I thought the holidays would be a good time to put together a list of software tools that I use on an ongoing basis. The obligatory shout outs go to the obvious tools from Adobe, Microsoft and the Mozilla Foundation. Not a day goes by that Firefox, Acrobat and Word are not in use on my desktop. Yet the following tools take my productivity to new levels and are the unsung heroes in my toolkit.

Fences
http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/
Fences is the newest utility in my arsenal, a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Fences comes in both a free version and a modestly priced Pro version.


CCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/
A longtime resident of my toolkit, CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system freeing up hard disk space and contains a fully featured registry cleaner. 

Firebug
http://getfirebug.com/
Although I use several Firefox add-ons, Firebug is the most important. Firebug integrates with Firefox and allows you to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.


Skype
http://www.skype.com/
Not a day goes by that I don’t use Skype. Skype allows free voice, video and instant message conversations with other Skype users.  What makes Skype unique is the ability to make and receive landline calls. For a relatively small fee Skype customers can purchase a local phone number for many international cities.

SnagIt
http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp
SnagIt screen capturing software has been around a long time. SnagIt, though not free, sets itself apart from the freeware competition with features like the built-in editor, capture cataloguer and onscreen capturing options for menus that other products have difficulty dealing with. 


Thunderbird with Lightning
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Thunderbird is the rock solid Email client from the Mozilla Foundation and Lightning is an optional Calendaring add-on. I started using Thunderbird many years ago when I switched from POP3 to IMAP email (at the time Outlook didn’t support IMAP).  The Lightning component of Thunderbird is fully compatible with Google Calendar allowing seamless integration between desktop, mobile and online scheduling.

Data Management Center, DMC
http://www.dmc-fr.com/
There are few tools capable of reading the TopSpeed (TPS) file format used in the professional version of Time Matters. DMC queries, exports, migrates and updates TPS, SQL and virtually any data format. If you’re not impressed with the Topscan file reader (pun intended) then try DMC .


ObjectDock
http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/
ObjectDock enables you to organize your shortcuts, programs and running tasks into an animated Dock. Rather than having a bunch of icons on the desktop, these icons can be put into one or more docks.


Evernote
http://www.evernote.com/
Evernote captures and organizes random note information into a searchable database. Apply as much or as little structure as you like and the powerful search tool will recall on demand. You can even search for words inside graphic images. Contents can be synchronized across desktops and mobile devices allowing notes to be taken with you.


Directory Opus, DO
http://www.directoryopus.com/
The most used tool in this roundup is by far Directory Opus. DO is a complete replacement for Windows Explorer and many other utility programs for handling FTP, ZIP, files and image viewer, file conversion, slideshows and more.  Other features include; user-definable file display views, built in FTP and ZIP support, file synchronization, duplicate file finder, advanced search and rename function, and runs from USB.

There was a time (as recently as version 8) that the Time Matters development team would hold a release of Time Matters to ensure that our wired synchronizations were working with the latest Palm, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. The times, they are a' changin', Time Matters 10 recently shipped without support for the latest wave of smartphone devices.

Lack of support for these new devices and platforms has initially applied pressure on firms using Time Matters to use a multi-step process to accomplish synchronizations. The current work-around is to use Outlook or Exchange as an intermediary synchronization solution. Unfortunately, Time Matters does not support round-trip synchronization from the smartphone back to Time Matters. So in essence, users are limited to a “push” solution as opposed to a bi-directional sync.

State of the sync…

The explosion of the smartphone market has created innovation but also fragmented the market with new platforms. Software vendors, like Time Matters, who focus on device specific solutions now find themselves facing a plethora of platforms to support (or not). In the U.S. legal community our smartphone market primarily consists of:

Apple iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm WebOS, Google Android and Windows Mobile

The dominate devices are iPhone and BlackBerry with the new Palm WebOS devices starting to make dramatic inroads. Again, referring to the legal sector, devices like Android are more appealing to the techie crowd and Windows Mobile appears to have become a non-player.

Looking to the future….

Should smartphone data be securely ubiquitous or tethered by a cable? Palm and Google think yes (as do I).  In fact, Palm’s new Synergy platform makes the historic “synchronization” process feel archaic. Synergy seamlessly combines data from several online (and Exchange Server) accounts into a single entity on the Palm device. Data stays updated and normalized in the background. Read more about Palm Synergy here: http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/pre/migration/index.html . Google Android works in a similar way but uses a more limited set of sources of data.

