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Useful Programs for
Law Offices
Wells H. Anderson
President, Wells Anderson Legal Tech Services
Helping lawyers leverage technology
E-mail: wa@wellslegaltech.com Tel: 612-791-0471
Minneapolis Convention Center
September 3, 1999
Introduction [more...]
Document Creation [more...]
Reclip 2000 – $5.00 [more...]
Help & Manual – $229.00 [more...]
CatchTheWeb – $39.95 [more...]
Legal Information Management [more...]
Time Matters 3.0 – $150.00 [more...]
Chaining and Rules-Based Scheduling [more...]
Date Calculator [more...]
Importing Data [more...]
Merging Field Information with Word Processing [more...]
Relating Cases to Files (Documents) [more...]
Synchronization [more...]
Time Matters Manual, On-line Help and Help Cam [more...]
Vendor Information [more...]
The Brain – $49.95 [more...]
Offline Explorer – $30.00 [more...]
Privacy Protection [more...]
Norton Secret Stuff – Free [more...]
DataSAFE SE – $15.99 [more...]
Data Protection [more...]
Norton SystemWorks – $99.95 [more...]
Nuts & Bolts – $49.95 [more...]
Ontrack Y2K Advisor – Free [more...]
Feedback [more...]
Do you know of software that does a better job than the programs listed here? [more...]
Do you have opinions to add to those expressed here? [more...]
These materials cover specialized software that helps you manage the flood of information that fills your files, in-box, and desk. Here are practical insights on how to create documents, manage law practice information, protect privacy, and safeguard your valuable data. Illustrated with shots taken directly from these software programs, the individual sections include feature descriptions, limitations and vendor information.
A pop-up, visual replacement for the Windows 95/98/NT4 clipboard that saves multiple blocks of text, rich text, and images.
How Reclip 2000 Works
When you cut or copy text or graphics in any Windows program, Reclip 2000 saves it in clipboard you can view easily by clicking on an icon in the System Tray at the bottom of the screen.
You can retrieve "clips" of text or graphics from the Reclip clipboard in any order. Text is stored in Reclip's multiple windows, where you can edit and combine it if you like.
Unlike a number of other clipboard replacement programs, Reclip did not conflict with any of the many Windows programs we tested it with.
Special Features of Reclip
- Organizes and displays text, rich text, and many image formats.
- Keeps from 1 to 200 clipboard history items.
- Text and rich text history items can be modified.
- May be hidden when minimized as a system tray icon for less taskbar clutter.
- Can run automatically at Windows startup.
- Optional saving of history items on exit, for restoring the next time program is started.
- Displays date and time that history item was originally copied to the clipboard.
- Clip items may be deleted individually, or all at once.
- Suspend/Resume clipboard monitoring by clicking the toolbar or system tray icon.
- Installs cleanly, only 2 files are copied to your system.
- Online help.
- Free upgrades for registered users.
Reclip Limitations
- Does not have an option to automatically string together collect successive clips
Vendor Information
Ragan Lockette
An easy, special-purpose word processor, Help & Manual accelerates the process of writing and automatically formatting organized documents, outputting them to Web pages, word processing files, printed manuals and Windows Help files. How Help & Manual Works
What a pleasant surprise to run across a simple, powerful program in this day of increasing complexity and feature overload. Help & Manual will not replace your word processor for general document creation. But it is not limited to its target audience, authors of manuals and help files for Windows programs. Start out with a rough idea of the topics and subtopics you want to cover. Type them into an outline in a very simple window. Help & Manual will set up the hierarchy of your document in a tree structure like a Windows help file Contents window.
Click on a page icon to begin writing in a text window offering the useful buttons for formatting text. Paste images into the text as needed, the interface is WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get).
