is approximately the size of a box of Altoids mints, though a bit taller. The microphone, is about the size of a tube of lipstick, and can either be clipped to your shirt, or worn with a lanyard (included). The xTag also includes a ear loop speaker with a cable that can be attached to the wireless microphone. This can be useful for VOIP applications, such as Skype, as you can channel sound to the ear loop rather than through to your computer speakers (which might otherwise get picked up by the microphone).

The xTag can either be purchased separately for approximately $249, or directly from MacSpeech when purchasing Dictate. if you buy both dictate and the xTag microphone together, you save approximately $100 compared to what you would pay if you buy them separately.

The voice recognition is really very good. And it is wonderful not to be tied down to the computer by a cable, or have a headset strapped to your head.  Regarding battery life, I have had no problem keeping the microphone active (though not dictating the whole time) for six or more hours.

One nice surprise was being able to dictate into Windows XP programs running virtualized through VM Ware Fusion. Presumably, this would also work with programs virtualized using Parallels.  I can dictate into both Mac or PC applications just using MacSpeech Dictate.

However, if you’re coming to voice recognition from NaturallySpeaking, you may feel that MacSpeech Dictate has one hand tied behind its back.

At present, May 2008, voice correction is very limited.  You can tell Dictate to select certain words, and then dictate them again, but you did not get a pulldown menu of possible alternative choices.  Nor can you simply tell Dictate what word you were trying to say by typing it in. In practice, this means that you may select a word, repeat it, Dictate gets it wrong again, and you can repeat the entire process four or five times and Dictate still may never get the word you want.

Also, Dictate has a nasty bug that occasionally causes it to forward delete the next several lines of text, and then insert a word or phrase you previously dictated in its place.

You can view an example of this problem in the video below.  The error shows up around 3:40.  

When I contacted MacSpeech about this problem, I received the following e-mail in response:

This will occur if you manually edit something, or use the Do Select command, and don’t delete the selection before continuing. The workaround when this occurs is to exit Dictate, then restart it, then continue dictating in the application you’re using.

NOTE: If you have TextExpander, please remove that application, as this can also cause this problem to occur.

I was previously using Typeit4Me, an abbreviation expander program similar to TextExpander. however, even after removing that program, the bug continued. The critical factor seems to be whether you manually edit your text, while dictating, or use the “Do Select” command.

This is a serious problem. I am rarely simply dictating. I’m often switching applications, viewing medical records, reviewing PDF documents, and looking up information on websites. This means that when I return to the dictation window, the cursor is often moved to a new location. Or, I will move the cursor position simply because I want to rephrase, add or remove text. Having a program go wonky when this occurs is a showstopper. The solution of closing and reopening dictate, is also unacceptable as a long-term solution. You would not accept a car whose windshield wipers turned on automatically from time to time and the only solution was to pull over, turn off the engine, and turn it back on.

As a result, when I dictate, I am not using the “select” and correct option. instead, I simply dictate, and then I either manually correct errors, or I manually select the word and re-dictate it.

Again, the quality of the voice recognition is the best feature of MacSpeech Dictate.

However, the paucity of supporting features hobbles what may become a five-star program. At present, I would rate MacSpeech Dictate three stars out of five. I recommend it, but you need to know its limitations going in.

One last note, since March 2008, there has been a problem with Dictate crashing when you try to create a new profile.  Basically, you could install the program, you were not able to use it because you could not create a profile.    A batch of bad discs was blamed for this problem.  I was surprised that when I purchased dictate directly from MacSpeech in late April 2008, more than a month after this problem began to be reported on the web, I still had same problem. I can understand receiving a bad disk from a third-party vendor, but I was surprised to have potentially received a bad disk directly from the developer.

I contacted MacSpeech and was told that there was a patch, however, they could not e-mail it to me until higher level tech support approved sending me the file. Since I called on Friday, I was frustrated to hear that I would not receive the file until Monday.  Fortunately, there was an e-mail in my inbox the following day, Saturday, with a link to the file.

Since that time, MacSpeech has posted a link to the file on their website. This program checks the integrity of the various data files for corruption, then downloads new copies if needed.  So, if you have a problem with your Dictate installation, you may be able to solve it quickly, on your own, and without waiting for MacSpeech to get back in touch with you.

