Does It Compute?

Scanning and Worldox

Scanning documents to a document management system (“DMS”) such as Worldox has traditionally been a two-step process: first the user scans the document either to a network directory or as an email attachment to themselves. Then they move the document to the DMS. Most major scanner makers offer modules that integrate with Worldox and other DMS’s but they tend to be on the expensive side.

A second major issue with scanning is the time it takes to OCR PDFs so that they are text-searchable. Without this, they are just “electronic xeroxes” and much less useful. This is the most time-consuming part of scanning: figure 2-3 seconds per page for Optical Character Recognition, so that a hundred-page document will take 3-4 minutes to OCR (during which time the computer or scanner cannot do anything else). 

I have recently increasingly been recommending a program by Trumpet Inc. called Symphony which works directly with Worldox. The OCR part, Symphony OCR, works in the background (usually on the Worldox Indexer) to identify and OCR documents that have already been scanned but not OCR’d. The program runs faster or slower depending on how hard the indexer is otherwise working.

A second part of Symphony, called Profiler, is best used by firms that have a dedicated file-room type person who does scanning. This lets the end user (who knows the files and clients) make a Worldox “reservation.” They put the reservation cover sheet on top of the documents to be scanned and the file-room person simply runs them through the scanner. You can also batch documents so that several jobs are run through at the same time. Symphony separates out the scans, and based on the information in the reservation, puts them directly into Worldox. One stop, no time wasted on a second step or on OCRing.

A major test of this system was provided recently by a client who wanted to scan all their old files and to do so by sending the files to a service bureau. The client’s staff made the Worldox reservations and then sent the boxes (totaling on the order of 50,000 pages) to the service bureau. When the CDs came back, they simply copied the files to the appropriate Symphony directory and the program started churning away. Over a weekend (when firm activity was otherwise light), the program OCR’d and catalogued in Worldox over 30,000 pages. Pretty slick. And the amount of time saved adds up rapidly. For OCR’ing 100,000 pages, the firm would save on the order of 65 hours of time otherwise spent on waiting for OCRs to complete. For firms that want to do a lot of scanning, this is becoming a no-brainer.

The Thin Line Between Security and Stupidity

I recently decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my system to Windows 7, including replacing my peer to peer network with a real server. That way, I’ll be all set for several years and can avoid Windows 8 which promises to be more or less a disaster for people like me who work primarily at desktops or laptops (as opposed to smart phones or iPads). The most recent news being that Windows 8 will not play DVD movies without an extra expense. Also in line with the principle of avoiding every other release of Windows.

The first issue that comes up with Windows 7 is security. The general principle behind all security issues is the more secure you make a system the more of a pain it is to use. This is compounded by Microsoft’s drive to make it easier to do simple and easy things with its programs, resulting in making it more difficult to do complex things with them (look at Word 2010). Passwords are the tried and true case in point: it could be argued that a firm where all users have the identical password of “Password123" don’t really have passwords at all, although they are certainly easy to use. So requiring real passwords provides actual security despite the “inconvenience.” On the other hand, IT types who create “strong” passwords that are so complex people write them down on a piece of paper and tape it to their monitors are equally worthless (I once had a client where one user had no less than 8 passwords taped to his monitor).

The first thing I did was to disable the User Account Controls. If you never make any changes to your system, this is not annoying. But if you are frequently changing things (as I am, as a consultant), it is very annoying and can interfere with installing some programs. Get rid of it (most consultants I know disable UAC).

The second annoyance was: I create a shortcut on the desktop. Every single time I run the program it asks me if I want to run it. Yes, I want to run it, why do you think I created the shortcut?  There is supposed to be a way around this using the Policy feature, but I could never figure out how to make it work (harder to do complex things).

Some directories are not available, even if you are logged in with admin rights. What sense does that make?  A partial workaround is to right-click on any shortcut and select “run as administrator.” For example, I had to set up an IIS server and was bedeviled with repeated claims that I lacked rights, even though I was the server administrator. The whole thing was a nightmare and took over an hour when it should have taken about 15 minutes.

The Microsoft mantra sometimes seems to be: “You want secure, OK, we’ll give you secure. And then you’ll be sorry.” My wife just got a new laptop with Windows 7.  Her reaction: “Why can’t I get XP. This is so HARD.”

Lastly, any discussion of security inevitably comes around to computer “security” on airlines. The TSA requires putting laptops through separately when you pass security, but not iPads, smartphones, tablets, etc.  What sense does that make?  A recent article in the New York Times seems to hit the nail on the head. The author quoted a security expert who has worked with the Department of Homeland Security: “He said that the laptop rule is about appearances, giving people a sense that something is being done to protect them. “Security theater” he called it.” This is reinforced by recent reports that airlines are trying to get permission for pilots to use iPads instead of physical documentation in the cockpit. So iPads will be safe for Pilots to use but not safe for passengers?

