Author Archive

What’s Your Law Firm I.T. Budget?

Just because your a small firm doesn’t mean that you can’t budget your year like big companies do. It makes money management easier for you and helps I.T. providers work within the boundaries of the budget knowing that they cannot go over. To many people, I.T. costs seem like a bottomless pit and I have been told this many times. Frankly, people don’t realize that their entire business revolves around I.T.. The businesses who understand are usually the ones who get what they want.  They know what their firm goals are and will work with their I.T. provider to have all needs met. Those are the businesses we like to hold on to. For all you negative Nancy’s out there still thinking I.T. is a bottomless pit, here’s a breakdown of what you should be spending. If your a small business with 10 PC’s and a server, chances are your spending around $8K-$14k/yr on maintenance plus the upkeep of your infrastructure. Relatively speaking for a 30 user company, I.T. costs may be between $27k-$35k/yr depending on your needs and use of technology. This is not taking into account upgrades and major changes, we are simply talking about maintenance and general work that may come up during the year. The reason why outsourced I.T. services work so well is because we get the job done at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full time tech. For small businesses, $10k/yr to take care of all I.T. needs is a drop in the bucket and an investment in your company’s future.

These rules change when talking about cloud and hosted solutions. The above figures were for technology hosted in-house, in your office. Hosted solutions are VERY cheap for small firms, and are VERY expensive for the big ones, just take that small number and multiply it by your office staff, that’s why it gets expensive. If your on the small side, think about cloud solutions. We have firms with full cloud solutions that pay $300/month for their entire firm tech. They never go down, and as long as they have an internet connection, they can work. Small price to pay for such high work flexibility. Hosted solution pricing really doesn’t ever change, you know what your going to pay each month, and it decreases the amount of extra I.T. costs to your I.T. services provider due to these cloud services offering free support. On the whole, budgeting is good and helps everyone. It creates an atmosphere where there are no surprises. Every small business that relies on I.T. in some aspect must have a budget, no company should be surprised by the costs involved for any service, let alone IT. Large or small, budgeting I.T. helps your bottom line.

The 3 Pillars of Law Firm Tech Security & You Probably Don’t Have 1!

When we come onsite to a new client, we have an agenda.  The big question is, “how secure is the network?” We often find networks with no security.  These networks generally have a free antivirus like AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials or Avast!.  These crappy AV (Antivirus) solutions are usually accompanied by an $80 Linksys router.  The icing on the cake is that the users are using AOL as their corporate email solution.  You may ask, dude, where do the 3 Pillars come in, well, I’ve already explained what they are.  The 3 Pillars of security consist of a gateway firewall, inbound spam filtering for all email, & a solid antivirus.  The first two do the heavy lifting why the third is there just in case.  Please remember, there is no silver bullet with virus protection, no one piece of software will protect you from every virus out there, this is why we have 3 pillars instead of 1.

Firewalls – Protect Your Network

Firewalls do what routers do, but they also have protection.  A Linksys router that you buy from Best Buy or Staples has NO virus, malware or hacking protection.  They are for home use only and I am starting to think that they are not even good for that!  A router simply splits up your internet connection so that it can be shared throughout a home or office.  A firewall does this as well but has added features.  The firewall we work with can monitor web usage for all users and generate reports by username on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.  Our firewall also has the ability to block sites.  We are often asked to block facebook and twitter due to employees constantly spending office time on these sites.  We also have the ability to block chat software like AIM and Skype.  One of the most important features that our firewall has is a dual antivirus filtering service.  Internet comes from your ISP (Internet Service Provider).  From the magic ISP building, internet goes to your modem in your office.  From there, our firewall is connected to that modem.  Every website, every piece of mail, every spec of data is scrubbed, washed and checked for any trace of malware, spyware, and viruses before it hits your office network.  This is what a firewall does, it filters the bad stuff like a sifter and leaves the good stuff to pass through.