The hardest part of learning Help & Manual getting used to all the layout options for printing your document on paper or producing linked Web pages. The options are well laid out, but there are many of them so it can take awhile to get your output just right. You will find yourself switching back and forth quite a bit between the Preview view and the Options. The good news is that once you have the options set they way you want them, you can reuse them in future documents. Option settings are stored with each document and can be borrowed en masse from other documents
Special Features of Help & Manual
- Easy-to-use, outline based writing tool
- Documents can be quickly restructured, since content is separated from structure
- Wide variety of formatting options
- Output to paper, word processing file (RTF), Web page or linked pages, or Windows Help file
- Best Web page output options we have seen
- One original file can be used to produce variations for different purposes
- Individual subtopic and be selected or deselected for inclusion in or exclusion from different version of the document using simple checkboxes
- First license is $229; each additional license is $49
Limitations of Help & Manual
- To create a Windows Help file, you need to download a free compiler program from Microsoft's Web site
- Can only import Windows Help files – text from word processing files must be cut and pasted
- Word processing file output (RTF) may require some touch up in your word processor
- Landscape, 2 pages-per-sheet output cannot be sequenced for two-sided printing
Vendor Information
EC Software Suedtirolerstrasse 1b
5201 Seekirchen, Austria
Web: http://www.ec-software.com
E-mail: info@ec-software.com
Fax: 0043 - 6212 – 4724
Easily grab web pages one at time, save them in archives that you can annotate, and even use the archives as a presentations or e-mail them as a self-executing demos. Using the Web presents some problems. Information comes and goes quickly. You can never be sure that you will be able to return to a web page you saw, even if you save a link to it as a bookmark or favorite. And it is difficult to show someone else the particular pages you found that are most relevant to a subject. CatchTheWeb offers a great solution for preserving collections of web pages for your own use and for presenting them to others.
When it is running, a handy pushpin sits in the lower right corner of your screen. Drag the pushpin onto a web page in MS Internet Explorer. The complete page, graphics and all, is added to your archive.
As you collect pages, you can give them captions, assign them to "Topics" (archives) and put them in "Chapters" within each archive. After collecting web pages, you can edit your archive by reordering pages and changing or adding captions and notes. Customize the title page and you have an archive suitable for use as a presentation or self-running demo on any computer that has Netscape Navigator or MS Internet Explorer installed on it.
Here is a partial view of a CatchTheWeb archive showing the first captured web page.
On the left is a menu that can be clicked on to move to any page. At the top are forward and back buttons that display pages in the order you have chosen. All of the links in the browser window, here showing a home page, are clickable.
Special Features of CatchTheWeb
- Save web page archives as self-executing files, zip files, and internal CatchTheWeb topics
- Capture web pages that cannot be bookmarked, such as dynamically created pages containing changing information
- Sort captured pages in any order
- Add titles and informative notes
- Preview presentations in a web browser
- Search for words within captured web pages
- If the person viewing a presentation is connected to the Web, all links are live
- Free 30-day trial version available for download
- Requires that the recipient have a web browser installed
- Requires MS Internet Explorer for creating archives
Math Strategies 600 Green Valley Road, Greensboro, NC 27408
Web: http://www.catchtheweb.com
Phone: 336-855-7065
E-mail: info@catchtheweb.com
How Time Matters Works Time Matters manages calendar, client and case information. In addition, it offers a great number of additional and advanced features that you will not learn to use the first day. These features are, however, the real power of Time Matters. This discussion highlights them. Don’t overlook them in your consideration of case management software.
Time Matters – main screen
Chaining and Rules-Based Scheduling
Events and ToDo’s of a case, matter, or commercial transaction that follow standard sequences of dates can be developed, saved and reused as a schedule chain. For example, in the mailing of holiday cards, there are a series of ToDo’s that must precede the Event of mailing the cards. Those ToDo’s are the same every year. You must buy cards, buy postage, select a family picture, have copies made of the picture, update the mailing list, prepare the envelopes or labels, write notes to some people, put the labels on, put the postage on, and put the cards in the mail. The steps never change but you usually get them out of order or forget at least one of them, leaving you in a frenzy on December 20. These steps are ideal for a chained event. Filing of the tax returns for an estate is another example of very predictable steps. Of course, you would mix in with the filing deadlines those things that you must do, your assistant must do, and your client must do.