Overall, I think MacSpeech Dictate is quite good. The voice recognition is excellent.  However, the lack of a full-featured correction system (as is available on the PC side with NaturallySpeaking) and the occasional bug are pretty big problems.  

I am still happy with the purchase, and I would recommend Dictate — but you need to know the current limitations.

JULY 10, 2008 UPDATE:  Since writing the review, the lack of a “correct” command in Dictate has proven quite maddening.  When the program works, it is a joy.  But, when it misrecognizes a word, sometimes no amount of repeating that word will help.

I recently tried to get Dictate to correctly understand the word, “phone.”  Now, i know it can recognize me saying “phone,” but this time it was determined not to.  Even repeating the word dis not help because, without the ability to train how you say words, Dictate just makes its best guess every time.  So you get the same errors ad nauseam.

You can have it review prior documents to “train” the program, but that is just not good enough. Dictate must add a feature to correct and train words/phrases; and not as a $150 upgrade to an already $200 program.  Whether MacSpeech likes it or not, Dictate will be compared to NaturallySpeaking, and correction is a feature NaturallySpeaking has had for years.  Since MacSpeech is already charging more for Dictate than the the current price of the  Preferred version of NaturallySpeaking, it must offer a comparable feature set.  

Until MacSpeech does this, Dictate is a Ferrari engine in an AMC Pacer.  Every once is a while, the power is exhilerating, but ultimately the total package is disappointing.

Scanned records are only black and white. I have documents with graphics, highlighted sections, signatures, and notes in pen. If I scan it won’t look the same. 

False. Today’s scanners scan color at the same speeds as black and white. You can have all the advantages of digital documents and still have the highlighted sections, signatures in blue ink, and even color pictures or graphics.

I’ve seen scans. They are blurry and low quality.

They can be, but they do not have to be. The scanners in my office are fast enough to scan at a high resolution allowing for crisp, clean digital images.

I prefer to read from paper. I don’t want to have to read everything from a computer screen.

You do not have to. Print off a copy. Jot down notes on it. Highlight it. Your coffee cup left a ring on it? Don’t worry, it is just a copy. The original is safe in the computer. And if you find that you want to preserve the notes you made on it, just scan it in!

Computers crash, hard drives fail. What happens to my digital files then?

Yes, hard drives fail. But paper burns, or stains, or pages can get stuck together. Heck, mice will even eat paper. Physical paper files get misplaced or lost. Do you “back-up” your paper? Or, are your paper files the only originals you have?

With digital files, it is easy to make back-up copies, even multiple back-up copies. On the whole, digital files are more secure then paper files.

When you scan documents, you lose notes any secret notes someone may have written on the back of a document.

Nope. My scanner does duplex scanning (scanning both front and back of pages). I get the whole document, including any notes on the back.

Scanning is just a gimmick. It doesn’t do anything for the client.

I will admit there is a “wow” factor when I hand back my client’s original document seconds after receiving it and the digital version comes right up on the monitor facing the client.

But the real value is that I can pull up any document, any letter, any record, on any case, from my laptop at any time. That is the real wow!   photo credit: paolo màrgari

Attorneys who have gone “paperless” either get documents digitally or scan in all documents coming in to the office.

Is your attorney “paperless?” If not, should he be?

YES!

1. Digital storage of all documents allows for instantaneous recall of documents at all workstations. No more trying to figure out where the file is: Is it in the partner’s office, with the secretary’s office, in the associate’s car? In a “paperless” office the file is always available.
2. Digital storage allows for copies in multiple locations. If your attorney uses paper files, what would happen if your attorney’s office had a fire? Or if there was a flood? Or a hurricane? No attorney I know who still uses paper, keeps multiple copies of paper documents in different locations in case of a disaster. But in digital office’s it is easy to make duplicate copies of all records and store them out of the office, or even in another state! If disaster strikes, there is always another copy.
3. Attorneys who have gone digital can use Social Security’s Electronic Records Express (ERE) service to digitally submit records directly into their client’s files at Social Security. This allows nearly instantaneous electronic submission of evidence directly into the Social Security file, eliminating mailing and filing delays. Electronically submitted evidence is instantly associated with a client’s file and immediately available for review by Social Security, potentially resulting in a faster decision. ERE is gives Social Security much higher quality documents than is possible with faxes and in color.

Going digital with my office has let me leap ahead of other practitioners and provide greater service to my clients. Every medical record we have is just a few keystrokes away.   photo credit: jonrawlinson