Not all firewalls are built the same, in fact most are crap.  We deal with a very high end firewall which is why the cost is higher than normal.  We would rather not sell firewalls than sell $250 paper weights.  Sonicwall is crap, Firebox is crap, Checkpoint is crap, Cisco is not bad, Watchguard is crap.  You get what you pay for with firewalls so don’t cheap out!  If your a small doctor or a dentist’s office, you cant afford not to get a good firewall.  You can loose your practice if you are cheap, it’s as simple as that.  God forbid a trojan bot came though on your medical data server and started uploading data back to the origin server.  This does happen, and if it didn’t, there wouldn’t be firewalls, think about it.  Our firewalls also enables secure SSL VPN remote access to your network instead of opening port 3389 on your server, basically opening the door to hackers.  We have clients who run SBS Servers who have no choice but to keep port 3389 open so they can remote in, and they also have over 1300 attempted logins each and every night.  A good firewall can do it all if your willing to spend the money, and if your not, then your simply a target waiting to be manipulated.  It’s a very black and white thing, no gray area here.

Spam Filtering – Protect Your Privacy & Reputation

Spam filtering is another pillar that clients simply do not take seriously.  A spamfilter works like this, I email you, it floats to the internet and finds your domain, travels the domain highway to your spamfilter service or device, here it is scrubbed and checked for viruses and spam which if present are removed.  The email then hits your server and jogs into your inbox, clean and safe to open.  People sometimes think AOL & Verizon email accounts are acceptable email solutions.  Please, STOP USING THESE ACCOUNTS.  Do you have any idea the lack of security on AOL, Verizon, Yahoo, MSN accounts?  Did you ever get a funky email from your friend that didn’t look right?  I get them all the time from my friends with crappy Yahoo accounts when their accounts are hacked.  The hackers then send crap mail out to all the people in their contact list.  Those users on the list who don’t have any mail security get hacked some more.  It’s a cycle of hacking and poor security.  Can you imagine your AOL account gets hacked and every client in your contact list gets an email with porn pics in the body of the text?  I would be mortified!  This is why we have corporate email solutions #1, and #2 we have spam filtering services.  A corporate email solution is Exchange, Google apps for Businesses, or a hosted email solution with your own domain.  Gmail has their own spam filtering service and it is bundled with their email package.  They didn’t create a spam filter from scratch, all they did was BUY THE MOST HIGHLY RATED SPAM FILTER COMPANY AND CALL IT THEIR OWN.  So yea, if you pay for Google apps for business, you are covered.  For exchange and pop users, you are not covered.  You must invest in a smarthost spamfilter service or device.  Some are cheap, some are expensive, again, you get what you pay for.  Messagelabs is badass, and so is Appriver, Barracuda is overpriced and they give you hardware ewww.  You don’t want to start housing hardware with a spamfilter host.  If you don’t want to pay monthly for a smarthost spamfilter, you can always buy our firewall, yea, our firewall filters your email too, it also does a badass job at it.

Antivirus – Last Line of Protection

Antivirus is very important but let me rephrase that, free antivirus is crap and must not be used in an office with critical client data.  Good antivirus is worth the money anywhere between $300 and $550 for 10 users sounds about right.  Don’t be cheap here, if your spam filter didn’t see it, and your firewall didn’t catch it, your AV is your last line of defense.  If the first two didn’t get it, you can bet all your future earnings that the free version of AVG sitting on your desktop like a bump on a log will NOT detect squat.  For AV, we use Kaspersky & Symantec.  Our firewall already uses Kaspersky AV filtering for all incoming data which is why we like to switch it up with Symantec.  In this way, we get 2 different virus databases working to protect your network.  Personally, McAffe has never shown me anything worthwhile and I can say the same for Trend Micro, they are both crap pieces of software.  They stop nothing, their real-time protection is a joke.  The monitor pops up after a virus outbreak, completely useless.

