Gmail: Including Sent Items In Your Inbox

Google can sometimes be frustrating.  It its efforts to simplify, it sometimes leaves out options we may like.  One example of this is Google's refusal to include an option that allows you to have your sent items shown in your inbox.  This is part of Google's strategy to keep your inbox as uncluttered as possible.  But it would be nice if users had the ability to opt out of this.

The only way a sent item will show up normally, is if you send a message and receive a response.  If your mail is set to "conversation mode" both the sent item and the reply are in your inbox.  You also have the option of selecting "all mail" instead of just sent items to see everything, including all emails you have sent, receive, or even filed away.

Some, however, would like all sent items to be in their inbox all the time as soon as they are sent, without having to move an item to inbox each time.  This could be done by sending a BCC to yourself each time you send a message.  It also has the unfortunate affect of doubling the amount of mail you are saving.

I found an interesting work around to this dilemma.  You can create a filter that will force Google to put all of your sent items going  forward into your inbox.  The filter should say that whenever an email is from your address, the action taken is "never send to spam".  The original purpose of this filter was to force emails from certain people to go always to your inbox, even if Google thinks it is spam.  Google does this by forcing such messages into the inbox.  This has the beneficial side effect of allowing you to create a rule that all mail sent by you should also go in your inbox.

Gmail Autocomplete Problem

If you are sending an email to someone, you may have gotten used to begin typing their name, then selecting it from the list of suggestions that comes up.  Please be careful in selecting the name.

Last week Google made a change to the way it sorts name suggestions.  Here is an article about the problem.

As a result, some users are complaining that a name that used to show up first on the list is now showing up further down the list, or not at all.  Some people have been selecting the first name without double checking that it is the correct address.  This can mean the email is not delivered to the intended recipient.

When you select a name, make sure the address looks right. Don't just look at the name. You may be sending to the user's home email, or in some cases to an alias that we created.  Or you may be sending to some other unintended address.

Back in the days of GroupWise, the system sometimes added a mailbox name and post office name between the user name and the @ sign.  As a result, most of our users have an alias with that information.  This allows users outside the firm that have that mistaken address in their contacts to be able to hit reply and still be able to reach the intended recipient.  With these recent changes, that alias sometimes comes up first.  If you send to it, it will usually work, but it may make it harder for you if you later search by address to find something you sent.  It may also affect the recipient's use of filters.  In short, make sure you are sending to the correct address.

Update: Google has apparently now fixed the sorting problem, but it's still a good idea to double check the address before sending.

Thoughts on WordPerfect vs. MS Word

Margolis Edelstein remains a WordPerfect office.  We have debated for years whether to make the switch to MS Word.  I thought I would make today's post about my thoughts on why we continue to use WP and whether MS Word might be in our future.

How we got here

Law firms tended to be early adopters of word processors back in the 1980s.  At that time, WordPerfect dominated the market.  As a result, law firms remain the largest users of WordPerfect still today.  Yet most of the world has moved to MS Word.  Wordperfect market share is only a small fraction today.  MS began to dominate the Word Processor market in the early 1990's by successfully bundling Word with other powerful programs, such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.  It aggressively marketed its products and pushed ahead.  At this same time, WordPerfect drifted.  It took forever to get out a decent Windows version of the product.  Most WP users were still using the DOS version in the late 1990's.  The product was sold to three different companies within a few years, leaving it without a coherent long term plan.  As a result, Microsoft won the war decisively.

WordPerfect still wins in a comparison of features.

What MS Word never did, in my opinion, was develop a word processor superior to WordPerfect.  Even today, WP has many features that Word does not, including oldies like "reveal codes" to newer additions like its ability to work well with PDF documents and wipe metadata from files.  By contrast I cannot think of anything MS Word can do that WP cannot, other than read and save MS Word files better.

Reasons I don't like MS Word

There are other reasons I prefer WordPerfect to Word.  For one, Microsoft had made huge changes to the user interface over the years, requiring a great deal of retraining for employees.  This means periods of lower productivity and increased training costs.  By contrast, WP makes relatively minor changes to new versions.  Users are easily able to jump several versions ahead, and pick up rather quickly to the few minor changes that exist.  That cannot be said for MS Office.