A schedule chain for bankruptcy
The Date Calculator can calculate dates (whether future or past) based on legal criteria. As you ask it to calculate the date, the calculator can move dates to the next workday, skip legal holidays and count weekends. In addition, you can save criteria in a pull down list called a Timetable.Access the Date calculator either from the icon on the main menu, or from the event or ToDo change screens. The Up arrow beside the date takes you to the Date Calculator.
Time Matters has an import feature that will allow you to import "ASCII delimited" text and dbase 3 format as well as some proprietary software such as Timeslips®, Goldmine®, Act® and Abacus®. That means that if you have Timeslips contact or case information, if you have an electronic address book on your computer now, or if you have a word processing merge file of names and addresses, you can probably get it into a format that will allow you to import the information into Time Matters.
Merging Field Information with Word Processing
The Formattable Clipboard is a quick, slick way to merge information in case, contact, or event records into word processing documents. They are easier to create than WordPerfect or Word merge documents, but have some limitations. For example, you can use tabs, hard returns, page breaks and dates in formattable clipboard templates, but you cannot use bolding, headers, tables, some other of word processing features that we rely upon heavily in longer documents.
Relating Cases to Files (Documents)
In the update screen for cases, contacts, events and ToDos, one of the tabs at the top is the "Files" tab. Behind this tab is a list of files (mostly word processing documents) that have been assigned to the record.
Time Matters gives you the vehicle to associate any file (documents, e-mails, spreadsheets, scanned images--ooh, paper-less office here we come) with a contact or a case.
Once you have attached files to contacts, cases or events, you can open the files directly from the list. In order to do so, however, you must configure the "association" feature in the setup screens of Time Matters.
To set up this feature, we need to have a sense of the file structure in which documents and files are stored in your office. Management of your word processing documents and electronic files is one of the real reasons to use this product. Please investigate it further.
With Version 2.0 of Time Matters you can synchronize the data on the main computer with the data on a laptop computer or the Palm Pilot. You keep an up-to-date copy of your schedule, clients, and contacts on the computer in your office where you, your associates, and your secretary can monitor cases and events. You can have a copy of all this information on your laptop while you are at home for the weekend or on the road. If you make changes to your calendar while you are away from the office and someone in the office makes changes to your calendar, the synchronization process will bring the information together properly. Synchronization can be done over a modem or by connecting to the office network when you return.The Palm Pilot is a personal digital assistant (PDA). A PDA is a palm-sized computer with a limited amount of memory that usually stores contact, calendar, and to-do information along with a calculator and other "personal" tools. A PDA is preferable over a laptop when you want to look up a phone number from a phone booth, but does not do word processing or other computing tasks very well. PDA’s are inexpensive compared to desktop or laptop computers.
The same synchronization that works for a laptop to desktop computer also works to the Palm Pilot.
Time Matters Manual, On-line Help and Help Cam
The Time Matters Manual, On-line Help and Help Cam are extremely well written, helpful tools. A CD is provided with the software that illustrates how some features work with HelpCam, which plays short videos on your PC.
Time Matters for Lawyers in One Hour by Storm Evans was written to help you get started using Time Matters. The book contains exercises and explanations that will help you move from your current manual system or old case management software to Time Matters.
DATA.TXT Corporation
104 New Edition Court
Cary, North Carolina, USA 27511
Phone: (800) DATATXT (800-328-2898)
Demo Hotline (US & Canada) - (888) LAW DEMO (800-529-3366)
Fax: (919) 467-7181
Web: http://www.timematters.com
Information in this section is drawn from Time Matters for Lawyers in One Hour by Storm Evans, a new book from the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association. It is a fast-track learning guide designed for lawyers who want to get Time Matters up to speed swiftly without getting bogged down in the advanced features.
