Leo Laporte has a radio show, which plays on my local radio station every Saturday afternoon, right after the lawn and garden show. And I’m listening to it, not on my radio, but on my iPod Touch, through the iheartradio app I downloaded this morning which streams my local radio stations. The icon for that app sits next to the other radio apps I use, Pandora, Slacker, and Last.fm. Leo is talking about the iPad, which means this article so far is sort of a paradoxical infinite loop.

He is a fan of the iPad, saying it is basically a big iPod Touch; it’s a great e-book reader. And while he is somewhat sympathetic to the criticisms many people have leveled against the iPad, he believes the product will be a success, if not a replacement for anything in particular. I think he is shortsighted. So are all the people (read: you) who call the iPad a “big iPhone”, which is sort of like calling a Peterbilt a big truck.

Here’s why Apple has it right, and you have it wrong.

Apps. No matter how many Apps are sold or given away in the App store, you people are perpetually underestimating both their scope and power. I have an Android phone, loaded with Apps. My iPod has a few Apps. My computer has lots of Apps, only I call them, “Programs.” My cable box has Apps, one frequently used which shows live TV and another which streams InstantWatch content. My PS3 has Apps. We are surrounded by Apps, have been for years.

The iPad, for all the hooplah, is really just a better App platform. And when the iPad finds it’s way into the hands of all those people who aren’t too embarrassed to stand outside their nearest Best Buy or Apple Store, they’ll have an enormous library of Apps to browse.  The iPhone didn’t have that and look at it now.  The iPad is a guaranteed success because it is one of only a few products that runs these Apps. Let me run the fantastic Facebook App on my notebook, and I’d probably never visit facebook.com again, not that I visit much anyway. And I have similar feelings for nearly all my Android and Apple Apps. The App makes the corresponding website or computer program at best redundant, and at worst, obsolete.

Just as the Macintosh and Windows programmers were 20 years ago, App programmers are the next generation, building specific operating system compatible programs which finally do what technology has promised for so long. They will make our lives a little simpler. At least, our online lives, which have until now been dominated by website addresses, usernames, and passwords… RSS feeds, Diggs, url shorteners, viruses, and forum trolls.  These aren’t good things.

So let’s say you’re a company… Netflix… for example. You have a website, and that’s fine. It does online streaming and lots of people enjoy that. But while the website based service you provide is enormously popular and you’re making huge money, there is an endless barrage of mail in your inbox asking for … you guessed it… Apps. The people complaining are not asking for “Apps” specifically, but they are asking for device specific (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii) programs which allow them to access their queues and stream those few streamable movies to their TV’s, which is… in itself, another big (if really old) App platform. You’ll notice that Netflix is on or will be on these platforms soon. If the PS3 Netflix App was just a little more capable, I’d visit netflix.com only a little less rarely than facebook.com.

Am I alone here? Surely not. The two major App stores (Apple and Android) have a huge variety of services. And many of them are free. Why wouldn’t I use them? And the fact that they aren’t as full featured as their corresponding websites, for most people, most of the time… simply isn’t an issue. Indeed, some web services have become so bloated with pop-up advertisements and Flash, the stripped down App version is more usable. The iPad is the Ferrari Scuderia of computers. Stripped down. Faster. Better. Sign me up.  Either that… or simplify the web, which isn’t going to happen.

Also, I expected there to be an endless stream of supplies to review and photos of interesting things happening to post.  There either isn’t, or I’m not creative enough to see them.  I will say one thing… my review of Clear is dead wrong.  If you’re thinking about cancelling your cable connection to save a few bucks in order to go 4G, it isn’t worth it.  Not with a day long outage every month.

Most of the readers here are interested in the business side of everything, but ultimately, I’m not prepared to let that cat too far out of the bag.  I will say that the billboard generates clients.  Google AdWords generates hits to your website, but doesn’t seem to be as cost effective as a good bulletin location.  Good office location is key, so if you’re starting a practice either out of your home or in a highrise where no one will see you, I would suggest you think twice.  I do have clients.  They come in, I hear their case, plug in their credit card information into PayPal Virtual Terminal, and start up their case.  It’s really as simple as that.  I’m working.  I also regularly reject cases.  If it looks like more trouble than it’s worth, I’ll let the next guy handle it.