Usbman’s Final Thoughts…

If you’ve read carefully, you should notice a trend.  In case you didn’t pick it up, let me spell it out for you, DON’T CHEAP OUT WHEN IT COMES TO SECURITY!  In this world you get what you pay for, bargain hunters can stop looking right now, there are no bargains here, just crappy solutions.  There are no bargains with security software, and why take the gamble anyway?  Think about this for a sec . . . for a 10 person office, why gamble your entire office data, your firm, your practice and your lively hood, the money machine that feeds your family and pays your mortgage, why gamble a major attack, downtime, lost data, privacy violations, insurance nightmares, why gamble all this to not spend $2000 on securing your network.  Yes, you can spend less and get less for it, but I am here to tell you that this is the number for a business who take security seriously.  You pay for home owners insurance, car insurance, life insurance, business insurance, liability insurance, it’s about time that people understand the importance of insuring their business data and their company.  60% of companies who loose their data go out of business within 5 months.  Don’t add to that stat, cover yourself with 3 Pillars of Security.

Awesome, Free Software for your Biz & Home! Pt.2

That’s right!  Our most popular blog is back with some more awesome free software for home & biz, lets get to the good stuff.

Wunderlist – www.Wunderlist.com

Wunderlist is an online sync-able application that syncs your task lists to almost all devices you own.  If you have M$ Exchange and are a heavy task user, you know that tasks don’t sync to your iPhone & Android, and if you have a Blackberry, you have more problems then just tasks not syncing.  If you have Google, you know that Google’s idea of tasks and managing them is a joke, especially when considering that they don’t sync and need third party apps to sync to mobile devices to see them nice and neatly on your device screen.  As an ex-Exchange user, a current Google Apps for Business user, and a person heavily reliant on tasks, there has NEVER been a good task syncing tool UNTIL NOW!  Wunderlist  is web based, supports iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Mac & Linux & they support a downloadable desktop app as well.  If you don’t want to use the web app, you can use the desktop app, your choice!  You can assign notes to each task, set due dates and make your tasks public to anyone who has your secret web link.  It would be nice if exchange synced tasks natively, and it would be nice if the Google Apps task setup was not such of a piece of crap, but with all-way syncing and multiple platform support this is definitely the way to go.  Getting a third party task app for your phone is a waste of time, it doesn’t sync to anything!  Wunderlist is simple, does what it says, and syncs to everything.  Highly recommended free app.

Wuala – www.Wuala.com

Wuala is another one of those free online backup companies like Dropbox but with a twist.  It’s got everything that dropbox has and more!  Not only can you sync files and folders over the internet to remote computers, but you can also setup backup plans for files.  For applications with databases that cannot be continuously backed up like Quickbooks & PCLaw, you can setup interval backups from every 20 minutes to every day week or year.  The point is that you have the ability to setup regular backups with regular backup times, say, every day at 2am (Standard Backup Schedual).  Continuous backup is great for docs and files alike, but HORRIBLE for database software.  You end up with multiple copies, corruption and major issues, we have seen this first hand with dropbox.  The solution is a piece of software that lets you do traditional time controlled backups.  This software does both and has the ability to distinguish continuous backup sets & time interval backup sets.  Did I mention your files backed up within time intervals support multiple revisions on restoration?  You have the ability to go back in time with Marty McFly and restore an old copy of a current document just like big boy backup software does for servers, BRILLIANT!  You can also share data on a folder level with other Wuala users or anyone with a specialized generated link.  To me, this IS the dropbox killer.  While dropbox blazed the trail to all these sync-able web apps providing free online storage, it did not keep up with the needs of the users, it did not evolve!  There is one more little nugget of info I did not tell you that Wuala does.  You get 1GB of storage, not so much eh.  Well, you can trade space with Wuala servers, you want 100GB of online storage, give up 100GB of your local hard disk space and you got a deal to have 100GB of online storage for anything you like.  Pretty bad ass if you ask me.  They have some rules to this.  Your machine MUST be up & running  at least 17% of the day.  You must use 10% of the space you ask for before you ask for more; this is a growing process.  In other words, you can’t just ask for 100GB and use 5GB.  All in all, it’s the king of free sync-able software.  I would like to see file and folder level security for business use in the future.