Macs and Worldox

Potential clients occasionally want to know if Worldox supports Macs. The short answer is: no.  The longer answer is that there are a variety of ways in which this can be done, some of which can be a bit pricy.

The first option is to use Parallels or Boot Camp for the Mac, which lets you run Windows on top of the Mac.  You would then use that Windows to access the server and Worldox. People who have tried this report that you can sometimes have timeout issues. And of course there is the issue of why would you want a Mac if one of your main functions is to use it to run Windows.

A second option is to use Worldox Web/Mobile, and use the Mac to access Worldox through the Internet. This will work, but involves an download/edit/upload scenario. So this would not be appropriate heavy use.  The Web/Mobile client also allows for access via an iPad. Again, this can be very useful but is not designed for heavy duty use. One of my clients who is doing this tells me that it can be fairly slow and it is frequently preferable to download files to a hard drive the iPad has access to and work from there.

A third option is to set up a Citrix-based terminal server. Microsoft makes an RDP client for the Mac that allows it to access your Citrix box. From there, you would access Worldox normally. This will work the best of all the solutions outlined above, but of course involves the additional expense of setting up a Citrix server.

The more general question for legal specific products is “will there be a Mac version for...” I think the answer to this is generally “no.” There are two reasons for this: First, smaller independent firms (like Amicus, Tabs or Worldox) do not have the resources to develop a Mac version, even if they wanted to. The behemoths (Lexis, Westlaw) would not find a profit in it and thus have little interest. The second reason is the growth of Cloud products. Mac support in the future will, I think, go through the cloud products, not through workstation-based software.

Digital Assets

In my parent’s time, you put all your important papers in a bank safety deposit box and made sure somebody had the key and authorization. In a digital age, that just doesn’t cut it any more. 

A typical user will have multiple digital accounts, passwords, etc.  So just as it is imperative to leave a health care directive for use in the event you are incapacitated, a “digital will” can be critical.

Sharon Nelson provided an extremely useful outline of what digital provisions might look like in her blog Ride the Lightning. In addition, if you have a list of passwords somewhere (make sure they stay current) or a master password program, make sure your executors know where they are.

Google and Cloud Storage

There has been a bit of an uproar over Google’s Terms of Service associated with its entry into the Cloud Storage field.  Sharon Nelson argues that this is exaggerated in her blog Ride the Lightning. 

Be that as it may, it is a good thing that people are paying more attention to terms of service and the details of what is secure and what isn’t in the Cloud.

A useful summary of competing options is contained in an article by Chris Preimesberger on eweek. Most of them have free options, and cost around $5-10 per month for 50-100 GB of storage.

Credenza -- The Entry Level Drug

I recently revisited Seth Rowland’s blog “Credenza – the Entry Level Drug.”  If you are thinking about using Credenza, it is well worth looking at.

The issue is important for another reason. Gavel & Gown (makers of Amicus and Credenza) has recently announced a cloud-based version of Amicus Attorney which will eventually replace the Small Firm Edition of Amicus Attorney.  Obviously, their experience with Credenza forms the basis/foundation for this cloud-based version. Historically, one of the main issues with Credenza (and with cloud-based software generally) has been performance. Depending on your internet connection, response time can be very slow.

Gavel & Gown has committed to Microsoft’s Azure platform. The architect of the Azure platform, Ray Ozzie, left Microsoft in October 2010, about a year after the Azure platform had been released.  That would make me nervous. In addition, Azure has had perhaps more than its outages and problems, most notably the major outage this past February 29. What do you say about a software platform that can’t deal with leap years?

In the meantime, Credenza has been something of an underground hit for Gavel & Gown, which clearly hopes that small firms will want to upgrade to a more full-featured practice management program after using Credenza for a while. Enter Amicus Cloud.

It will be a great idea if they can get it to work.

Worldox GX3 Is Shipping

Worldox GX3 (Professional) is now officially shipping. New orders will be filled with GX3. The “Professional” version is a simple upgrade from Worldox GX2. The price went up a couple of months ago and is now $425/user and $84/user/year annual maintenance, which gives you unlimited free tech support (which is different from “how do I....” support).

Upgrade orders will be available in 6 weeks or so. If you have an existing maintenance contrace, upgrades are free (except for paying someone to do it for you).

Look for the SaaS Cloud version and the Enterprise version (a combination of the standard network-based and SasS version running in a private cloud) in 6 months or so.