I’m not making huge money, but the business is building and I’m left with less and less downtime, which means that this blog will be gone sooner or later.  I could make it really interesting, but that would just open myself up to various liabilities.  I could keep it here and boring, but there’s no point.  I will say that there have been a couple naysayers in the comments on previous posts, and they were wrong on some things.  A – All divorces are contested.  B – A new attorney cannot compete.  That’s not to say that all this is easy.  It isn’t.  I work more hours alone in an office than I ever did in a large office surrounded by people who’s company I generally enjoyed.  And I make less money doing it.  But in 5 years, when I’m making good money and I can afford to golf on Friday afternoon instead of work, I’ll think I’ve made the right decision.  And when I discover that I didn’t need to ask anyone’s permission to do so, I’ll know.

Till next time, if there is one.

“When you start your own business, you’ll work twice as hard and make half as much as you expect.”  - Someone

Not long now before I have steady divorce work.

The billboard follow certain rules I’ve come up with. 1- Simple information. 2- Face to the far outside – Text on the side of the road. 3- Phone number that can be remembered in one sighting.

Case in point.  My business cards were several days late.  Why?  I don’t know.  So the company that ordered them for me decided they’d make me some temporary cards.  My original order was for 200 linen cards.  So when those turned out to be late, they gave me 1,000 high gloss ones.  That was yesterday, and today, the original order came through.

Now I’m going to need to get comfortable handing out the 1,000 temporary cards to everyone I see, like Denzel Washington in Philadelphia.

Behold, the HL-2170W.

It’s a fairly simple looking piece.  Two shades of grey and a bright blue button on the front left, which thankfully dims after a few seconds.  There is a similar model for $50 less, but this one offers wireless connectivity.  Wireless is the future, so I sprung for it.

This turned out to be a regrettable decision.  While I’m sure that some people will be able to connect the printer wirelessly, I simply wasn’t.  This was partly due to the fact that I’m running Windows 7 (not on the install disk’s list of compatible OS’s), but mostly due to the fact that if you fail to correctly connect the printer to your router the first time, the printer subsequently refuses to reset itself for the next try.

Luckily, calling Brother was a fairly painless experience.  The gentleman on the phone set me up, but not before doing some fairly complicated resets on the printer.

“Ok, the blue button… I want you to press it 10 times quickly.  Then power down the machine for 2 minutes… then power it back on… then press the blue button 9 times quickly… the power it down… then power it on, and then…”  You can tell where this is going.  Why is it that every time I call a tech support agent, I am required to reboot the device.  I’m nearly certain that anyone who’s calling tech support has already done that multiple times, as I had.

After this, I was required to log into the printer, set an IP address, download brand new (but well hidden) 64-bit drivers from Brother’s website,  and you get the picture.  An hour of following what appeared to be a well rehearsed script from Brother eventually connected me to the printer.  Now that I have my office set up sort of how I like it, my printer is only 6 feet from the computer anyhow, so I probably should have just purchased the wired printer.  And I doubt I’ll be able to set up my old desktop that is patiently waiting in my reception area to use it.  All the printer settings have been so customized that I’ll need to suffer through tech support again when I want to set it up.

But now that it has been set up, this printer has been a dream to use.  No jams, and very fast.  I know that there are or will be readers here who are using an inkjet printer.  I’m telling you that for black and white printing, there is no substitute for even a modest laser jet.  Text is crisp, black, and dry right off the rack.  And because I’m only going to be printing text documents, I just don’t see the need for anything more.

My only complaint would be that the envelope tray is about an inch long and requires you to print only 1 envelope at a time.  There is also no clear indicator of how the envelope is supposed to be inserted, so you may find yourself printing them upside down.

Stay tuned for reviews of Windows 7, ProDoc, and the Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500 scanner.  Also, things are moving very fast here regarding signage, business cards, and overall business.  I even have a client, a business requesting a trademark.  How about them apples?

First, the price advertised is seldom the final price.  Don’t be afraid to ask for a discount.

When you’re first starting out, the primary concern in your head, so long as you’re anything like me, will be money.  You’ll begin looking at charts and graphs and imagining how each envelope and pen will affect your bottom line.  I’m at the beginning stages of this.

So one thing I’ve become comfortable doing, which I wasn’t 6 months ago, is demanding deals and discounts.  Sometimes, they don’t come.  Other times, they do.  And it doesn’t cost anything to ask.  You haggle over the purchase of a car or home, why not haggle over that bulletin sized billboard on the freeway?  As long as you’re paying over $1,000 per month, shop around and play vendors against each other.  They’re not new at this.  You are.  If you want to not pay full price, you’re going to need to at least try and play their game.

Second, everything will take longer than you think it should.  Plan ahead for this.

This is something that I need to work on.  I’ll admit that.  Here are some examples of what I’m talking about.