Similarly, the format of a WP document has remained the same too.  Whether you use WP 7 or 17, accessing files created by newer or later versions works seamlessly.  That cannot be said for MS Word.  As a result, upgrades of MS Office become more difficult.  You need to upgrade the entire firm or at least an entire office all at once in order to ensure documents created by one person can be accessed by others.

Microsoft is also much more heavy handed with its licensing.  It has threatened the firm several times to required the firm perform expensive and time consuming licensing audits at our own expense, something Corel has never done.  Microsoft also puts far more restrictions on transferring licenses to other computers and other limitations on use.

Microsoft remains more expensive.  MS Office Standard costs almost $400 per seat under its volume licensing program.  Perhaps you are saying to your self "that can't be right, I paid only around $150 for Office."  That would be because you bought the Home and Student version.  It is pretty much the same thing as far as the main components are concerned, but it is a violation of the license terms to use the Home and Student version "for commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating activities."  So even if you have a version on your home computer, you are violating your license if you do anything for work on it, or anything else related to business or a money making project.  We certainly could not use it in the office.  In truth, the firm uses the "home and business" version which costs around $200, but which also requires us to jump through a series of time consuming hoops every time we install it on a computer.  By comparison, a WP Standard license is about $180, and even less when we can buy an upgrade license instead of a full one.

So why does everyone want Word?

Despite everything I've just said about WP being better than MS Word, if I was starting a new company tomorrow and needed to buy a word processor, I would without question buy MS Word.  The bottom line is that Word dominates the market.  Because all of our clients and other businesses with which we interact use Word, it makes it much easier for us to interact if we also have Word.  Further, many third party programs, such as document management systems or special document utilities are designed to work with MS Word and nothing else.  MS Word documents, as the de facto standard are easily read on just about any platform, including Google Docs, or on your favorite phone or tablet.  You cannot get that universal use with WordPerfect.

Then why hasn't the firm switched?

The biggest factor in remaining with WordPefect is the great cost of change.  And I'm not talking about the cost of licencing 200 or so copies of MS Office.  That is only the beginning.

The firm has decades of files stored in WP format.  The cost of converting all those is likely prohibitive.  More likely we would continue to use both WP and MS Word for a time so that older files could be accessed as needed.

Most of the Staff has used WP for many years as well, they would all need to be retrained on an entirely new system, which would reduce productivity for some time and incur the cost of trainers.  Even the Help Desk staff would need extensive training in order to help others with problems.

Many of the staff have extensive libraries of macros, designed to automate many of their tasks.  There would need to be great time and expense devoted to converting these macros.  WP is even built into some of our basic systems, such as the Associate Review forms used annually.  All those would need to be rewritten as well.

Because of all these hard and soft costs, the firm has been reluctant to make such a great change.  Large conversion costs are hard to justify as an expense, and staff resources are already under stress without adding such a massive project.

Can't we just use both?

Well essentially we are using both now.  We have nearly 100 MS Office licenses distributed among the firm.  Wilmington never switched to WP when it was acquired and uses Word exclusively.  Others use it as a secondary program as needed, going back and forth.

This, however, causes its own set of problems.  sharing documents internally becomes problematic if some are using WP and others Word.  Both programs purport to open those in the other's format, but there are inevitably formatting errors that creep in, as well as an alarmingly  high rate of document corruption.  It is also a drain on help desk resources to remain experts in both programs.  At a time when we are trying to reduce demands on help desk resources, we don't want to require a doubling of their expertise.

If the firm decides to switch, there would likely be a transition period, probably lasting years, where we moved one office at a time, retaining WP on existing computers to give staff time to get up to speed on the new system.  But WP would be phased out over time so we could support only one system.

So where are we going?

I recently did a Poll of attorneys and staff asking about their preferences for WordPefect or Word.  You can click on the link below to see a summary of responses

Poll Results

If you looked at the link you will see that a substantial majority favors moving to MS Word.  For me, that is an important consideration.

If we do make the decision to move everyone to MS Word, we would probably move toward using Office 365.  This is Microsoft's new subscription based plan.  One reason it is making its disk based licensing much more onerous is that it wants to drive users toward a subscription.  I suspect Microsoft may phase out disk based licenses altogether in the next few years, or at least make them so expensive that users have no choice but to accept the subscription model.