The Brain serves as an organizing tool for documents, files, website addresses and notes, replacing Windows Explorer. While dozens of utility programs offer extra features and special ways of managing your files and Web shortcuts or favorites, only The Brain lets you create many-to-many links. What are they and why are they important? Read on. As lawyers, we tend to think about information from multiple perspectives. When organization documents, we often group them in subject hierarchies. For example:
Client A
Case 1
Correspondence
Research ...
Client B
Case 2, etc.
This hierarchy serves basic organizational needs for both paper documents – filed in drawers, pocket folders, and manila folders – and for electronic documents – filed in folders (directories) and subfolders.
But when it comes to superimposing an additional hierarchy on the same information, the traditional approaches require duplication. In order to access documents filed away in Research folders by Area of Law, Legal Topic, and Legal Subtopic, many law offices resort to making duplicate copies, either paper or electronic, and filing them in a separate Brief Bank.
The Brain allows people to create whatever organizational hierarchies they want to, then link documents and web addresses to any number of categories. Here are some examples:
In the example, My Favorite SW is a link to an MS Word document. It falls in the WA Materials subcategory, which in turn is within the Resources category. In the terminology used by The Brain, WA Materials is a parent thought and it has two child thoughts, My Favorite SW and Worldox Summary.
By clicking on My Favorite SW, it becomes the focus of The Brain and is placed in the center of the screen. When My Favorite SW is in the center, we can see all of its parents and children, if any. Here we see that My Favorite SW has two parents and no children. So a link to one document can reside in two different hierarchies.
The Brain allows you to create large collections of links to documents and web pages without becoming overwhelming. At any one time, you see no more than three levels or generations. Getting used to the changing view can take a little time since The Brain differs from all other products in the way it presents and changes views.
- Superimpose multiple hierarchies on your valuable documents
- Always available as a out-of-the-way button on the edge of your screen
- Drag and drop files or whole folders to create links
- Search capabilities
- Integrated with your web browser for easy access to webpages
- Annotate files and web links with personal notes
- Information collections, "Brains", may be shared on the Web via the vendor's website
- Takes up only 2.5 MB of disk space
- Requires Windows 95/98/NT
- Users can exchange "Brains", but the multi-user intranet version is not yet publicly available
Natrificial Software Technologies http://www.thebrain.com
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Natrificial LLC |
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Speed up your exploration of websites dramatically and create a collection of valuable resources using an offline browser. Instead of going from page to page on the Web, waiting while each downloads to your computer, offline browsers capture whole or partial websites while you are doing something else. Later, you can race through the webpages without waiting on a slow connection or heavy Internet traffic.
Products like Offline Explorer give you the power, but not necessarily the right, to create a large collection of resources consisting of content from any number of websites. A website owner cannot object on copyright grounds to your downloading web pages, for that is part of the normal functioning of your web browser software. But using Offline Explorer to share or distribute the intellectual property of a website owner clearly raises copyright issues. Perhaps the analogy to taping television programs is appropriate. Downloading an entire website for your personal use in the interest of time shifting is not likely a violation.
Even if you have a fast connection to the Internet, an offline browser can be a godsend. It allows you to return quickly to webpages you have saved on your computer. You don't have to remember where the website is or where you saved a bookmark to it. You can even browse websites "unplugged" on a notebook computer that is no longer connected to the Internet. By shifting the downloading of selected websites to the middle of the night, you will have information waiting for you in the morning. It is a great way to capture on-line newspapers.
