Google Apps Unlimited

Over the weekend, we upgraded our Google account to Google Apps Unlimited.  The only real difference for the end users is that there are no longer any limits on cloud storage, either for Gmail or for Google Drive.

You no longer need to worry about deleting emails to make space.  Of course, you are welcome to delete whatever emails you like.  There is simply no longer any pressure on you to free up available space to make room for more.

Deleting messages has virtually zero impact on the speed or performance of Gmail, at least as far as using the online system.  If you access your messages using a third party program, the number of messages may be more of an issue.

The "unlimited" also affects Google Drive.  I have been encouraging people to make more use of Drive to store items for mobile use.  Now that there are no limits on Drive storage, you can feel free to use it without fear of hitting any space limits.

I have discussed some of the benefits of Drive in an earlier blog post.  Drive essentially performs two distinct functions.  One is to create online documents (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc." using the Google Docs cloud based software.

The other is Google Drive feature is cloud based file storage.  The second feature operates much like Dropbox.  You can store files of virtually any type or format in a Drive folder, then share them with whomever you like.  People both inside the firm or outside can have access to files.  While Drive gives you the ability to make documents public, that would expose them to the entire Internet.  Typically if the files are at all confidential, you will need to share them with specific email addresses.  If the other person's email is not a Google email, they will have to register it the first time they try to access documents.  After that, they will be able to access whatever shared documents you have provided, until you remove those rights.

Google Drive is also a great way to have access to your key files while out of the office. You can save your files to Google Drive, then download them from home, in court, or anywhere you have Internet access.  No more need to use VPN.

One word of warning though - The firm still expects all key documents related to clients to be stored on your MDIR (M: drive for most people).  Any files stored elsewhere may cause problems for the firm if others need to access those same files.  Since use of Google Drive is only an option, not yet standard procedure for everyone, we need to have copies of all files stored in the Matter Directory.  If you copy a file to Google Drive and make changes to it there, you are responsible for getting a copy of the altered files back into the Matter Directory.

The IT Department is exploring some better options for organizing Google Drive and may be testing some new options soon.  For now, feel free to make greater use of Google Drive.  If you have any thoughts on how others can make better use of it, or any other good mobility suggestions, please pass them along to me to share with others.

New VPN

Over the past new months we have deployed new firewalls in the firm's seven largest offices offices.  Just to reiterate, we are now tracking everyone's internet usage and preparing a report for Mr. McKenna.  If you have not been following the firm's Internet Use Policy, now would be a good time to start.

Another important feature of the new system is that it offers a new method to connect to the network via VPN.  This new method will eventually replace our existing VPN Concentrator, which has outlived its useful life.  For now, both will work. There will come a time when the old one will be retired, so you may want to familiarize yourself with the new VPN before the old one goes away. 

The new VPN will also work with Windows 10, Macs, Android, and IOS.  Keep in mind though that even if you can access our network, your device still needs to be able to read the files you wish to access.  In other words, you can access the MDIR from your iPad, but if you do not have a WordPerfect Reader app on that device, you won't be reading WordPerfect documents.

You can access and download the new VPN client directly through any web browser and install it on your computer.  All you will need is a login.  Your login name and password is the same as you use to connect to your computer in the office.  It is NOT necessarily the same as the old VPN name and password that you used with the old system.

There is a separate VPN connection for each office.  This should help to improve performance for VPN users in the satellite offices.  While connecting to any of the VPNs should work, connecting to the one in your office should give you the best performance.

Because this is a public blog, and I don't want to provide instructions to hackers on how to access our network, I have created a Google Drive Document that provides the details you need to connect.  This document is only accessible to Firm employees using your Gmail name and password.

For now, both the old and new VPN connections will continue to work.  At some point down the road, we will retire the old VPN server.  However, we have not set any retirement date yet.

Leaving WordPerfect

WordPerfect has been the firm's primary word processor since before most folks even had computers. Over the years, WordPerfect's market share has dwindled to the point where it is almost an afterthought in the current market.  Even in the legal field, where WordPerfect dominated for longer than most others, it has become a small minority.

One reason the firm has remained with WordPerfect for so long is that as a word processor, it still beats the industry leader, MS Word by virtually any measure.  I still consider WordPerfect superior to Word as a stand alone product.

The problem is we don't live in a world of stand alone products anymore.  People expect their software to integrate better with other things, including online services, document management systems, and other programs.  Further, people want seamless compatibility with other companies, such as other firms or clients, almost all of whom now use MS Word.

