Bar Bytes by William E. Olson
POPULAR CULTURE HAS PASSED ME BY:
CONFESSIONS OF A TECHNOGEEZER
           I haven’t watched MTV in 15 years.  I tried to keep up when my sons were still living at home as teenagers.  I didn’t want to refer to their latest female friend as “big squeeze” when I should have said “main squeeze.”  I really wanted to understand the attraction of wearing beltless pants so low they made the wearer’s legs appear to be 12” long.  Then, Rap music began to make its appearance on my sons’ music players in the form of “CDs.”  Finally, long after David Lee Roth lost the bloom of his youth, after Don Imus departed the early VH1, I gave up.  I started watching the Lawrence Welk Show reruns on Saturday evenings on our local public television station.

Just Say No to MTV
            I have even started to enjoy opera, thanks largely to a gift from good “old” friends of a CD by the “Opera Babes.”  If you are not familiar with this duo, you should visit their Website at http://www.operababes.com/.  Of course, I still appreciate an old Three Stooges movie from time to time, especially The Three Stooges meet Frankenstein”.  And I must confess to actually laughing at Will Ferrell in all of his movies.  But, the first Star Wars movie, Star Wars, Episode IV, a New Hope, is far better than the “prequels”, Episodes I, II and III, in spite of their computerized special effects.

Where Have You Gone, Leisure Suit Larry?
            Much of what I know about technology was learned in the “Gilded Age of DOS” while playing early computer games.  I have never been able to appreciate the nuances of on-line multi-player gaming.  Call it age, or, maybe, my personal obsolescence.  I fondly remember playing KingsQuest with my sons on our vintage IBM PC Jr.  I do miss the “chicklet” style keyboard which worked without wires using infrared technology, in 1983, no less.  (It should be noted, that I have recently discovered that Leisure Suit Larry is still available  --- so maybe while I am becoming obsolescent --- I still act adolescent).  For those of you who may have missed Leisure Suit Larry from Sierra Entertainment, Inc., here’s a link to a very special Web site where you may learn all about this fairly early computer anti-hero, http://leisuresuitlarry.com.

Wii - - - French for “Yes?”
            What prompted this curmudgeonly tirade?  It was a television commercial for some new thing called “Wii”.  I had no clue what this “Wii” thing was after watching the commercial for the 7th or 8th time, and even asked my long-suffering wife, settled as she was, sitting by the warmth of our family room fireplace one cold, February evening, if she knew what “Wii” was.  Is it French?  “GOOGLE it” she replied.  So, I did.  It seems “Wii” (pronounced “we”) is the latest video/computer game system from Nintendo, a company which I mistakenly thought had disappeared years ago.  Is Atari still out there somewhere?  The answer, it seems, is “yes.”  To play classic Atari games, free, on-line, visit http://www.atari.com/us/.   “Pong,” the ultimate bar game, released by Atari, Inc. in 1972, is now a “collectable.”  It, too, can be found on-line at numerous sites.  Try playing “Pong” at one of these sites, http://www.gamesgnome.com/action/pong2/.

WordPerfect 5.1 Still Rules!
            What does this rant have to do with law office technology?  Probably not much.  I suppose I’m saying that while WordPerfect 5.1 is still my all-time favorite computer program, I must recognize that time and the industry has passed it by.  RIP WordPerfect.  Version 5.1 of WordPerfect was THE quintessential word processing application of the 1980’s and early 1990’s.  Why?  Because it worked!  WordPerfect’s commands/key structure was learnable, its famous blue screen was readable, even on the early color monitors, and its reveal codes function made editing documents a breeze.  But, along came mighty Microsoft Corporation, and by “giving” away free versions of MS Word with new computers, pretty much relegated WordPerfect to the backwoods of word processing.  Today WordPerfect is found in an ever decreasing number of law shops, and hardly anywhere else.  This is so, in spite of the fact that WordPerfect continues to evolve and is still more easily editable than MS Word, and, in this author’s opinion, is much better at creating certain types of legal documents, such as appellate briefs.  And, since WordPerfect converts documents to both MS Word compatible files, and does it almost seamlessly, as well as to PDF, our office is still principally a WordPerfect shop.  It is also why I recommend the product to those naïve folks who occasionally ask my opinion about such things.