Under Office 365's current subscription model we would pay about $100 per user per year.  This would allow you to install office not just on your work computer, but also on a home computer, tablet or phone as well.  This would greatly improve mobile productivity.

Conclusion

For now, these are just my thoughts on the matter.  Approval by the management and partnership for any such change has not been made yet.  With this post, I hope to begin a discussion on how the firm should proceed with such a change.  I value your feedback and thoughts.

Word processing is fundamental to what we do as a firm.  It is probably even more central than email for many of us.  Changing the way everyone works on such a fundamental level is not something I take lightly or that should be started with out careful consideration of all the ramifications.

Lenovo Malware Concerns

In a rare "weekend edition" of my blog, I want to address concerns about recent news reports that Lenovo has been pre-installing malware known as Superfish.

Superfish is an intrusive program that can alter search results to provide you with advertiser funded results when you do a search in your browser.  The program also installs a trusted root certificate that is, well, untrustworthy.  It essentially opens a back door into your computer that could in some circumstances allow hackers to steal sensitive information.

Many malware programs have been doing things like this for years.  What makes this recent issue so newsworthy is that Lenovo has been installing this program at the factory, meaning your computer is infected before you even get it.

Fortunately, this does not seem to cause a problem for the firm.  According to Lenovo, only a certain limited line of consumer devices were outfitted with Superfish.  None of them were Thinkcentres or Thinkpads, and they all appear to be Windows 8 devices, not Windows 7 as the firm uses.  Also, Lenovo only began doing this in September 2014. Virtually all firm computers in use are older than that.

Despite all these assurances, we have been checking sample models of the new lines of laptops and desktops purchased by the firm to make sure there are no indications of Superfish.  None have been found.

Both Microsoft and Lenovo have responded to this problem by releasing security programs through Windows Updates and Lenovo Updates which will detect and remove Superfish, so all computers will be scanned by these updates when they are automatically downloaded and run.

As I hope I have made clear, there does not appear to be any danger that any work computers have been affected by this.  But if you have a home computer that you purchased from Lenovo in the last few months, and don't trust the automatic security tools in Windows updates, you can check your computer yourself.  Lenovo has made available detection and removal tools, which you can access through this Lenovo Link.

Computer security is always a top concern for the IT Department.  At this point, we are confident that this Superfish issue poses no threat to firm devices.

Paperless Bates Stamp

Some people print out large numbers of PDF documents so that they can be Bates stamped for use in a case.

As part of my advocacy for the paperless office, I want make it clear that this is not necessary.  We have a free program that will automatically add a bates stamp to PDF documents.  It is called A-PDF Number.  It is a very simple program that will allow you to position your page numbers at various locations on the bottom of the page, add a prefix or start any number you want.  You save the file with a different name so the original does not get altered.

If you want to give it a try, just contact the help desk.  It installs in seconds and is very easy to use.

If you have documents in a format other than PDF, you can always "print to PDF" using BioPDF then bates stamp those copies.

This is an easy way to Bates stamp your documents without resorting to paper.

If you must print....

As I hope I made clear in my previous post, I'm all about moving to paperless as much as possible.  Keeping your documents paperless saves paper, toner, and printer maintenance.  But more than that, it keeps documents more available via cloud storage (e.g. Google Drive), it makes the documents easier to distribute, it reduces storage costs, makes it easier to find documents and to search documents.

But I know that despite all these reasons, you still want to print.  You are used to it and you don't quite trust or feel comfortable working with documents in electronic format.  This post is for those of you who still feel the need to print out large numbers of documents onto old fashioned paper.  Let's at least try to do this in the most efficient and cost effective way possible.

Almost everyone in the firm has a personal printer/scanner on his or her desk.  This is to make things much more convenient to print out short letters or documents without having to leave your desk.  But the desktop printers are not really designed to print out thousands of pages each month.  Compared to the copiers, per copy prints are more expensive because of the toner.  The printers are also much slower, meaning you have to wait much longer to get your documents.  If you must print larger documents, I strongly recommend using the copiers.  All office copiers can be set up as network printers.  Your print jobs will print out 3-5x faster, and be 2-4x cheaper per page to print.