As a result, the firm is planning to make the move from WordPerfect to MS Word.  There will be no immediate conversion, however.  For the last couple of years, we have been making MS Word available on request while installing WordPerfect for all by default.

Rather, the firm soon will install MS Word by default and make WordPerfect available on request.  By "MS Word" I actually mean the full standard version of MS Office, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. We will be using Office 365, which not only provides the Office software, but also provides a range of online services as well.

For now, if you still wish to use WordPerfect, we will continue to install it, if requested.  However, over the next few years, the firm may be moving to other systems that will make WordPerfect more difficult to use and more cumbersome for saving and retrieving documents.

I appreciate the fact that MS Word can be complicated, does not have all the features of WordPerfect.  We will transition to Word over a long time, giving everyone plenty of time to get up to speed with MS Office.  Bode has held several classes on basic MS Office use, and will continue to hold more in the future.  If you need the help, I strongly recommend you participate.

MS Word is capable of opening WordPerfect files, just as WordPerfect can open MS Word files.  However, going back and forth can cause formatting problems, and often leads to document corruption.  If you are working with a group that shares the same documents, or an attorney and secretary both work on the same documents, I strongly recommend that you decide among yourselves whether to use Word or WordPerfect. Going back and forth between both will cause problems.

We are just beginning to embark on this significant change.  We have only recently completed a test group using Office 365.  So far the feedback is that is has been a great change.  I am, of course, always open to constructive feedback about any change or policies as my goal is to have the technology available to make your jobs easier.

Thanks.

What to do During an Outage

From time to time, we experience Internet or phone outages that can affect one or more offices.  Most of the firm's offices have dual connections, one for Internet and a private circuit for phones.  If the Internet connection fails our router is supposed to automatically reroute traffic over the voice circuit.  This will be much slower than normal, but better than nothing.  Similarly, if the private circuit fails, voice traffic should be rerouted over the Internet.  This can lead to call quality issues, but better than no phones at all.

Yesterday, Philadelphia experienced a serious outage that took out both our Internet connection and the private circuit controlling our voice connections.  We are still trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened to take out both connections.  This incident, however, prompted me to discuss what you can do to keep working in the event of an outage.

Phones

If the phones go down in your office, we have the ability to forward calls to your cell phone or any other working phone.  We have a setting for each phone called "call forwarding, not reachable."  This setting will only forward calls when your phone is not working.  It will not forward when your phone is busy or because you did not pick up.  If you have an alternate number you would like configured for this option, please contact the help desk.

Another option is iCore Communicator.  I discussed this feature in an earlier blog post.  Essentially, this is an app that can run on your laptop, tablet, or cell phone that allows you to make and receive calls as if you were using your office phone.  You can have this turned on even while your phone is working and have calls ring in both places.  Or, you can install it, and only turn it on when needed.

If an office's phones go down, we can also forward calls to another office.  For example, when Philadelphia went down yesterday, we forwarded calls for the main number to the receptionist in Mt. Laurel.  If there is ever an occasion due to outage or any other reason you think we need to forward a number, just contact the help desk.  We can make whatever forwarding changes are needed.

Email

Because our email system has been cloud based for several years now, you do not need to use VPN or connect to any particular office to access your email.  You can connect from anywhere, on virtually any device, as long as you have Internet access.

If you are going to be without Internet, there may be some options to consider ahead of time.  There is a Chrome App called Gmail Offline, which will store all of your emails on your local hard drive.  I also discussed this feature in an earlier blog post.  In the event of an Internet outage, you will have access to all of your mail. You can also draft new messages, though they cannot be sent until Internet access is restored. The offline feature can be used both in an emergency, or if you are simply taking your device somewhere without Internet, e.g an airplane.

If you use MS Outlook or another mail program, you can also store your Gmail messages locally on those programs for offline use.  I discussed use of Outlook with Gmail in another earlier blog post.

Matter Directory and Other Files

All matter directories are local to each office.  So an internet outage should not impact local access to files. Of course, if you are accessing from outside the office via VPN, or trying to connect to another office's MDIR, you may have problems in the event of an outage.  Again, the only option there would be to save copies of your most important files to your local hard drive ahead of time.

At present, most users are using the old Cisco VPN which requires a connection to Philadelphia.  We are beginning to use the new Fortinet VPN which, for most offices, allows a direct connection, meaning you can still connect to your local MDIR in a satellite office even if Philadelphia goes down.  More about that in a future blog post.