Pandora – www.Pandora.com

Pandora is a very popular music service which is FREE!  You type in an artist and they give you streaming music from that artist’s genre.  You may eventually hear your artist in the mix.  You can create different stations for different types of music.  The best thing is that there is an iPhone app so if you have bluetooth in your car or an AUX jack you can listen on the go through 3G.  They used to have a 40 hour limit per month for free accounts, but this has been lifted just recently to this blog being written.  Pandora is the future of music.  In the future, there will be no media, just streaming & services.  I can’t see how media will come into play with usb flash technology & 3G, 4G internet speeds sweeping the nation.  We are becoming a wired nation more than ever.  Internet is all around us and speeds are increasing dramatically.  Remove that crappy old cd player and get yourself a cheap netbook.  Hook it up to your stereo system with an audio Y cable and listen to streaming music for free all day long.  And dont worry about the song changing to something you might not like.  With Pandora, technology is in place to make sure 90% of the music you listen to is compatible with your preferred music choices.  Technology is awesome.

DropSend – www.DropSend.com

DropSend is a great tool for IT admins because with it, we don’t have to hear clients complain about email bounce backs due to large attachment sizes.  DropSend lets you send attachments up to 2GB.  Lets hit the basics.  Generally, an average acceptable attachment size is anywhere from 7MB to 15MB.  Gmail users have the luxury of sending 25MB attachments but due to this smaller limit on exchange and other hosted solutions this just limits Gmail users to send to each other.  Now that you know the basics, enter DropSend.  You put your reply email address, the send email address and then finally you upload your file.  Your recipient gets your email with a DropSend link attached to download the file, it’s very simple.  They give you 5 free uploads per month which should be good enough since most emails with attachments do not spill over 10MB.  DropSend is easy, secure, and very straight forward.  Use DropSend anytime you need to send someone a large attachment.

NJ Internet Service Provider Breakdown – Who To Choose, Cable, Fiber?

When Rekall is called upon to setup offices for our new clients, we are often asked which ISP (Internet Service Provide) to use.  This seems like a pretty straight forward question, but to future proof an office the answer to this question requires a lot of thought.  In this blog, we will discuss 3 Internet types and weigh the pro’s and cons…

DSL – Verizon (Other carriers)

Speed – 128Kb up – 3Mb down (Speed varies with state/location & distance from carrier due to copper lines)

DSL is only good for certain applications.  I know it’s hard to believe for us on the East coast, but there are some people who have no choice but to use DSL due to them living in the middle of nowhere, or having their business in a location that is not cable ready.  DSL has a few other applications as well.  Remote offices should use DSL.  It is cheap, and easy to install.  This is especially true for construction companies with multiple remote job-site offices.  Another application for DSL is when setting up a stand alone DVR unit.  This is a video surveillance unit that is unmanned and must be connected to the internet for remote viewing 24/7.  Again, it is a cheap solution and it is the right tool for the job since the DVR will not need much bandwidth unless multiple people are planning to remote in at once, then a cable connection would be needed instead.  DSL should never be used as a primary internet pipe when setting up an office if alternatives are available.  The office will constantly suffer from slow internet page loading, downloads that last forever, and your staff will constantly complain.  The one thing we IT people hate to hear is, “My internet is faster at home, whats the deal?”  When a user says this, you know you have a problem.

PROS:  Cheap

CONS:  Slow speed, speed is not guaranteed by the ISP due to it being old copper line technology.  Unreliable, goes down more than other internet types.  Not available everywhere.  Verizon support is horrible.

Cable  – Comcast, Cablevision

Speed – Avg. Speed Package 5Mb up – 20Mb down (Varies based on Package, Highest Package 50Mb up – 100Mb down)

Cable is the cornerstone of great internet and chances are that you have this in your office or business.  It’s the most common because all new buildings are fitted with cable.  Not every building can get DSL and not every building can have FIOS.  Due to these restrictions, cable is the most popular choice and the standard.  It is great for an office internet solution, but now we have to deal with the speed packages, and the different packages by the different providers.  Here is where it gets sticky.  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, areas of the country were cut up and given to each cable company.  Due to technical Darwinism, only the large companies have survived and in NJ we have Comcast (South Jersey) & Cablevision (North Jersey).  Speed Package Time! Comcast offers their highest package at 100Mb down & 10Mb up.  The download speed is great but the upload speed SUCKS and if your running a big office with VOIP phones & remote users constantly remoting in to work you may or may not have a problem.  If your in this situation and are located in a Comcast area, you dont have much choice but to go for FIOS if it’s available or get two connections from Comcast and setup load balancing.  The download speed is not the problem, the upload speed is.  If you cap out your upload speed, it will start affecting your download speed; so essentially, your upload number is most important.  Normal offices with a few employees can get away with their lowest package 5Mb up – 22Mb down.  Now we have Cablevision, which is better, cheaper, the support is more reliable and the speeds are a bit faster than Comcast.  Their highest business class package is 101Mb down – 15Mb up.  If you check the pricing comparison, there is no comparison, they are cheaper and better, you get more with Cablevision / Optimum than with Comcast, it’s that simple.