You should have a copier set up on your computer as an alternative printer.  Simply select that printer and send your print job there.  Just don't forget to go pick it up.  Additionally, Philadelphia and Mt. Laurel users have the option of simply sending your electronic documents to Reliable for printing.  Using the network copiers for large jobs saves both time and money.

If you do not have a network copier set up on your computer, someone from the help desk should be able to help you get it set up without much fuss.

PDF - how to go paperless

Ok, so we won't be getting rid of paper completely any time soon.  But making use of PDF files can greatly reduce the wear and tear on your printer, cut toner costs, and save a few trees as well.

Why PDF?

Since PDF is a virtually universally used format, there are no problems with anyone being able to open it in other offices, or seeing your file in a way other than the original format you intended.  I recommend this anytime you want to send a document that does not need any further editing by the recipients.

PDF files are not meant to be edited.  They are meant to be final documents.  If you plan to work on the document further or are sending it to others for further editing, please use a different format until the final document is complete.

Creating PDF files

There are several very easy ways to create a PDF.  If you are creating the document in WordPerfect.  There is an option to "publish to PDF" which will create a PDF file for you.  This is a great way to finalize a document, at the point where you don't want the recipient to make changes or look at your metadata.

If you are using Gmail, or Google Drive, you have an option to "save as PDF" as one of the printer options.  This will generate a PDF file saved to your computer.

There are times, however, when we want to create a PDF outside of WordPerfect or Google Apps.  For several years now, the firm has been deploying "BioPDF" on all new computers.  This shows up on your computer as a printer (look in Devices and Printers" in your Control Panel to see if it is there).   Any program that allows printing should allow you to "print" to this device.  Once BioPDF has received the print job, it generates a PDF file and asks you to name it and save it, creating a document that looks as if you had sent it to a traditional printer.  Just like that, you have your PDF.

If you do not have BioPDF installed, call the help desk.  We can help you get it installed.  This program will also generate files in PDF-A format, now required by some courts.  It will also let you generate files in other formats, such as TIFF, which is helpful for use in some other programs.

The last way to create a PDF is using your scanner.  Do not use this option if you already have an electronic version of the document.  Scanning is the worst way to create a PDF.  Unlike the other ways listed above, scanning essentially takes a picture of the document.  This means the file size will be several times larger than if created in other ways.  It also means the document will be much less useful in that one will not be able to search for words or cut and paste from the document.  Obviously, if you have paper, this may be the only way to go.  But if you have an electronic version, use BioPDF to create the file.

Editing PDF Files

The firm's preferred PDF document reader is PDF X-Change Viewer.  Unlike Adobe Reader, PDF-Xchange will let you do far more than look at a document.  You can do pretty much anything you would do with a paper document.  You can draw on it, stamp it with various markings, write notes on the paper, insert or remove pages, highlight, underline, or cross out certain words (assuming the document is not scanned), and many other things.  You can even add a virtual post-it to the document using the "notes" feature.

Perhaps you are reluctant to use PDF, or feel you need to scan because you need to sign a document with your hand written signature.  A better option might be to scan just your signature, then paste that into whatever document you need.  In PDF X-Change, I have my signature, as well as my initials, saved as a stamp.  I can simply stamp my signature on any PDF document, resize it to fit, and then email the signed document as an attachment to the necessary recipients.

There is also a typewriter feature in PDF-Xchange viewer.  Say you have a PDF form.  You can simply put your cursor on the part needed to be filled out, type in your answer, and save your changes.

Fixing PDF files

Let's say you love working with PDF but are being sent PDF documents from someone not as tech savvy as you.  They are scanning their files and emailing them to you.  But you want to have the actual words in the document, not just the pictures.  Not a problem.  PDF X-Change Viewer has an OCR feature (Ocular Character Recognition).  This will scan the images for recognizable words and convert them back into text that can be copied or searched.  This feature was added in a relatively recent version of X-Change.  So if you do not have the feature, call the help desk to get upgraded.