Schiller on Stupidity

    “Against stupidity the very gods
    Themselves contend in vain.”
               Schiller, The Maid of Orleans (1801)

Schiller and Goethe (and slightly earlier Lessing) were the greatest literary figures of the German enlightenment in the late 18th century.

TimeMatters vs. Worldox for Document Management

Every once in a while somebody asks me about the relative merits of TimeMatters vs. Worldox as far as document management is concerned. As a leading practice management system, TimeMatters obviously does many more things than Worldox. But what about the document management feature?

To my mind, the following are the primary differentiators between the two.

1.  Enforced use.  Worldox obliges end-users to use the system. This means that a firm can assert with some confidence that all documents generated by firm employees are in the system. TimeMatters is optional. For every document, a TM user can choose whether or not to save it to the "document management" system. So there is no system integrity. True, most firms that use the TimeMatters document management function implement firm “guidelines,” but users are notorious for not following them when they are rushed, tired, feeling frustrated, etc.

2.  Email integration.  This is probably the single biggest source of aggravation to TM users. TM email integration with Outlook is extremely poor. In particular, the way it deals with attachments is very cumbersome, although there are third-party add-ons that partly remedy the issue.

Further, TM can only see the Outlook InBox, not any sub-folders you may have. So if you have organized client sub-folders, in order to move an email from Outlook to TM, you first have to move it into the main InBox and from there to TM. By moving the emails back to the InBox, you lose the organization by client and have to search through what can be a very long list to find them. Obviously a very cumbersome process.

Worldox sees your entire Outlook navigation pane, all sub-folders, etc. and can batch move or drag-and-drop multiple emails from Outlook to Worldox. I once watched with some trepidation as an enthusiastic user marked 3,000 emails and moved them to Worldox in one pass. No problem. Any attached files are automatically also moved to Worldox with the email. No separate steps. All emails in Worldox are full-text indexed (including attachments), so searching is a breeze. You can instantly find all emails to or from a given individual (including if they relate to different matters).

3.  Searching. While TM indexes documents (it uses dtSearch), the search is either or. You can do a full-text search, OR you can search for, say, a particular type of document. You cannot combine the two. You cannot do a search for, e.g., all briefs done in the last 6 months containing certain words. 

4.  Integration with other Programs. TM is very limited with what it can integrate with -- MS Office, Acrobat and WordPerfect, Internet Explorer,  and that's about it. It does not integrate with (for example) document comparison programs such as Workshare, CompareDocs, DiffDocs, etc. Worldox integrates with over 50 programs out of the box and tech support will usually be able to write “hooks” to provide integration if you are using a program that is not only the list. Worldox can integrate with alternative PDF generators or programs like Roxio, so files can easily be exported to a CD. This is difficult if not impossible with TimeMatters and frequently has to be done outside the system.

5.  General Customization. Worldox is extremely flexible and customizable and generally provides a document management feature set that TimeMatters cannot match. 

6.  Ease of Use.  While this is of course somewhat subjective, it is a factor nevertheless. For example, TM cannot match the Worldox “viewer” technology which lets you rapidly scroll through documents without having to open them; print from the viewer, and copy text from the viewer into the document you are working on without having to open the other document. Worldox conveniently lets you see the last 20 documents you worked on, all your documents for the last week, etc. If you want to attach four files to an email, you select the four files and attach them. With TimeMatters you have to attach one file at a time four times.

7.  Speed. If you have matters with an extremely large number of documents (over about 200 or so), TM can be very slow in displaying them. Worldox is lightning fast.

TimeMatters consultants frequently pitch the TimeMatters document management on the basis that it is (1) “good enough” and (2) “free” (i.e., included in the high cost of TM itself). A firm needs to examine this proposition carefully. For all but the smallest firms, the savings and convenience derived from implementing Worldox can rapidly pay for it.

Finally, I would note that the document management features of most practice management programs (Amicus, Practice Master) have similar, although not identical shortcomings in comparison with Worldox. The item at the top of the list is always that these programs do not “lock down” your system – you are not obliged to use them.

"Windows Frankenstein"?

Tom Rowe posted a lengthy comment to my Windows 8 post. As the topic is ongoing, rather than bury a reply there, I thought I would continue the discussion here.

While most of the initial reviews of Windows 8 have been extremely favorable, they are all based on the assumption of tablet-based computing. Longtime Microsoft defender J. Peter Bruzzese in his InfoWorld column refers to Windows 8 as “Windows Frankenstein” and says it is “barely usable.”

Woody Leonhard, who I depend on for telling it like it is for all things Microsoft, refers to it in his review as a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” application — but without being certain which part is which. “In my experience, with rare exceptions, longtime Windows users don't like Windows 8" he says and adds “If you aren't planning to get a touch-enabled tablet any time soon, Windows 8 should be near the bottom of your wish list.”