Whatever Happened to the Great Joke Tellers?
            I sometimes long for those days before metadata made us fear sending “unclean” documents via e-mail, and a fax machine was the quickest method to transmit drafts, without metadata, to clients and opposing counsel.  I miss jokes by fax which supplanted “jokes by salesmen.”  Both have been replaced by “jokes by e-mail.”  It is increasingly difficult to remember new jokes which are received by e-mail.  The method I use to commit new jokes/stories to memory is to retell them immediately to colleagues, friends and family.  However, the speed of joke circulation has increased geometrically with the proliferation of e-mail as a business communication standard.  What once took months, sometimes years, to circle the globe, now takes days, or even, minutes.  This has led to the aggravation of the “circular e-mail joke” which may start at point A, and then returns to point A, often over and over again.  Have you ever sent a joke to someone using
e-mail, only to have that person send it back to you later, as if you weren’t the source of the e-mail?  But, again, I digress.

At Last, a Tidbit of Useful Information
            And, speaking of metadata, I understand that Microsoft’s latest iteration of Office, Office 2007, which runs on Vista, its latest operating system, has tools included to “scrub” documents of metadata.  Since my office won’t be moving to Vista/Office 2007 until, at least, early 2008, I will continue to rely on Payne Consulting Group’s (now, simply, the “Payne Group”) Metadata Assistant, to clean documents for e-mail transmission.  See http://www.payneconsulting.com/products/metadataretail/ for product information and how to purchase.  “Metadata” is defined by Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata, to mean:  “An item of metadata may describe an individual datum (content item) or a collection of data (content items). Metadata is used to facilitate the understanding, use and management of data. . . . In the context of an information system, where the data is the content of the computer files, metadata about an individual data item might typically include the name of the field and its length.  Metadata about a collection of data items, a computer file, might typically include the name of the file, the type of file and the name of the data administrator.”  In other words, metadata is information embedded within the file which travels with the file, which is generally invisible on the screen, and which may reveal previous client names (if the letter/contract was created by rewriting a previous document), various prior draft changes etc.  Metadata can be very dangerous.  Metadata Assistant will “scrub” a file of most, if not all, such information allowing the scrubbed file to be saved and e-mailed.  If you are sticking with earlier versions of Office than 2007, or, if you really want to stay protected and to feel the security that Microsoft claims but doesn’t often offer, I recommend the purchase, installation and use of Metadata Assistant, especially if you are regularly exchanging MS Word files with other attorneys or clients.  Scrub then send.

Whence “Vista”?  What happened to “XP?”
            Why “Vista” as the name of Microsoft’s latest operating system?  Then, again, why “XP?”   What happened to naming new version after the year of release: Windows 95, 98, 2000, etc.?
            Vista, by the way, purportedly includes a firewall, virus protector, and spam filter as part of the new operating system.  Okay, and Vista supposedly doesn’t rely on a DOS “kernel,” either.  I think I’ll retain my virus protection program, “Norton’s Internet Security” and keep it turned on.
            And, what about the DOS-based programs that some people (names excluded to protect the guilty) still use?  Will they continue to work on Vista?  The answer to this question is “probably” according to Walt Mossberg writing in the February 8, 2007 The Wall Street Journal, and reprinted on-line at All Things Digital, http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20070208/dos-in-windows-vista/.  If the applications ran okay on Windows XP, they should run okay on Vista.

IPOD IPHONE IKNOW IWON’T
            I’ve never owned an IPod.  It’s very unlikely that I ever will.  I’m not all that sure I’m comfortable with the concept.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of songs housed on a device the size of current cell phones (or, in the mood of this article – the size of a Zippo cigarette lighter).  Aside from AM radio music broadcasts, which rely on very old technology (older then me, even), I’ve always liked to “touch” my favorite 45 RPMs (78 RPMs, even – my father’s fabled disks of those immortal Yogi Yorgesson classics, I was Santa Clause at the Schoolhouse for the Good ‘Ol PTA, Yingle Bells and I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas,) and, of course, LP’s.  That’s “long plays” or 33 RPMs to those of you under the age of 40.
            My problem with IPods is that they morph their owners into robotic beings – often with the IPod playing into one earpiece and a cell phone hanging from the other ear.   And, while I’m at it, I’ll never own a Bluetooth phone, either.  Can you spell “Borg”?  Maybe resistance is futile.  I hope not.  I suppose I should adopt this technology full force, since I can now download recent presentations from Websites as MP3 files, load them to an IPod or other MP3 Player, and listen to the presentation while running or driving my car.  Just neat!  The Nebraska Bar Association has even adopted this technology for “Podcasting” its services.  See http://nebar.com/education/index.htm for this service.  No more books-on-tapes on those long drives.  (Why weren’t there in-car DVD players as we drove across the country with our 7 and 4 year old boys?  “Are we there, yet?”  “Are we there, yet?”    “How much longer until we’re there?”
            It is nice to have this technology available to tide me over a lunch hour during one of Nebraska’s blustery July days (global warning?).         Perhaps if I did listen to music on an IPod, I could actually understand the lyrics … something I’ve had trouble with since long before the onset of curmudgeondum, also known as ARS (“Andy Rooney Syndrome”).  Which explains, “Oh, a Tree in Motion” and “Michelle, my pal, someday soon you’ll come around again, my Michelle.”  If Web-Surfing has become one of your hobbies, and you want to review many, many misheard lyrics, I suggest you visit The Archive of Misheard Lyrics at http://www.Kissthisguy.com.

