I've been selected to test an early version of Microsoft 2010! Will the new version run faster and have new features that make the product even better? I'll let you know what I think after having a chance to play around with the software for a few days.

We've been moving in the direction of a paperLESS law firm and one of the next items on our list of tasks is to have our receptionist scan all of our daily mail and enter the scanned documents in to our case management system.

I read with interest an article in today's New York Times that might offer a way to outsource some of that function if it turns out to be too much for our receptionist. The article discusses the services of a company called Earth Class Mail that receives your mail and scans it for you. Here's how it works -

1. You choose one of Earth Class Mail's addresses and then notify your mailers.
2. Earth Class Mail receives your mail, scans the envelope and emails you the scan.
3. You then tell ECM to a) scan the contents and email to you, b) shred and/or recycle the letter and c) forward the mail on to you.

The company represents that it has security controls to ensure confidentiality.

I do see some problems with this system. For one, notifying everyone of the change in address would be a pain. And if you don't like the company, you're going to have to notify everyone again of a new address. Also, if you need a hard copy of the letter right away, you're looking at a delay because the letter needs to be remailed. And, of course, you need to determine if the costs are worth it or if you can do the job in house.

Still, the idea here is intriguing and worth consideration.

Incidentally, paperLESS is a term coined by my friend Ross Kodner who is the ultimate guru for law offices moving in this direction. Ross recommended the Fujitsu ScanSnap printers which we're using (and loving) in our office.

Need a quality logo in a hurry and don't want to spend a lot of money? I've recently discovered the site Logotournament.com. Here's the concept - offer a prize of at least $250 and complete a short questionnaire describing your firm or other organization seeking a logo. Logotournament then guarantees you'll get at least 30 submissions from graphic artists. You rank the artists and give feedback and then choose a winner at the end and download your new logo. I've got a firm logo already, but needed a logo for a 5-K race my daughter is organizing for a charity. So I tried the site out late last night and already have some very nice contenders.

I use Google for both factual and legal research, but one of the shortcomings of the way Google displays search results is the lack of date listings. Or so I thought. It IS possible to show dates next to your search results by posting a short code at the end of the URL for the search results.

For example, suppose you're looking for information on Postville, the site of a major immigration raid last year. You want to see if there are recent developments in the various prosecutions related to the raid.

The Google search results for "Postville" and "raid" can be found at

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Postville+raid&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2&fp=9H_fFVtkJ-U

Add the code "&as_qdr=y15" and you'll see the dates the various pages were updated.

So the URL you'll want to plug in to your browser would be

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Postville+raid&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2&fp=9H_fFVtkJ-U &as_qdr=y15

For more information, check out this article.

Another major web site has launched a mobile version easily readable on iPhones, Blackberries and other portable devices. Wikipedia Mobile has now left beta testing and in its first few days has already had 18,000,000 hits. You don't need to remember the address (mobile.wikipedia.com) if you just go to Wikipedia's site on a browser on your PDA. Wikipedia will automatically detect your browser and direct you to the mobile site which is designed to load quickly and is formatted in a manner easy to read on a small screen.

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