Bringing it home…

So what does this mean to Time Matters users today, how do we reliably provide users with access to Time Matters information on their smartphones?  (shameless plug begins) I’d like to say “just go buy MobileTM”. It works with all smartphone devices and has no physical data limitations. We’re also launching a new Google Calendar and Contact sync for Time Matters. The two of these products will accommodate users’ needs in terms of ubiquitous synchronization.  (shameless plug ends) Otherwise the answer dictates only one solution; Exchange Server.

Time Matters needs to continue to improve their Exchange Synchronization.  As a community we might consider encouraging the LexisNexis team in the following ways:

• Support round-trip data synchronization from the smartphone back to Time Matters.
• Stay proactive by supporting the current version of Exchange.
• Broaden the documentation to cover more details.
• Improve the “usability” of managing the ongoing synchronization process (better user interface options for logging and troubleshooting, moving synchronizations between databases and/or servers, upgrading between versions of Time Matters and/or Exchange)

Down to Business: What is the life cycle of an Internet Email?

One of the driving factors for writing this article was when I began to answer questions to our MobileTM customers about the Email List in MobileTM (we had specifically added this capability because these emails are not available when outside the office). I decided to put together a holistic view of the internal life cycle of these messages to better equip us with an understanding of the flow. Let's follow what happens to the underlying values of an Email as it moves through the system.

The Life Cycle of an Internet Email in Time Matters

CASE #1: Create an Email, do not send.
A single record is added to the Time Matters Email  database table, with the following pertinent field values:

     user_name = logged in user
     parent_id = *DRAFT
     type = D
     showinbox = Y (default but can be changed)
     showlist = Y (default but can be changed)
     to_addr, cc_addr and/or bc_addr may have values


CASE #2: Open an unsent Email (from #1) and send.  
The SMTP server will be contacted to deliver the message and the record will now be modified as follows:

     parent_id = *SENT
     type = S
     showinbox, showlist no change
     eve_id now has unique identifier from SMTP server for sent email


CASE #3:  Receiving Internet Email
1 record is added to the Time Matters Inbox database table with the following pertinent field values:

     user = tm login user
     parent_id = *IN
     type = BLANK/nothing
     Showlist = N, Showinbox = Y

1 record is created in the Time Matters PopUID database table.
NOTE: This record prevents duplicate emails from being downloaded when "leave on server" is enabled under the email account settings.


CASE #4: Open the Incoming Internet Email Record (from case #3) Change the Showlist to Y.
The Record from case #3 is DELETED from the Inbox Database Table.
A new record is added to the Email Database Table (fields copied from Inbox table) with the following pertinent field changes:

     Type = BLANK/nothing     
     parent_id = *IN

Summarizing the Details

When an Internet email is sent from Time Matters, a record is created in the Time Matters Email database. Upon transmission of the email, a server id will be placed in the eve_id field of the Email record. Visibility of the email is based on the ShowInbox and ShowList values.

Incoming Internet Email is significantly different than any other form of Email in Time Matters. For starters, these email messages are initially stored in the Inbox database table with a sibling record created in the PopUID table to prevents duplicate emails from being downloaded from the POP3 server.

If or when an Incoming Internet Email is set to Show On Email List it will be deleted from the Inbox database table and added to the Email database table. This is the norm when assigned a Contact/Matter regarding line to an incoming email.

Implementing What We Know About the Internet Email Life Cycle

Outgoing Internet Email are saved in the Email database table with a server ID in the eve_id field.

Incoming Internet Email are saved in the Inbox database table.

The PopUID database table indentifies incoming email that have already been downloaded.

If an Email should show on the Contact/Matter Sublist Tab, ensure to complete the regarding line and ENABLE “Show on Email List”.

If an Email is not set to Show on Email List, it will not be visible on the main Email List, Form Sublist Tabs or on the Powerviews.

If an Email is not set to Show on Inbox, it will not be visible in the Draft, Sent or Deleted folders of the Inbox.

When a deleted record is set to show on the Email List and NOT set to show in the Inbox, it will become orphaned (forever) due to the fact the Email list filters Email in the Deleted Folder. The next version of SharpShooter (1.20) will test for the existence of this condition.

NOTE: There is a current issue that will display Email in Powerviews that are not marked for "Show on Email List".

The next article in this series will cover Email Attachments.