Offline Explorer sets a new standard for quality in this product category. It is lightning fast, efficient, and relatively easy to use. You can try it out for 30 days by downloading it from: http://www.metaproducts.com/mpPS.html
- Extremely fast, handling up to 100 downloads simultaneously
- Allows use of its own or your web browser to view pages
- Works in the background while you use other software
- Handles frames and Java webpages
- Variety of options for controlling the pages to be downloaded
- Low cost
- Works on wide variety of webpages, unlike many competing products
- Interface resembles MS Internet Explorer
- Displays a website map using a Windows-Explorer-like tree view in a separate pane
- Allows scheduling and regular updating of stored websites
Limitations of Offline Explorer
- Can set a maximum on the size of any file to be downloaded, but not a maximum on the total size of all files
Vendor Information MetaProducts Corporation
P.O. Box 21066, Columbus, Ohio 43221-0066
Web: http://www.metaproducts.com
E-mail: info@metaproducts.com
Phone: Disclosed only after you complete an information form on their website.
Send secure, encrypted documents and e-mail messages over the Internet to recipients who have no special software. The general public has heard about the dangers of the Internet. Those who read even a little bit about e-mail security know that e-mail messages are normally sent as plain text across the Internet. The huge volume of e-mail makes it difficult to intercept messages to or from a particular person. But "sniffer" programs are easily available and, in the wrong hands, can extract valuable information from other people's e-mail.
The best encryption methods for protecting e-mail require that both the sender and the recipient have compatible software installed on their computers. Until such software is widely used, you may want to have on hand a way safeguard messages to people who do not have encryption software.
Norton Secret Stuff, a free program offered by Symantec, allows you to encrypt a document or other computer file and send it as an e-mail attachment. All the recipient needs is the password you used and the ability to open an e-mail attachment. Norton Secret Stuff is freeware. Download it directly from: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/misc/nss.exe
Create and save a document or message with your word processor. Open the Norton Secret Stuff program. Find your document or other file in the Select a File Window. You may have trouble because the window displays only the first six characters of folders and files that have long names.
After selecting one or more files to encrypt, click the Encrypt button. Type in a password from 3 to 50 characters (use at least 8, mix in at least one number, and avoid obvious passwords). Type the password again for verification. Either accept the suggested name for the encrypted file or make up your own. Attach the file to an e-mail message and send it. Communicate the password to the recipient by some secure method.
Because the encrypted file contains software needed to decrypt the contents, a document that is 3KB in size grows to 42.5 KB when encrypted by Norton Secret Stuff. A 41KB document grows to 60 KB, reflecting some compression of the original file.
- Relatively easy to use for both sender and recipient
- Free!
- Recipient needs no special software
- Small program size: 158 KB
- Protects messages and files from "sniffer" programs that search Internet e-mail for keywords
Limitations of Norton Secret Stuff
- Sender must communicate a password to the recipient
- Weak encryption is used, so files can be cracked with the right tools
- Only the first 6 characters of long filenames and folder names are displayed in the Select a File window (see picture)
- The recipient is exposed to the risks of opening an executable (.exe) file without knowing for certain who sent it
- Leaves a DOS window on the screen after decrypting a file
Vendor Information Symantec Corporation
175 West Broadway, Eugene, OR 97401
Phone: 800-441-7234
For a small price, send more secure, encrypted documents and e-mail messages over the Internet. DataSAFE SE addresses the same needs as Norton Secret Stuff, above, but is more secure and easier to use. You can download a free 30-day trial version from: http://www.novastor.com/download. For $24 more, you may purchase DataSAFE, which offers a few more features including drag and drop from Windows Explorer.
WARNING: At this writing, NovaStor made DataSAFE SE available only as a download from its website. The procedures required to download and make the product work were complex. Before giving NovaStor your credit card number, inquire to see if they have cured the problems with their registration procedures.
Using 64-bit encryption, DataSAFE SE is less secure than products using "strong" 128-bit technology. But it would still take a hacker over 5 million years to crack a DataSAFE file using one personal computer. DataSAFE appears more secure than Norton Secret Stuff. And both are more secure than the easily cracked encryption built into current word processors. For a readable discussion of security issues, see: Privacy and Security on the Internet by Lawrence E. Widman, MD, Ph.D. http://www.med-edu.com/internet-security.html.
