LAW OFFICE COMPUTING

October 2005
Winton Woods

On the Road Again II

I was recently stuck out of town on a family emergency. I was unable to bring my laptop with me and so I was consigned to using public computers. This column is an update on an earlier column about the pleasures and travails of working over the Internet. I have learned some important things during the last year, not the least of which is the Kinko’s (which had a service in the hotel where I stayed) has in place a filter that prevented me from accessing my email from the University servers. I was able to make plane reservations and send email from another server but my important mail was locked up on the Law College server. More thumbs down for Kinko’s where underperformance, snotty staff and high prices rule the day.

I was fortunate to find another access point from an Internet Café very similar to the ones that seem to be on every street corner in every city I have visited outside the US. In Los Angeles, however, they are hard to find. I was able to use the Kinko’s computer to Google to “internet café los angeles” and find a computer without restricted access. Finally! The music was a little scary and a lot of gamer types hanging out gave the place a special atmosphere but at least I was able to get some work done. What follows is a summary of the tools available for the sometime traveler.

Voicemail on Your Computer

I have recently started to have my office phone calls forward to my phone at Vonage.com where it is converted into a .wav file that is, in turn, sent to me as an email attachment. Since the .wav file is played in Windows Media Player I am able to access my voice mail from any computer with speakers. I have found that the Vonage “forward to email” service is incredibly useful both at home and on the road. Try it! You’ll it!! I will talk more about Vonage and detail its incredible range of options in a future column but for now check out the long list of telephone services you can get for $15 a month at Vonage.com.

The Webmail Default
If all you really need to do is to check your email then webmail is probably enough if you can find a computer to access the Internet. I use a wonderful service from CeoExpress.com that links all of my Internet resources in one place and gives me access to most newspapers free of charge. Most commercial Internet Service Providers provide webmail services and all you need do is to log on from any computer with a web browser to check your mail. You can have your office forward your mail (or better yet, only part of it) to the webmail site. If you don’t have a laptop with you, computers with Internet access are almost everywhere, and webmail is the easiest way to go. I was even able to access some webmail from Kinko’s but since I had not had my university server mail forwarded to a Web portal I was stuck. You may want, and need, more. For example, you may need a lot of important files and the programs that run them on a regular basis. Here are some of the ways you can do that.
Broadband Access Everywhere
It is amazing how accessible the Internet has become by virtue of the rapid and massive rollout of broadband connections in recent months. In Philadelphia, San Francisco and a few other cities you will soon have free wireless broadband access from most places courtesy of the city. If you are in one of the major chain hotels (both first class and budget) you probably will be able to purchase a broadband connection for about $10.00 a day or less. Some even offer broadband free as an incentive to stay there. If you go to Starbucks when you travel you can sign up for T-Mobile wireless service that you can access from most Starbucks locations and many other places. There are other wireless access points or “hotspots” in virtually any location. Intel provides a service for locating them at http://intel.jiwire.com/index.htm.
If you have access to a physical broadband connection through the network port on your laptop, the choice for connecting with your home or office is easy. GoToMyPC (www.gotomypc.com) allows you to replicate your home or office computer on your laptop. If your broadband connection is fast, GoToMyPC allows you to work on your distant computer just as if it were in front of you. It is less effective on a slow connection but it still works. It is a remarkable program that has received rave reviews from almost everybody. Because of the way GoToMyPC accesses your home computer it is technically very secure and clearly appropriate for everything but the most sensitive kind of work. GoToMyPC requires that your home computer be turned on and booted up so if there is some kind of glitch like a power outage or other computer failure you may not be able to access your computer until it has been restarted. You need to take that into consideration when planning your computer access needs during travel. I always have someone available in my home office who can reboot or repair my computer.
Finally, I use a web based fax service called Intellifax, www.IntelliFax.com which allows me to receive faxes as PDF email attachments.
Of course, if you are away on vacation instead of business you may not want your virtual office at all but you may in touch by e-mail. If you’re still willing to lug your computer through airport security you can access your e-mail by dialup modem. Earthlink.com and PeoplePC.com both offer a large number of dial up connections in almost any major city. PeoplePC is considerably cheaper than Earthlink and I have found it to work very well. Earthlink is, of course, the old standby and has a long history of a high quality product and great customer service. Though it is almost twice as expensive as PeoplePC it is my choice for dialup software on my laptop. There are other options to laptops, however.
There are several PDA type devices that claim to bring you interactive access to your calendar and email 24/7. I have looked at several of them and it seems that the Blackberry handheld device is far and away the one most lawyers prefer. It is expensive, but it does provide the total connectivity that many desire or need. The new Treo 650 phone/pda combination is very nice and but very expensive. Check with your cell phone provider to see which option is cheapest. There is a lot of competition in this field and you have a lot of choice. You cannot underestimate the cool factor these phone/pda tools provide!