Time Entry

We have two options for time entry.  Unfortunately, both require active internet connections.  Webview requires a direct connection to the Webview server in Philadelphia.  If access to that server is cut off, such as yesterday when Philadelphia Internet was down, only people locally in Philadelphia would be able to access the server.

Using the other option, iTimekeep also requires an Internet connection, both between the user and iTimekeep, as well as between iTimekeep and Webview.  If either of these connections are broken, iTimekeep will not work. There is no offline options for time entry.  The older iTimekeep version 1 used to allow you to enter time but not finalize it when Webview was down.  However, version 2 is much more closely connected to Webview in order to provide real time feedback.  As a result, you cannot enter time when that connection is severed.

Research Home Page

Many people in satellite offices had problems accessing the Research Home Page yesterday when Philadelphia was down.  We have created a new page, which I discussed in an earlier blog post, that is available on the Internet, independent of Philadelphia.  Regardless of outages, I recommend using this new hope page at http://research.margolisedelstein.com anyway as the old page will be retired at some point in the near future.

Conclusion

We do our best to keep everything up and a running at all times.  But there will be occasions when services fail.  Preparing for them ahead of time can make you life much easier on such occasions.

Protecting Information on Your Smart Phone

Every year, we seem to become more dependent on our smart phones for work.  More importantly, more confidential client data, in the form of emails, documents, access to cloud storage, and other means of access are left on our phones.  As a result, securing that data is increasingly important.  I have addressed this issue in my blog once before but thought it worth addressing the issue once again.

The first thing you can do, if you have not already, is to secure your phone with a password.  This is the easiest and most obvious form of protection.  All modern iPhones and most Androids, including the Samsung Galaxy line, also have fingerprint scans for opening your phone.  I recommend setting up both.  With the fingerprint, you can access your phone almost as easily as a screen swipe.  The password provides a backup entry if the fingerprint does not work for some reason.

Beyond the hassle of accessing your phone, I can think of two reasons people avoid it.  One is that if a phone is lost, an honest person who finds it cannot return it.  In my earlier post, I explained how you could set up identifying information on your start screen, which a user can see without opening the phone. Another concern is forgetting one's password and getting locked out.  The IT Department already stores many of your work passwords.  We are also happy to store this password as well.  But to be clear, if you set or change a phone's password and do not tell us what it is, and then forget the password yourself, we have no way of accessing the phone.  You cannot even reset it.  You might as well throw it away and buy a new one at that point.

Beyond a password, make sure your device is encrypted.  Without encryption a professional may be able to access your phone's data drive even without a password.  By default, iPhones are encrypted as soon as you add a password.  Android users must go through another step in settings to encrypt data.

Typically, our phones are not stolen.  More commonly, we lose them.  One of the best things to do is ensure there is a way to locate your phone if you lose it.  By default, Android devices are set up so that you can use a locator online, as long as you have a valid Gmail account configured on the device.  Your work email will suffice for this purpose..  Here is a good article on locating and wiping your lost device.  The firm uses device management.  If your phone has been set up properly, we will have the ability to wipe email off your phone, or wipe the device entirely.

If you use an iPhone, you must set up an iCloud account prior to losing the phone.  Without this, we cannot locate the device for you.  We can, however, wipe the phone's contents even with out an iCloud account. With the account, you have the ability to search for your device and locate it on a map.  It greatly increases your chances of recovering your lost device.  If you do not already have an iCloud account set up for your iPhone, I strongly recommend that you do so.  I also recommend providing the iCloud password to the IT Department for safe keeping.  Otherwise, if you forget it, having the account will be useless to you.

An iCloud account also does more than simply locate your phone.  It serves as a backup device so that your pictures, files, and settings can be stored in the cloud.  If a phone is list, stolen, or damaged, your iCloud can be used to restore those files and settings on a new device.  It also comes in handy when upgrading your phone.  An iCloud account is free for up to 5 GB.  If you decide you need more space, you are on your own to pay for it.  Typically, iCloud accounts get filled by pictures.  You can download the pictures and store them elsewhere to save space (I recommend using Google Photos, which works with both iPhones and Androids, and offers free unlimited cloud storage of your photos).

Using Microsoft Outlook with Gmail

When the firm switched to Gmail several years ago, many lamented the loss of an actual mail client on your computer.  Gmail offers the ability to access mail via a web interface through most Internet Browsers (Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.).  No software is needed.  That remains the recommended way to access your mail.

People using Apple or Android phones or tablets can access mail through those browsers, although the preferred method is to use the Gmail App, or the app that comes with the device.