I approved a business card design on 11-23-09, and expected delivery on 11-25-09.  “It takes about a day for them to arrive after approval,” they said.  New delivery date?  12-5-09.

A large backlit sign seemed to be perpetually delayed due to general mistakes and rain.  1 week late.

I ordered AT&T business lines through the internet and was told it would take a full week to get them installed.  I expected it to be more like a couple days, especially since the whole process would take about 20 minutes.  Nope.  Scheduled delivery of lines was 7 days, and I’m lucky that I called a couple days before delivery day because the online order had been lost and was never turned into an actual order for service.

Don’t procrastinate or think that the services you want to purchase will be operational instantly.  They won’t.

Why have physical files when you can have virtual files?  This means that you’re going to need a scanner, because other businesses and law firms are not going to be attempting a paperless revolution like you.  And when researching scanners, you’ll find one that seems to grace the pages of every review site out there.

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 is what I have purchased.  At a retail price of nearly $500.00, it isn’t cheap.  But there are cheaper ways to get it.  I bought mine from Newegg.com, where they sold me a ScanSnap S1500 and a Visioneer Business Card Reader, shipped… for $409.97.  I can’t find this deal anymore, but the Business Card Reader is worthless anyhow, so don’t worry about it.

The actual scanner is far smaller than you’d expect, and far heavier.  It’s quite a good looking piece as well, because the upper and lower trays are multiplate assemblies that close over each other, folding the whole package into a small but stout silver brick.

3 things matter when it comes to scanning documents.  First, speed.  I am not concerned with scanning high resolution photographs; I’m an attorney, not an artist.  So what I need is fast scanning of text documents.  I just scanned a 12 page document in 35 seconds.  So the 20 pages per minute quote on the Fujitsu website is accurate.  This is plenty fast for me.

Second, image quality needs to be good enough that a reprint of the scan will be very close to the original.  I’m not going to lie to you, the scanner fails this test.  It isn’t that the scans are of a low quality, but that they are so different from the original. This is one of those things that cannot be shown online, much like a commercial for HDTV shows on a standard definition set.  But the page printed from the scanned image is vertically squeezed and bold.  Maybe this is done to make handwritten text more legible, but I don’t like it.

Third, the product needs to be dead simple to use.  This is.  Load in the pages you wish to be scanned into the document.  Press the large blue button on the scanner.  Choose the way you wish the image to be imported to your computer via a pop-up window.  I have been using one exclusively, simply naming the PDF document and choosing the folder on the computer into which the file is saved.  Like I said, dead simple.  This is one of the better purchases I’ve made.  If you need a scanner for text documents and don’t care too much about accuracy of the scan, I can’t recommend this product enough.

But wait, there’s more…

Included with the product is a copy of Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard, a $300 dollar value.  Need I say more?

This phone is yet another in a long line of what pundits call “iPhone Killers”, but this kind of label is self defeating.  No phone called an iPhone Killer will ever be such a thing, simply because you cannot successfully convey the merits of your own product by referencing all the great things about your competitors.  “Apple has a great X, but we have our own X that is almost as good, or slightly better.”  Apple takes the other route:  ”Microsoft is bad; Apple is good.”  Apple is so good at this, that guy on their commercials is now huge movie star.  Not that he was some slouch before the commercials, but his biggest work seems to have been a small role on Galaxy Quest.

When that little girl from the Windows 7 commercials gets a movie deal with Bruce Willis, you let me know.

But do I really need, or even want, and iPhone killer?  No.

I need a phone that will handle certain things, and as long as it handles those things the best, it’s the phone for me.

The certain things all deal with Google.

Contacts, Mail, Calendar.  All Google based, and all synced and updated nearly instantly to the phone.  The cool thing about Google is that everything is searchable, especially handy when you’re looking for a lost e-mail.

So when you purchase the phone, you merely give the desk jockey at Verizon your Gmail address.  You enter it into the phone, and all 500 email addresses you’ve either received or sent mail from or to, are instantly imported to your contact list.  Adjusting the settings in the phone will let you keep only the ones that have a phone number as well, so this eliminates almost all of them.

Then you get to work importing your contacts online at http://www.google.com/contacts.  Here, you can add categories, such as “Clients” and “Service Providers” as I’ve done.  This allows you to separate your contacts into groups, which is nice.  I don’t know how the iPhone does it, but I doubt it’s cloud based and as easy as this.  Plus, when I add a contact directly into the phone, it instantly shows on my online contact list, letting me edit it with any online computer.