More product details on DataSAFE SE are given here: http://encryption.novastor.com/datasheets/dsafeSE.html
- 64-bit Blowfish encryption that is stronger than Norton Secret Stuff's method
- Works with Windows 95/98/NT
Strengths of DataSAFE SE
- Easy to use
- Inexpensive
- Good for protecting e-mail from "sniffer" programs that scan e-mail servers for keywords
Limitations of DataSAFE SE
- Purchasing this product over the Web might be problematic
- Though stronger than weak encryption products, DataSAFE SE does not measure up to higher-powered, more expensive competitors
Vendor Information NovaStor Corporation
80B West Cochran, Simi Valley, CA 93065
Phone: 805-579-6700
E-mail: sales@novastor.com
Add a full tool set to your computer to maintain MS Windows 95 or 98, protect against viruses, and deal with a variety of problems. Norton Utilities have saved millions of computer users from all sort of problems for over 15 years. In a crowded product niche, the software produced by Peter Norton, now owned by Symantec, has commanded respect and garnered countless awards. Norton Utilities, along with a long list of included additional programs, fix problems, improve performance, prevent computer woes, and assist in recovering from disasters.
We strongly recommend that you install a utilities suite on each personal computer you own. At a minimum, use the tools to create Rescue Disks. That can save from being essentially locked out of your computer at what could be the most inopportune times.
Due to intense competition in the personal computer utilities marketplace, the price of the full Norton SystemWorks suite has dropped dramatically to $99.95. It has appeared in computer superstores for as little as $59.95 with a $10 rebate.
There is a small disadvantage, however, for buying the complete suite. While streamlining the process for installing a long list of programs, Norton SystemWorks does not permit you to install any of the programs on a drive other than the main drive where MS Windows is installed.
You have the ability to select the products that you want to install. The installation program does a smart job of adding only the components you need if you install less than all the products.
Here are the sizes of the files you can choose to install:
- Common files 44 MB (required)
- Norton Utilities 45 MB
- Norton AntiVirus 22.5 MB
- Norton CleanSweep 22.5 MB
- Norton CrashGuard 2 MB
- Norton Web Services 3 MB
- The size of the common files is the most that could be required.
Some caution may be required if you already use CleanSweep, formerly from Quarterdeck. CleanSweep does a much better job of uninstalling software from your system than the MS Windows Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs component. Without warning, Norton CleanSweep 4.0 deletes earlier versions of CleanSweep during installation. What's worse, it trashes rather than converts the files needed to uninstall existing programs that were monitored by the older CleanSweep version. It leaves a text file listing all of the old program installations, so at least you are left with a full record of what each program put on your hard disk.
You can choose to have Norton System Doctor run continuously in the background, monitoring various aspects of your computer's operation. It will prompt you (with a red traffic light at the bottom of your screen in the system tray) if, for example, your hard disk is running low on space, has become too fragmented, or has a problem with its "overall health."
SystemWorks includes Norton AntiVirus, with a 6-month subscription to updates. Using an antivirus program is as important to the health of your computer as wearing a seat belt is to your health. LiveUpdate can be set to check the Symantec website, then download and install updates to any of the programs in the suite. This function is especially important for your antivirus software, since out-of-date virus-catching files are unsafe.
Perhaps the most important role of SystemWorks is to wait quietly on your hard disk, like a fire extinguisher or a lifesaver, until some emergency strikes.
Special Features of Norton SystemWorks
Norton Utilities, unlike Nuts & Bolts, has an Undelete program that can save even files that have been deleted from the MS Windows Recycle Bin, provided you use it promptly. In addition, Norton can add a Protected Recycle Bin that will catch and retain files that are deleted in ways that bypass the normal Recycle Bin. These utilities can give you an added margin of protection against a common disaster.