PROS: Affordable for business use, versatile and has high speeds, available almost anywhere.

CONS: Too expensive for small applications (DVR use), Comcast support sucks.

FIOS – Verizon

Speed – 5 – 35Mb up – 15Mb – 150 down

FiOS is the newest internet technology to hit residential & business locations in recent years.  The speeds blow away cable and the cost is not much more.  FiOS is perfect for large offices with VOIP phones who do not want to pay for a T1.  Verizon lacks the support that the cable companies have.  Since they offer so many services, it is a nightmare getting through their call centers.  They offer phone, DSL, FiOS, TV, wireless phone and other services, it can get confusing.  But I will say that clients who have FiOS, there is usually never a problem.  FiOS didnt even go down during hurricane Irene, all our cable clients did.  One other issue with FiOS is that it is not available everywhere.  There are only select locations where FiOS is available.  If you cant get it, you may have a possibility of install IF the fiber cable runs past your office.  If your street doesn’t have FiOS, chances are, you’ll never get it.  If your street has FiOS but your building is not rigged for it, you may get it in 4 to 6 months, Verizon sucks when it comes to installs.

PROS: Fastest speeds you can buy at this cheap rate, perfect for high bandwidth situations.

CONS: Verizon is notoriously slow to fix your issues, not available everywhere.

Going Off On Your Own… Entrepreneur TECH

Interesting fact, but Rekall gets a lot of clients from attorneys who split off of existing firms.  These are attorneys who have worked for large firms long enough to know the ins and outs of their industry and feel comfortable enough to be able to call themselves THE BOSS.  We have a lot of respect for these entrepreneurs specifically because this is how Rekall was founded and we know how scary and exciting it is to cultivate a successful business.  While these entrepreneurs are masters of their industry, technology is where they may lack some knowledge.  This is where Rekall comes in, lighting the path to technological success, giving you what you need and leaving out what you don’t.  We often do business with people who rely on us to guide them in this way.  We thought it would be helpful to write a piece on “Entrepreneur Tech” giving people a realistic sense of what tech they would need in order to successfully launch an office.

HARDWARE

First of all, you need to get yourself an internet connection, call Comcast, Cablevision or Verizon to get yourself some Cable internet or FIOS, NO DSL!  Every user will need a computer & UPS battery backup device.  Battery backups are overlooked but for $99 bucks, they can save you hours of downtime and the cost of a new PC.  You will also need a place to store local data.  If all your work is web based, congratulations, most people do not have this luxury, and you will not need a server.  A server is usually needed to store office data, it provides file & folder security & permissions.  For smaller offices with no permissions issues, dropping your data on a workstation is fine as long as it is backed up daily, has a battery backup connected, and the data can be shared throughout the office.  Speaking of sharing data, you will need office wiring if your office does not come with wiring.  We’re talking about data & phone wiring.  You need a wiring guy, he is usually the phone guy or electrician, and you will need phones anyway, so go and kill two birds with one stone (score).  Back to the server, if you need a server, it needs to be accompanied by a large battery backup.  Again, these protect against power surges, brownouts, and all that stuff, think of it as insurance.  You will need a firewall if you store data onsite, and also a network switch to connect all your wiring together.  The switch makes it possible to share the internet connection throughout the office and the firewall protects your internal network from external attacks.  You will most likely need a copy machine or printer.  Make sure it can scan/fax/print/copy.  Make sure your copier guy gives you exactly what you want, and make sure they don’t lease you an ancient piece of crap.  Some people have the evolved thinking that dual monitor setups are more efficient.  WE TOTALLY AGREE.  You need to decide whether you want your workstations to have dual monitor support or not.  They increase productivity and they are fantastic to work with.  People who use them don’t know how they ever worked without them.  The difference will amaze you.

