bruceb news

Previously:
Law Firms In The Cloud: Credenza
Law Firms In The Cloud: Rocket Matter

Until now very small law firms have seldom used a true document management system, but even the smallest firm is starting to feel pressured to consider one to deal with an ever-increasing number of files. NetDocuments has the forward-facing features that put it at the top of the list of document management systems to consider.

It’s easy to start out with nothing but a moderately well-organized filing system – folders named after clients, files named more or less according to a system, and drafts emailed from person to person. […] continued

It is increasingly necessary to send large file attachments by email. It continues to be a bad idea! It clogs up your mailbox and slows down your mail server and generates endless frustration when messages don’t arrive – but none of that matters. Businesses are creating larger and larger files and email is the way business is done, whether I like it from a technical perspective or not.

Microsoft has bowed to the inevitable and permits Office 365 subscribers to send up to 25Mb of file attachments to a single message. As businesses move to more recent versions of Exchange, mailbox size limits are slowly increasing at big and small companies. […] continued

Previously:
Office 365 Part 1 – Overview
Office 365 Part 2 – The Evolution Of Exchange Online

Sharepoint Online sets up an online portal that a business can use for a number of different things:

• Documents can be stored online with rich controls for sharing files with colleagues and clients. It’s also easy to track versions of documents and search for information.
• If documents are stored online, they can be reviewed or edited by opening and saving them directly in installed Office programs.
• Online documents can also be reviewed or edited in the online Office Web Apps if that’s more convenient or you’re at a computer that does not have Office installed.

[…] continued

Not everything works with everything else.

Your expectations have changed so quickly that you might not have noticed. It wasn’t long ago that most people used a single PC at a single location and were content to leave the data on that computer behind when they left that desk. When you closed Outlook on the office computer, you didn’t expect to open up the same mailbox at home. If you had files to work on at home, you’d burn them to a CD or copy them to a USB drive or email them to your home email address. You might have gotten a notebook if you expected to be mobile but the data on it was still mostly separate from your other computers and devices. […] continued

Previously:
Sharing Files With Dropbox

Yesterday I described how to share any file in Dropbox by right-clicking a file or folder, then clicking on “Get Shareable Link.”

If you do not see the option to “Get Shareable Link,” apparently you have to “enable your account”. It’s a single click described on this page. It should happen if you click on this link. I’m not aware of any side effects or reasons not to do that.

You may have to close the Dropbox web site, close and open the Dropbox program, or restart your computer for the change to take effect. […] continued

Dropbox is the essential free program to sync files among each of your computers and mobile devices. If you’re not a Dropbox user, you probably should be. Go read one of my articles about it, go to the Dropbox web site and watch some videos, and start using it.

Dropbox has a number of ways to share files and folders with anyone, whether or not they have their own Dropbox accounts. Let’s go through some of the possibilities.

• Sharing with the Public and Photos folders
• Sharing with other Dropbox users
• Sharing any file or folder in Dropbox

SHARING WITH THE PUBLIC AND PHOTOS FOLDERS

When you install Dropbox, two folders will appear automatically, “Public” and “Photos.” Anything in those folders will automatically be shared, able to be viewed by anyone who gets the URL that is automatically created for each file and folder that you put in those special folders.  The URL is not obvious or easy to guess, so it is unlikely that anyone will stumble on your files accidentally! […] continued

Previously:
Google Cloud Connect For Microsoft Office – Part 1: Sync And Share Documents Easily

Almost a year ago I wrote an article about how Microsoft could change the world by moving our files online. Imagine that you could have your office documents appear seamlessly on your office computer, your notebook, your smartphone, and in a web browser on any computer. You could work on them in any of those places, with new and changed files quickly being synced to all the other locations. On your own computers you’d always be accessing files stored locally with Office, using all the rich tools in the Office programs running at full speed.

[…] continued

Google has launched Google Cloud Connect, a simple way for you to save Office documents into the cloud, work on them from multiple locations, share them with others, and collaborate with other people to edit them simultaneously in near real time.

Google has launched Google Cloud Connect, a simple way for you to save Office documents into the cloud, work on them from multiple locations, share them with others, and collaborate with other people to edit them simultaneously in near real time.

I wrote that twice so you’d slow down and focus. It’s a giant step toward a goal that is closer than you realize – access to your files from any device with no fuss and no technical barriers. […] continued

Dropbox is high on the list of essential utilities. It has been in an extended testing period but a few days ago the official ultra-stable Version 1.0 was released.

I’ve written about Dropbox frequently. The basic concept is easy: Dropbox is a free program to sync files among each of your computers and mobile devices. Dropbox accomplishes that with style and elegance and – most important – simplicity. It works so reliably that many people opt for one of the paid subscriptions that offers generous amounts of space to store thousands of files online, making it a kind of de facto backup service. […] continued

Our online purchases and subscriptions and services are associated with accounts linked to an email address. Be careful when you set up accounts and make purchases! These are turning into long-term relationships that need to be right.

A concrete example: buy Kindle ebooks from Amazon using the email address of the person who will read them.

I didn’t understand the consequences of that when I bought a Kindle for my wife a couple of years ago. Here’s the way the Amazon world works. Follow along and you’ll understand my wife’s Amazing Vanishing Library trick.

• Amazon is setting up an ecosystem built around your purchases of books, ebooks, music, movies, and all the other things it sells.

[…] continued