Norton SystemWorks includes all of these programs:
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Disk Editor |
Norton SpeedStart |
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Image |
Norton Speed Disk |
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LiveUpdate |
Norton System Doctor |
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Norton Diagnostics |
Norton WinDoctor |
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Norton Disk Doctor |
Norton Web Services |
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Norton File Compare |
Rescue Disk |
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Norton Optimization Wizard |
Space Wizard |
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Norton Protection |
System Information |
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Norton Registry Editor |
UnErase Wizard |
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Norton Registry Tracker |
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Norton AntiVirus |
Norton CleanSweep |
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Norton LiveUpdate |
Norton Web Services |
Limitations of Norton SystemWorks
- Though a Norton Utilities version is available for MS Windows NT, Norton SystemWorks only works with MS Windows 95 and 98
- All programs must be installed on your main disk drive, usually C:
- Crash protection rated lower than Nuts & Bolts' protection
Symantec Corporation 10201 Torre Ave., Cupertino, CA 95104
Phone: 800-441-7234
Protect your computer against problems, keep it in good health, but look elsewhere for antivirus protection and recovery of deleted files. Nuts & Bolts competes vigorously with Norton Utilities. It won early honors for doing a noticeably better job at cleaning up MS Windows 95 messes. Nuts & Bolts has now distinguished itself as better in the area of preventing MS Windows crashes, an all too familiar occurrence for unprotected users. For detailed information on crash protection, see: An Airbag for Your PC by Barry Simon in PC Magazine Online http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/utilities98/troubleshooting/sb03.html
Nuts & Bolts also nosed ahead of Norton Utilities in a few other areas. But we found that the integrated combination of tools offered in Norton SystemWorks was a great bargain for anyone who does not already have an antivirus program and set of utilities.
Special Features of Nuts & Bolts
- Crash preventer
- Troubleshooting
- Tuneup
- Hardware diagnostics
- MS Windows customization with EZ Setup
- File shredder
- File encrypter
- File compression (Zip archiver)
- Floating toolbar
- Requires little disk space
Network Associates, Inc. 3965 Freedom Circle, Santa Clara, CA 95054
Phone: McAfee Products - 972-278-6100 Network Assoc. - 408-988-3832
Determine whether personal computers have year 2000 date problems and learn about free remedies from a trusted source. The industry leader in the field of data recovery, Ontrack Data International's free diagnosis program is superior to the others we have tried. A number of free software programs produce unnecessarily frightening or confusing results, apparently in an effort to sell Y2K fixes offered for a fee by the same company. Ontrack's free program tests for a wide range of problems and gives sensible solutions. Going through Ontrack's testing program is straightforward and offers no-nonsense recommendations.
This software runs from a formatted floppy disk. Download the program from the Web, http://www.ontrack.com/re/do/do.asp, onto a disk. Put the floppy disk in the computer you want to test. Reboot the computer and follow the on-screen instructions.
Here is an example of the recommendations Ontrack Y2K Advisor make for a two-year-old Pentium II personal computer:
RTC rollover from 1999 to 2000: *Failed* . . . Testing has indicated your BIOS corrects the RTC problem. Therefore, it is not necessary to take any corrective action. However, as a precaution, we recommend performing the following action during the transition from 1999 to 2000: . . .
Limitations of Ontrack Y2K Advisor
The free version is licensed for use on one computer at a time. Ontrack intends to release commercial Y2K software to facilitate the efficient testing of computers throughout an office. At the time of this writing, details were not available.
Ontrack Data International
6321 Bury Drive, Eden Prairie, MN 55346
Phone: 800-872-2599
E-mail: marketing@ontrack.com
Have you found programs that no lawyer should be without? Do you know of software that does a better job than the programs listed here?
Do you have opinions to add to those expressed here?
Then by all means, speak up!
You may have a question or comment that was not raised at the live presentation. Please e-mail, call or write the author at the locations listed below.
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Wells Anderson |
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612-791-0471 |
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Helping lawyers leverage technology |
Ó Copyright 1999 Wells Anderson |
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