SOFTWARE

For a standard Windows based network everyone’s workstation will need Micro$oft Office.  The version depends on what applications you need.  You can always use OpenOffice which is a free alternative to M$ Office but some people like to stick with what they know.  Same goes for Adobe Acrobat Reader & Pro.  There are tons of PDF applications out there but Adobe makes the most popular one which everyone is used to.  You will definitely need antivirus on each workstation as well (Kaspersky).  As for accounting, time tracking, docket, & other document management systems, most people stick with what their previous businesses worked with or they go straight to the industry standard (Quickbooks, PCLaw, Amicus, Time Matters, Worldox, Imanage)

SERVICES

All office setups with data NEED offsite backup as their backup solution.  I don’t want to hear, “well we have a hard drive that we backup to and we swap it.” Let me stop you right there.  If you do not invest in backing up to an offsite location where your data is not only replicated within a server farm but replicated across the country to YET ANOTHER SERVER FARM ON THE EAST AND WEST COAST, then you must truly not want to protect your business data.  For larger amount of data tapes are acceptable, but this is really for LARGE amounts of data.  Unless you have an onsite IT person, system monitoring is very important.  You just spent all this money on a new server, network, workstations, security, why not ensure the network by having someone monitor logs, alerts, and errors remotely each and every day?  Rates are affordable, and setting up an entire office network just to forget about upkeep and maintenance is a shame.  It’s like buying a Ferrari, filling it with regular and never changing the oil, makes no sense.  As far as services go, email services would have to be the most important.  You need a way to communicate with your clients, and AOL, Yahoo, & MSN will not help you.  You need a corporate email solution, something with a domain name attached (@rekall.com).  Using a personal account is not only restricted when dealing with high-end corporations, it is also unprofessional.

These are just general things ALL entrepreneurs need and deal with when opening a new office.  A good IT company has the experience and knowledge to lead new entrepreneurs down the path for success.  Our goal is not only to provide reliable technology, but also to create lasting relationships between Rekall Technologies and small businesses.

Remote Access Solutions for Non-Cloud Law Firms

If your a traditional law firm without cloud services, accessing your firm desktop, apps, documents and email from outside the office is a must. Many small firms struggle with quality remote access solutions because they go with the popular commercial solutions instead of the tried and true IT methods. Managing remote access within your office is a good idea if you currently manage servers. It gives you enhanced security and more overall control.

The solution that Rekall works with offers firms an enterprise level firewall complete with web filtering, gateway antivirus, gateway antispyware, end user internet reporting on websites visited and google searches & intrusion prevention systems as well as an encrypted remote access system for all user desktops which is a lot more than LogMeIn & GoToMyPC can offer.

Users connect through Microsoft Remote Desktop over a secure and encrypted VPN which is compatible with all Apple, Android and Windows devices essentially giving the user the ability to connect from anywhere at anytime and from any device. Users have the ability to transfer files, print locally and truly work with a 1:1 work experience without graphical errors, compromises, or speed issues. Our cloud is based on the same technology.

This is the solution that we choose for our law firms because it is the most secure, offers more benefits to our clients than any other solution and works very well with little maintenance.

If you feel that your firm needs to update their remote access system or lacks network security, give us a call.

Acceptable Backup Solutions for Law Firms

There are only a few acceptable forms of data backup for law firms and these days and many state bar associations are requiring an offsite backup solution in addition to an onsite backup. Below is a breakdown of some common backup methods that law firms should consider.

With secure offsite backup your firm data is backed up to cloud server automatically on a daily basis. Success is monitored daily as well. The entire process is automated and monitored following compliance standards since all data transfer between your office and the cloud is encrypted. Offsite backup is easy, it comes with a low monthly rate and it’s good for firms of all sizes. Finally, any decent IT company will offer offsite backup as a service.