One thing you are not really supposed to do is edit a PDF document.  Once a document is in PDF format, it is considered a final product.  You can mark it up, but you cannot really go in an change the text or do other things you do with a normal word processing file.  With WordPerfect X5 or higher, you can import a PDF document into a new WordPerfect file.  You may lose images and formatting, but it will OCR imaged text.  Once you have the text, you can reformat it the way you like, make whatever changes you like, and then save it again, either as a WordPerfect file, or republish to PDF.  The most current version of WordPerfect (X7) has gotten rather good at this.  If you think you could use this feature, but have an older version of WP, contact the help desk about an update.

Appointments

You may have already received appointment requests via email.  You are directed to respond in the email yes, no, or maybe to a meeting or other event.  If you respond "yes" the appointment is added to your calendar automatically.

Perhaps you have also figured out how to send such invitations.  If not, here is how.

In your Gmail calendar, create a new appointment, filling in all the details about it, as well as the date and time.  Over to the right, you will see an option to add "guests" to your event.  Enter the emails of people you wish to invite.  When you save the appointment, you will be prompted to send invitations to your guests.  If you select "yes" they will get the emails that allow them to add the event to to their calendars with a single click.

By default, guests are able to see the guest list and invite others.  If you leave these selected, recipients will be able to see the email addresses of others sent the same invitation and will also be able to forward the invitation to third parties who will also be able to join the event and see other addresses.  If you don't want this to happen, make sure to uncheck those options.  Also, there is an option, unchecked by default to let users modify the event.  This gives all recipients the ability to alter all aspects of the event, including date, time, location, or description.  These changes will be updated for everyone who received the invitation.  I recommend this option be left unchecked in most cases.

This will work even if your guests are not using Gmail.  The calendaring system used is an industry standard supported by most modern system.  If the recipient uses Outlook, or another online mail program like Yahoo or Hotmail, the system should work the same.  If the recipient does not have an up to date system, they will still receive an email with the information.  They just won't be able to transfer it to a calendar.  Users should be able to respond to such invitations on their smart phones as well as on a regular computer.

If you are planning a meeting or arranging an event, this is often much better than sending a regular email.  All responses are kept together in one place, and everyone has the event added to their calendar.  It avoid multiple replies and the back and forth that fills up your inbox with multiple messages where one would do.

Google Drive Basics

The first few weeks of this Blog have focused on cell phones.  That was the result of the recent upgrades we just had for all the partners.  However, now I hope to start addressing some other interesting and useful functions available for use.  I am going to focus today on Google Drive (formerly Google Docs).

Google Drive

We have been using Google Apps for almost two years now.  The primary reason for the move was for email.  Google Apps for Work, however, has literally hundreds of other applications which are available for use as part of our account.  One of the most popular is Drive

Many of you already use Google Drive for many functions.  For those less adventurous, here is a brief explanation.  Drive allows you to save documents online in your Google account, which you can access from anywhere you have Internet.  It works primarily with documents, spreadsheets, and slide shows (what Microsoft calls Powerpoint).  You can also store pictures, although I prefer to use Google Gallery for that (more on that another day).

Upload or Download Documents

You can also upload documents you have already created to Drive for access from other locations.  For documents not created in Drive, you generally cannot edit them online.  In those cases, Drive performs a function similar to DropBox.  You can upload your files for later download, but cannot really do much more than view them while stored online.   This can be a handy way to share documents with others, including those in other offices who may not have access to the same server as you, or even people outside the firm.  I think Drive is better than Dropbox in that you have more space, and it is better integrated with Gmail and other applications.

Edit Documents Online

For documents created online in Drive, you have much greater versatility.  You can edit these documents online.  You can even work collaboratively with others, both editing the same document at the same time.  You can also leave notes for other collaborators or look at what changes others have made to your documents. If you like, you have the ability to download documents you have created in various formats, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, RTF (good for WordPerfect), or HTML.  You can also print directly to your printer the same way you would an email.

Because I travel between offices a great deal, I find Drive much better for me that saving my files on any one server.  I have access to them from anywhere I have Internet.  I can use the Drive App on my phone or tablet to access them that way.  I can even dictate a document to Drive using the dictation software built into my phone or tablet. For documents shared with my staff, documents are accessible to everyone all the time, and we don't have to worry about someone else having the document open.  I can also access them from home or anywhere without worrying about VPN.