            And now, of course, Apple has introduced the “IPhone.”  What next, the “IChair?”  The “IKnow?”  The “IThink” therefore “IAm?”  How about, “IWon’t?”

The Longer you Wait, the Older You Get
            Why don’t personal computers have “instant on” devices, etc., requiring the push of one button, and voila, it’s turned on.  I recently timed my laptop to see how long it would take to “boot up.”  After four minutes, putting on a fresh pot of coffee, checking the fax machine, and returning to my office, the Desktop was just completing the “fill-up” of icons.  This was just to boot the operating system and related startup programs.  I still needed to “load” my daily-use applications, Worldox, Outlook and PracticeMaster.
            Maybe “instant-on” for personal computers is not possible.  If hand-held devices such as Palm Treo and similar products can “instant-on,” why not personal computers?  The answer has something to do with “flash memory,” which, until recently, has been too expensive to add enough of it to personal computers without increasing the price dramatically.  However, hope may be on the way, according to Tech-On in its on-line October, 2006 issue at http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20061026/122745/.  I wish they would hurry with this, before our office “refreshes” its existing machines!  There I go again.  I can’t wait the four minutes plus to “boot-up” my laptop, and now I want satisfaction with the industry, all on my schedule.  It must be my age.  Only so much time left, and I don’t want to waste it waiting for my computer.

Talk to Your Computer –
Communication Can Save a Marriage
            Remember 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s memorable film based on Arthur C. Clark’s book?   Remember HAL?  I know, HAL developed a personality disorder, but when you addressed HAL, it (“he?”) answered.  Of course, that’s not the only fictionalized incident of this technology.  Countless science fiction movies, some before and many after “2001,” have showcased talking computers (discounting the BORG on Star Trek the Next Generation where man and computer become one).  Similar technology has been around in real life for years.  No, this doesn’t mean “talking computers,” although automated voice response phone systems come close.  But, it does mean technology that allows you to speak (or dictate) into a microphone hooked to your computer and the spoken words are converted to text on the screen – think “closed caption.”  I recently tried the latest iteration of Dragon Naturally Speaking (Version 9), which is now owned by Nuance.  I had tried an earlier version of Dragon several years ago with little success.  See Bar Bytes, “My life as a Dog,” The Nebraska Lawyer, March, 1999, on-line at http://nebar.com/resources/nelawyer/1999_archive.htm.  However, this time I was assured by the closest reseller, WalTek, Inc. of Des Moines, Iowa, http://www.wahltek.com/  that this technology now works and is a very useful tool.  So, I begged to try it out, since I was scheduled to demonstrate the results at the March 2007 NCLE Probate Seminar.  The reseller sent a representative to Lincoln from Des Moines to my office.  He had suggested I allow ninety minutes to two hours for the installation and some training.
            I received the representative in my office, and he installed the software and handed me the headset with the adjustable microphone and I connected it via USB to my laptop.  There are several versions of this product available.  I tried the “Professional Legal” version since it came with a legal dictionary.  This version is pretty pricey, but the “Standard” edition lists at $99.  There is also a “medical” version and, of course, the generic “professional.”  Based on the reseller’s recommendation, the Professional Legal with legal dictionary was installed on my lap top.  It was a “trial version” and I tried it out.  I completed the recommended “training” exercises in about ninety minutes, being interrupted several times over two days, off and on.  I then put the system into practice.  I had none of the problems I encountered in January, 1999, which is attributable to both vast improvements in the product, but also to a much more powerful computer.  A key ingredient in the successful implementation of this product into your practice is a good microphone.
            As in the earlier incarnations, the Dragon learns your voice patterns as you use it.  Dragon allows you to add words to its dictionary which is a big help with commonly used proper names.  You can set up “macros” which expand abbreviations, such as “DGOZ” which, when spoken, could expand to “DeMars, Gordon, Olson & Zalewski.”
            In the end, I couldn’t justify the cost of the legal professional version, so I returned it to the vendor.  However, I know of other attorneys who are using either the “Standard” version or the “Preferred” version, which runs about $200.  They have been pleased with these versions.

Maybe I Need a Nap
            After finally putting this column to bed, I think that I need a good nap.

 

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