Many small firms use traditional USB hard drives to backup their data and there are a few issues with this. A traditional mechanical hard drive will eventually die, so if you don’t have a backup of your backup you will eventually lose your backup data. A better solution is a flash drive backup. Flash memory is solid state with no moving parts. Many flash drives can withstand the washing machine, water and even high drops. Flash drives these days have a high storage capacity making it easy to backup all of your firm data.

Tape drive setups are for large firms who can swallow the financial investment for the tape drive and the tapes.  They also require someone to clean the drive regularly.  We have seen tape backups run successfully but when it’s time to restore data the tape does not read or the drive is not clean. There are many issues with tape drives. You only see tape drives in older setups or in situations where a firm may have massive amounts of data and by massive we’re talking multiple Terabytes. Tapes must be rotated and taken offsite on a regular basis.

Fantastic Free Software for Your Firm

Often, Rekall deals with financially strapped law firms, and in all honesty, who isn’t financially strapped today?  In these situations, we like to give our clients free options.  Many times, it’s not even a matter of money, a client needs a certain task accomplished and free software can do it better than pay software.  Below are a few free pieces of software that we have worked with.  We only work with free software that passes our standard which is pretty high.

Skype – www.Skype.com

Everyone knows Skype is a great way to keep in touch with people by way of text and video chat, but did you know that you could call people for free who have a Skype account.  The account is free, the usage is free, the call is free.  You need a mic & speakers, webcam is optional, or just a phone.  This is all fine and dandy for home users, but for business, we have used this as an alternative solution to costly conference calls over seas.  It also works great for multi-user conference calls. Many offices use Skype as inter/multi-office chat as well. This is very useful when dealing with an office of 10 or more, or firms with remote offices. This is a great free service for growing firms, we highly recommend it.

Dropbox – www.Dropbox.com

Drobox is a sync-able folder. You can install it on as many computers as you like as well as iPhone & other mobile devices. When you put a file into this Dropbox folder, it automatically syncs it with all your devices that you have installed Dropbox on. If I add a document on my home PC to my Dropbox folder, it will not only be viewable on my iPhone, but also editable on my work PC and my 2 laptops. Free accounts have a cap of 2GB, but with referrals, you can go up to 8GB for FREE. For clients with no remote access, we have given them this solution to work on their office documents while at home as long as their OK with the lack of full security on the product. Before they leave for the day, they drag the document to the Dropbox folder and when they get home, they can finish their document. Think of it like a document transporter.  There is also a web interface where you can download files and folders in a pinch. Many people use Dropbox as a home backup simply because if their computer crashes, a copy of all data resides on the Dropbox servers. This is a great product that is versatile and easy to use. If you want more space, you have to pay, but 2GB is good enough for regular users, and if it’s not, get some friends and get referrals!

Bullzip Free PDF Printer – www.Bullzip.com

For the common use of office workers, PDF’s are important because they produce an un-editable, secure file.  Adobe corners the market on PDF software and many people believe that they need adobe to produce PDF files.  This is not true.  Any file can be turned into an un-editable PDF file with a virtual PDF printer. Bullzip installs a PDF printer into your printers list. Once you are done typing up a document, simply print to the Bullzip PDF printer, tell it where to save the newly created PDF file, and you now have a secure PDF file.  You don’t need to spend $600 on Adobe Acrobat Professional, Bullzip will handle the PDF creation for you, and for free.

Law Firms Need Battery Backup Devices

We often get emails on the weekends from clients who cannot access their computers remotely from home.  Due to this, Rekall has learned that many buildings have terrible electrical service.  Some of our clients have such bad service, their buildings go dark when there are strong winds, Shrewsbury is notorious, but back to remote access.  Often, clients cannot reach their machines remotely because of electrical disturbances.  The electric shuts down, and so does everything plugged in, simple concept.  This is why we stress battery backup devices for servers.  They are a must.  Due to the storage of important documents and the time it would take to restore ALL of the data, simply pulling the plug on the server can lead to catastrophic events.  The same goes for workstations.  We also stress workstation battery backups to be purchased, they usually run between $70 – $110 depending on your power consumption and they save you time and money.

