It's About Time

ZOMM | Alarmingly Smart | Features

Losing your phone can be a nightmare. With ZOMM, never lose or misplace your phone again. When activated, your ZOMM alerts you anytime your phone is more than 30 feet away. Using Bluetooth technology, ZOMM will vibrate, flash and sound an alarm letting you know that you are leaving your phone behind. No more leaving your phone on airplanes, in taxicabs, restaurants or movie theaters.

via www.zomm.com

I've misplaced my cell phone more than once. This little device would have saved me hours of "hunting" while I continually call myself and then try to figure out where the ringing sound is coming from.

More iPhone Apps for Lawyers (and non-lawyers as well)

If you own an iPhone, you are probably aware that there a "apps" for just about everything you can imagine.  Here are few that might interest you:

LogMeIn Ignition:  Free.  This app will allow you to access your desktop from your iPhone.  The display is small, but can be useful for quick tasks.  it will also work with the iPad.

Ilium eWallet:  You can try it for free, but it will cost $9.99 to keep it.  This neat little app stores all your passwords and credit card number.  Use it with the iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

Dragon Dictate:  With this free application you can compose email or text messages as well as update your Facebook status.

DocScanner:  For 5.99 you can scan documents to PDF or image files just by using your iPhone to snap a photo.  It has built-in OCR, which will then allow you to email the files.

Fastcase:  This free app will allow you to search case law from anywhere.  All you need is Internet access.

Digital Dictation for the iPhone (and other phones)

Last August, I wrote an article about digital dictation for the Blackberry.  At that time, I also mentioned Vlingo for the iPhone and Nokia.  Vlingo is now also available for the Blackberry.  The other popular product is Dragon Dictation. 

From what I have been reading, Vlingo and Dragon Dictation are similar in that they both offer hands-free dictation and relatively accurate transcription, however, sending an email using Vlingo seems much easier. You can dictate the recipient, subject and message body.  The only "hands on" operation is hitting the "Send". 

With Dragon Dictate, you are prompted what to do next.  If you select email, you have to select the recipient and then paste in the text and hit send.  You wouldn't want to do this while driving.

Vlingo's texting operation is just as simple as the email.  You can also update your Facebook and Twitter status; use Google maps and conduct an internet voice search....all hands free!

iPhone Interface for Timeslips

If you have one of the very popular iPhones, now you can enter your time in the iPhone and have a wireless data transfer to your Timeslips.  In addition to entering your time and expenses, it also has the capability of automatically starting a timer when you call a client from your iPhone. 

Many of these phone calls that are made to clients while you are "on the go" fall into the category of lost billing time.  I know a lot of attorneys who enter their time on a weekly or monthly basis.  They probably don't remember who they spoke to and how much time was spent.  If you are one of those rare, diligent people who enters their time immediately when they get back to the office, this might not apply to you.  I don't own an iPhone, but automatically capturing the phone time when speaking with a client would be a tremendous time saver as well as a way to bill for time that would have been lost.  And the idea that this can be transferred back to your office using wireless data transmission is an added bonus.  The price for the app is $49.95. 

If you would like to see a product video and get more information about some of the other features like the automatic mileage calculator, go to www.brainfreezesoftware.com

Smartphone Comparisons

As many of you may know, the Palm Pre made its debut this week.  How does it compare to the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile devices, or BlackBerry?  If you are in the market for a new phone, the choices can make your head spin.  All the phones have different operating systems with a host of features.  Then you need to decide on who provides the best service in your area.  Is it AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon and do they support the phone that you want?

I recently read an article in the New York Times that actually provides you with a road map for making a good decision.  Making the right decision can be critical, depending on how much you depend on your phone.  Personally, I use my Blackberry almost as much as I use my computer, and on some days, the cell phone gets more use. 

When I first purchased my BlackBerry a few years ago, I was just thrilled with the fact that it had a real keyboard and I could send and receive emails.  I never gave a second thought to Web Apps or navigation tools.  I'm still pretty happy with my BlackBerry, but  lately I've been experiencing some strong iPhone envy.  Those phones are just so slick!  

I can't wait to see what's available next year when my current contract expires.  I imagine I'll be digging out that New York Times article to help guide me through the maze.

Relevant Apps For Your iPhone

The iPhone and iPod Touch are wonderful tools....and there are so MANY Apps!  I'm a Blackberry user, but I have iPhone envy.  It's the apps that I crave.  But it's  almost too much of good thing if you are a business user looking for things that can actually save you time.  InfoWorld has come to the rescue with a wonderful interactive catalog of iPhone apps designed for the business professional.  The list is categorized to make it even easier to find the apps that you want. 

Automatically Create Time Tickets from Phone Calls and Emails

Proximiti has a rather unique automatic time-capture product called WorkTRAKR that will integrate with Timeslips.  What makes this product special is that it works in the background.  You make calls (on your smart phone or office phone) and send emails as you normally would. WorkTRAKR logs the time and then suggests a matter that can be associated with the contact.  You can either accept its suggestion or change it.  The more you use it, the better the suggestions.  All the billable events can then be automatically downloaded to Timeslips.  You also have the option of receiving daily, weekly or monthly reports.  This is a subscription-based system.  The price for 1-3 users is $29.95 per month/per user or $299 per year per user.  There are also some other activation fees, based on how you are planning to use the program.  They claim that this program will help users capture an additional 2.8 hours per month.  Plus it significantly reduces adminstrative costs associated with making time entries into a billing program.  They offer a 30-day trial for up to 10 users which allows you to try it out and determine if it would be a cost-effective investment.  I'd like to hear from other users who may have tried this product or who are using other products that are similar.

How Much Technology Do You Need?

Bryan Sims is a commercial litigator and technologist who has come up with the list of 5 "Must Have" technologies for an attorney.  While his recommendations are geared toward attorneys, they can easily be applied to any type of firm or business. Click here if you would like to read more about Bryan's recommendations.

Digital Dictation for the BlackBerry

Last year I wrote an article about digital dictation using WinScribe.  I've recently come across another product that was developed to answer emails from your BlackBerry.  It's called  MyCaption.  From the menu selection, you can select "Reply (MyCaption)" to any of your emails.  This will start the audio recorder and allow you to dictate a reply to your email.  The email will then be available in your inbox if you want to review it before sending or you can select to have it sent out automatically.  But it doesn't stop there.  Here is a brief summary of some of the other dictation features:

• Create new calendar appointments and notes
• Create new tasks and task notes
• Dictate a memo to the MemoPad or add notes to an existing memo
• Dictate or append notes for any of your contacts on the BlackBerry

MyCaption fully supports synchronization with Outlook and Gmail.  It's also compatible with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. 

Afree trial is available if you want to try before you buy.  They basically offer a subscription service.  You can choose either a monthly subscription or a pay-as-you-go plan. 

You might also want to check out another voice-to-text product, Vlingo.  This product works with the iPhone as well as Nokia.  The basic version of this product is free.  The Plus version is $17.99.  You will need the Plus version to send emails. 

Most of the reviews that I've read seem to indicate that the voice recognition and transcription is much better on MyCaption.