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Google fills in the apps, helps with searches

By: dmc-admin//December 22, 2008//

Google fills in the apps, helps with searches

By: dmc-admin//December 22, 2008//

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A couple of columns ago, I wrote about a pair of Google applications of special relevance to legal marketing — Google Alerts and Google Analytics.

That’s just scratching the surface of Google’s possibilities for lawyers. This week, I’ll look at a pair of Google tools for self-organization: Google Apps and Google Desktop.

Google Apps

James L. Bartells, of James L. Bartells Ltd. in Wausau, is a recovering Time Matters user.

In his experience, it locked up his office’s system too often and was not what he’d call user-friendly. He’s heard it’s been improved with the most recent versions, so if it works for you, great.

He’s moved on to Google Apps, finding it easier to use and cheaper. You can’t get more affordable than free.

Bartells’ primary use of Google Apps is its calendaring system, along with Gmail and its spam filters, which work well, he reports. He, his law partner and staff all have created Google accounts, and have access to the office’s online calendar. They enter events on that central calendar, along with the attorneys’ initials, from wherever they may be where they have Internet access.

I, too, use the calendaring feature. I’m still keeping my paper calendar, as does Bartells, for a backup. What I like is that you can enter someone’s birthday and it will be there next year, too — I won’t have to write it in annually, as I’ve done for years now when I get the new paper calendar each January. Also, you can set it to send you event reminders in advance of their scheduled times, either as a pop-up or via an e-mail. I’ve opted for an e-mailed daily agenda, and pop-ups 10 minutes before each event.

Bartells isn’t losing any sleep worrying about if his clients’ identities or other case-sensitive information might be compromised using Google Apps.

For starters, he relied upon the advice of his law office technology expert, who understands the ethical parameters lawyers face and told him that, in his opinion, the system is secure. Second, he reminds that the program is password-protected. Third, he’s cautious about the notations he puts by client matters, with vague phrases like “follow-up appointment” by a client’s name, instead of “discuss smoking-gun evidence for trial.”

And, I might add, Google has an entire page dedicated to outlining its commitment to security. It explains that Google Apps users save nothing locally, to a laptop or insecure USB drive, for example, both of which can be lost, stolen or destroyed. Moreover, Google purports to protect its servers with top-notch security. I’m sold. When was the last time you heard of Google’s servers being hacked?

Of course, you can pay $50 per year per user for the Google Premier Edition, which offers, among many other additional features, enhanced security. They do offer a 30-day free trial, if that piques your interest. There’s also a free, advertising-supported Standard Edition for businesses. For me, “for personal use,” free, is just fine.

There are other possibilities with Google Apps, such as Google Docs, that lets you share online documents and spreadsheets, or Google Sites, where you can create Web sites and secure group wikis. Go to www.google.com/apps/ and investigate for yourself.

Google Desktop

Google desktop is, as the name implies, a desktop search application that provides full-text of your e-mails, files, music, photos, Web pages that you’ve viewed, and more.

For me, this is handy when I can’t remember where I saved a document-in-progress, or if I need to find an e-mail but don’t feel like poring over the trash. I just type in the words or phrases that I can recall in the search box at the bottom of the Google Desktop sidebar, and a number of results pop up. In the case of a missing e-mail, with one click, the full-text appears. It’s really handy when you can’t remember the date it was received, or if you get tons of e-mail from the person who sent it. Or if you get tons of e-mail, period.

Google Desktop doesn’t just help you search your computer; it also helps you stay organized with Google Gadgets and the previously-mentioned sidebar. Google Gadgets can be placed anywhere on your desktop to show you new e-mail, weather, photos, personalized news, and more.

Sidebar is a vertical bar on your desktop. On my sidebar, I’ve customized it to show news headlines, weather, time (on a funky kitty cat clock like I had in my bedroom as a kid) and family photos in a slide show. If you’d like, there’s a scratch pad, where you can jot notes that are automatically saved. Since I haven’t gotten into the habit of using the scratch pad, I replaced it with a thesaurus.

Then, when I go to the Google home page to search something, I’ve customized that with Desktop, too. It’s now called my iGoogle page. By searching Google Gadgets with the term “law,” I was given probably hundreds of law-related news outlets from which to choose. So now, news from places like Law.com and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog loads automatically. It also shows the Google Apps calendar, described above.

All told, it took about 10-15 minutes to download and customize Google Desktop. You can get started at http://desktop.google.com/features.html.

Send your cheap law office management and legal marketing ideas to [email protected].

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