Avoiding File Limits

Many of you are aware of the 30 GB limit each user has on his or her Google Account.  This limit is a combination of all emails and Drive documents.  However, your limit only applies to documents you have uploaded to Drive.  Documents created online do not count toward your limit.  You can create an unlimited number of documents and store to your drive.  If you have a document already created on your computer, you can open it, select all, copy, then paste the contents into a new Drive document.  This does not count toward your limit.  You will also be able to edit it online.

Another sneaky way to avoid limits: Say you have a bunch of files you want to upload to Drive (not create online, just upload) but don't want to blow through your 30 GB limit.  You can create a free Gmail account, which gives only 15 GB of space.  Upload your files to that account, then share it with your margolisedelstein.com account.  You will have full access to the files from your work account, but the space will not count against your limits.  You can repeat with as many multiple free accounts as needed.

Drive Limitations

There are some limitation that make drive less attractive.  Its editor is nowhere near as advanced as WordPerfect or Microsoft Word.  If you use many advanced features, you will find Drive's editor frustrating.  For example, it cannot create a multi-column document like we use for the firm letterhead.  For most simple documents, however, it is just fine.  One option is to work on the basics of the document in Drive, and then download to a more traditional word processor for formatting once most of the content is complete.

Also, for purposes of file keeping, important documents that need to be retained should still be saved to the M: drive.  If you ever left the firm and your Google account deleted, all of your documents would be gone.  If you use Drive for work related material, be sure to download a copy to the appropriate location on the M: drive.

I have been asked, why not simply upload all of our files to Drive and do away with the M: drive and other network drives entirely?   Because the online editor is inadequate for many advanced needs, we still need to use a traditional word processor for much of our work.  There is no good interface that would allow a Word or WordPerfect user to open a document from Drive or save it to Drive.  Doing so is a multi-step process that is fine to do once in a while, but would become very tedious and time consuming for a legal secretary who may create or edit dozens of documents in one day.  Cloud storage for documents seems to be the way of the future, but for now, I am only recommending it as a supplement, not a replacement.

Security and Sharing

Security is always an important issue when work documents are concerned.  By default, only you have access to a file created on Drive (other than the IT Department who can access anything).  You have the ability to share the document with others.  The are many ways to share.  But I recommend only sharing with other specific people.  This is easy within the office, but if you are sharing with others outside the firm, they must have a Google account for access (a free Gmail account is fine).  Google uses that account name and password to ensure documents are only available to those you intend.

There are share options to share a document to the public without any authentication.  I do NOT recommend using this for any document related to firm work or which contains other information intended to remain non-public.  Even limiting sharing only to people who have a link  means your document is open to the public.  Although most people could not find it without a link, others might.  Make sure your documents are restricted to specific users or to members of the firm generally.

You may want to share a whole group of documents.  Drive allows you to create a folder, share that, and then put documents in the shared folder.  This is an easy way to share many files without having to create a special share for each file.

Great Way to Avoid Gmail Attachment Limits

Many of you get frustrated by the 20 MB limit on email attachments.  An easy way around this problem is to upload your files to Drive.  Share with the recipient, then send them an email with a link to your shared Drive folder.  The recipient will be able to access the files with a single click and download them.  Of course, it does require that they have a Google account.  But again, a free one works just fine.

Auto-Save

One other thing that took some time to get used to was the auto-save feature.  In a normal program, you work on a document and then save it.  In Drive, Google is constantly saving your work.  This is very convenient to avoid losing work.  But I used to open up a document, change it to another and then save using a different name.  I had to get out of that habit quickly.  Fortunately, if you do make changes to a document by mistake, it is very easy to revert the document to the way it was on a certain date or time in the past.

Working Offline

One reason many have expressed concern over using Drive is the fact that you must be connected to the Internet in order to use it.  Not true!  There is a Drive application available here that you can install on any Windows or Mac computer.  This will sync your Google Drive with your computer, making your files available to you offline.  As soon as you get back your Internet connection, the application with sync with your online account.  There are similar Apps available in the Play Store for your Android device or in the App Store for your iPhone or iPad.

Conclusion

Drive is a great way to collaborate on documents, share with those outside the firm, or have easy access to important to documents when outside the office.  If you are not using it already, you should consider what it can offer.