While no critical data is saved on the workstation, pulling the plug may lead to other issues, corrupt profiles, Windows not booting, corrupt boot partitions &  total operating system corruption.  We have seen it all, these are annoying issues that take time to fix, especially the latter.  Another annoying thing that occurs are brownouts while typing up a document.  Your PC shuts down, the document is lost (hopefully Word has a saved backup copy) and you lost your time on that doc.  It has happened to everyone and buying a battery backup fixes the issue.  When installed correctly, a battery backup will shut down the PC through software when a predetermined low power level is shown.  There is no pull of the plug, the PC is shut down the right way, with no possibility for corruption.  Go out and buy a good UPS battery backup, preferably by Tripp Lite or APC.  And do NOT hook up your old battery backup from the early 2000’s to your PC.  The batteries do get old, and do need replacing.  We have seen very old ones start to smoke and leak acid, which is NEVER good for the electronics plugged in.  Get yourself a new battery backup UPS.  It will save you time and money, guaranteed.

Rekall Backup Vs. Carbonite & Mozy: Firm Data Protection

A situation I find myself in with clients is comparing Rekall Backup to Carbonite & Mozy. If your interested in learning more about backing up and securing your firm data, give a listen to chapter two of our audiobook, “The Lawyers Guide to Technology.” Truthfully, there is no comparison, it is like comparing a broom to a vacuum cleaner.

Trollying

All these backup providers will backup your data, but the two in question will not backup your Exchange email store or your SQL database NATIVELY. For those who don’t know what SQL is, it’s the back-end database for law firm software like Amicus Attorney & PClaw, just to name a few.  They make you backup your exchange mailboxes to a local drive on your server and then trolly the backup to cloud. In the end, you have 3 pieces of software performing 1 backup.Same goes with SQL, they make SQL perform the backup and then they take that backup and trolly it to the cloud.  This form of backup makes the end user have to purchase third party software to perform the original backups.  In the end, you have 3 pieces of software performing 1 backup.  If the backup is unsuccessful, guess what, your I.T. has to troubleshoot 3 pieces of software to fix the problem. It’s just not efficient.

Revisions

A file revision is considered any changes to a file that a user makes. Carbonite & Mozy support a maximum of only 3 months backup and 12 revisions per file. Rekall Backup has the option to backup an unlimited version history of each and Backup has the option to backup an unlimited version history of each and every file on your server.every file on your server, and there is no limit on backup. Lets say you type up a document and save it.  Lets also say that over a period of 2 weeks, 50 people alter that document once.  With Rekall Backup, you will have 14 revisions of that file, each revision being the last change before the backup job was executed.  You also have the option for continuous backup which means that all changes will be backed up on the fly as you save.  In reference to the previous example you would have 50 revisions rather than 14.

Email

For those of you who have Exchange mail, both will perform a  successful backup, but that depends on your definition of successful.  With Rekall, specific portions of a mailbox can be restored – calendar items, tasks, or messages.Carbonite & Mozy only backup the entire mail store, every mailbox in one LARGE file, this is because they rely on Exchange to do the heavy lifting of the backup, Carbonite & Mozy simply trolly that file to the cloud.  If a user needed a portion of his mailbox or just a few messages, there would be no other option but to download this tremendous file, which would take hours to restore the data.  Rekall backup not only backs up the information store, but it backs up on a mailbox level. Portions of a mailbox can be restored – calendar items, tasks, or messages within minutes.  This form of backup saves restoration time and gets your firm users all the info that they need, quickly.

Vacuum or Broom?

When deciding which backup to go with for your firm, understand that all backup companies will in fact backup your data. Don’t get sucked in by cheap pricing, there’s a reason it’s cheap.The question is in the details and restoration.  Everyone thinks its wonderful that Carbonite & Mozy will backup their data at a very cheap rate, but what about when you need to restore data in a business environment?  These solutions are not for businesses with email servers or SQL databases, or servers for that matter.  The Carbonite & Mozy solution is for the home & home-office user in my opinion.  Don’t get sucked in by cheap pricing, there’s a reason it’s cheap.