There are some benefits to using an actual mail program on your Windows computer.  It reduces problems clicking on "mailto" links or opening certain types of files, such as EML, MSG, or PST.  These are all various formats used to store emails from other systems.  Having a program like Outlook on your computer also means your mail is available offline.  It also give you the option to organize, filter, and sort your mail in different ways.

Personally, I am not a big fan of mail clients.  It creates an extra point of failure.  Many find the clients more frustrating, cluttered, and confusing than the simple web interface.  If you frequently check mail away from your computer, you will end up being frustrated by a feature that exists in Outlook but not on the web, or one that is available on the web but not Outlook.  Sometimes, mail programs might also not sync properly, which could mean you thought you sent an email, only to find it sitting in your outbox days later having never been sent.  That can never happen with a web interface.

That said, many still prefer to use a program like Outlook.  Perhaps you use Outlook at home, or have used it with a previous employer.  While I am not recommending or encouraging its use, we will accommodate its use for those who wish to use it.

If you already have MS Office on your computer, you probably have Outlook already installed.  On some very old computers, we may not have installed Outlook because it interfered with the GroupWise client.  But since we got rid of GroupWise we have been installing all of MS Office, which includes Outlook.

To sync your Gmail account with Outlook, Google has created a simple sync file, which is a free download from here:

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync

If you download and run this program, you will be asked to enter your email address and password. You will also be asked to authorize Gmail to grant permission to Oulook to access your mail and other online data.  Once complete, the first time you open Outlook, it will sync with your online data.  If you have many gigabytes of data in Gmail, this process may take hours to complete.  You can work while it is syncing. Subsequent use will result in a much shorter update sync.

Google Apps sync will only work with business accounts.  If you want to use this with your personal free Gmail account, you are out of luck.  There are ways to manually sync an email client to Gmail, but the easy sync program is a feature for business users only.

Blocking Windows 10, Again

I know I have written on this topic before, but Microsoft has once again gotten more aggressive in forcing people to upgrade.  If you are using Windows 7, 8, or 8.1, Microsoft is trying to force you to permit an upgrade to Windows 10.

Last week, Microsoft began a new trick.  For some time, you may have been receiving pop up messages asking if you want to upgrade now or later (no option for never).  If you pick later, Microsoft scheduled a time and just upgraded without further input.  Many people had been using the X to close the Window without selecting either option.  Last week, Microsoft changed the menu so that closing with the X would result in the same thing as selecting "later."  I.e. Microsoft would upgrade you to 10 at some future time without asking anything further.

Blocking Upgrade Attempts

Some of our work computers are on a domain.  In those cases, you should not be getting pop ups about an upgrade.  Others are not on a domain.  If you are getting messages about upgrading to Windows 10 on your computer, you can run GWX Control Panel.  This program will allow you to disable all requests to upgrade to 10.

You can call the help desk for assistance if you need it.  The process only takes a few minutes.

You may also use this program on any home computer that you do not want to upgrade.  It will simply block any of Microsoft's "reminders" to upgrade your computer and will not allow the computer to upgrade on its own.  If you decide you want to upgrade at some later time, you can use the program to re-enable the prompts.

Rolling Back an Upgrade

If your computer has upgraded to 10 against your will, you have the ability to take it back.  Simply say "no" to the license agreement the first time your computer starts.  This will force Windows to go back to the earlier version.  Once rolled back, run the GWX Control Panel to prevent future upgrade attempts.

If you have upgraded to 10 against your will and have already signed in, you can still roll back for up to 30 days.  Click on the Start menu, select "settings" then "update and security" then "recovery".  Click the button to roll back to your earlier version and then wait for it to complete.  This may take quite a while.

After 30 days, Windows deletes the old backup files and you cannot go back.  At that point, you would need to use your old installation CDs that came with the computer to restore your computer to factory default settings.  This wipes out all programs or documents that have been added since you first purchased the computer.

Future Plans for Windows 10

The firm has no intention of moving to Windows 10 anytime soon.  Windows 10 does not really offer any new features we need.  Any upgrade carries the risk of some incompatibility with existing hardware or software.  Further, Windows 10 seems to have a great many privacy issues that we are still evaluating.

We may end up purchasing new computers with Windows 10 pre-installed in 2017, as Windows 7 may become unavailable at that time.

If you want to upgrade a home computer to Windows 10, it does seem to work with most of the firm's systems.  Microsoft says its free upgrade is ending in July.  After that time, you will have to pay to upgrade to Windows 10.  Keep in mind that the IT department cannot help you with any home computer problems that may arise as a result of an upgrade.