The other big clincher was the widget support for the Android OS.  Everytime I see an iPhone, all 3 of it’s home screens are cluttered with 20 little icons for either preinstalled or downloaded apps.  I never see a huge clock, or weather updater.  This has always been an Android thing.  Like the iPhone, the Android OS features 3 screen that you flip left and right to see app icons.  As of right now, I have 16 apps on my left screen, 4 heavily used ones on the center screen, and a single huge calendar on the right screen, showing all my appointments.  This is invaluable and I’ve been looking at that widget several times a day.

Overall, I’m hugely impressed with this phone.  There are a few minor issue that will need to be worked out , though.  First, the screen blanks out when you’re using the phone, which is good.  But then sometimes it doesn’t immediately turn on again when you’re ready to end the call, meaning the button to end the call isn’t available to use.  Really annoying.  This is more pronounced when using the speakerphone, as you have to press either the power button or the volume rocker to get the screen to turn on again to end the call or use the phone.  This wouldn’t be so bad, but the screen doesn’t even turn on to alert you to a call-waiting, but means missed calls during those long hold times with AT&T Business Service.  I’m so glad I didn’t order internet service with AT&T.  Just getting 2 lines into the office has become a fiasco.

Physically, the phone is excellent, save for the flip out keyboard.  You may find some reviewers saying that it isn’t so bad, but trust me, it is.  Coming from a superior keypad on my Treo 700, this flat and offset Droid keypad is nearly unusable.  Imagine those flat keys you use on a gas pump to enter your PIN and Zip Code, then shrink them to phone QWERTY size and move it to the extreme left of the phone.  Add a D-Pad on the right, which is useless because the touch screen is such a dream to use, and that’s the Droid keyboard.  I find myself using the onscreen keypad, which is nearly identical to the iPhone’s, negating one of the minor reasons I purchased this phone in the first place.  If you’re like me, you simply won’t “get used to” the slide out keyboard.

The screen is excellent, there’s no getting around it.

Call quality is very good.

3G speeds are adequate.

For a full and I think accurate comparison, see these videos.

Full disclosure here… I don’t know exactly what WiMax is. Is it 4G? Is it WiFi? Is the company called Clear… or Clearwire? Who knows? Doesn’t really matter what it is. The only question I care about is, “Does it work?” In short, yes.

Bad – Speed fluctuates for no apparent reason. When I first signed up for the service, I was guaranteed 3.0 Mbps and 1 Mbps upload. On Speedtest.net, I was getting over 5 Mbps, so that was great. Something must have happened over the weekend though, because it has dramatically slowed this morning. When I tested it again at 5:00pm, I was back at superhigh speeds, as you can see.

While I am not quite getting the guaranteed upload speed according to speedtest.net, I am able to upload torrents at 1.1 Mbps, so I must be getting my guaranteed speed somewhere.

You may not be in a coverage area. If you’re lucky enough to have the service in your city, your map will probably look like this…

For those of you familiar with San Antonio, that’s a lot of people not covered. And it isn’t available in many cities you’d expect it to be, such as Houston, for example. But there’s a lot to like about it as well…

Good – The cost is low. Clear offers a plan where customers can choose 2 internet devices for $55 a month. The options are 1. USB modem for laptops, 2. Home modem for use with single computer or router, 3. VOIP phone service box. I was told by the sales rep that Clear would not provide me with 2 home modems, which is what I really wanted. I am just not that interested in carrying a laptop around with me at all times so that I can plug in a 6 inch antenna to get internet access. I’m simply not that internet hungry.

However, a phone call to Clear seemed to fix this, as they assured me that Best Buy should be able to trade my USB modem for an additional home modem. I will try this tonight and update you with the results of that. This reminds me of another good thing about Clear… their tech support is very willing, if not always 100% competent. Because their devices are so simple, there is nearly no way to mess it up on your end. But I had the unfortunate experience of not having a properly activated home modem, which left me without internet access on my desktop for a day. At first, no one could find a problem, because I had not installed the thing incorrectly (no one can, it’s so simple). But after calling a second time the next day, the lady on the other end of the phone line said she would simply remove that modem from my account and add it again. 2 minutes later, I had service.

Did I mention this is easy to use? I remember what “plug and play” meant 10 years ago, when it took me 2 weeks to properly install a SoundBlaster 16 into a Compaq Persario. Step 1 – Plug in card without shocking yourself. Step 2 – Suffer through 14.4k dial up internet researching what jumper settings one needs for this particular BIOS, which also needed to be edited. Step 3 – Call tech support in India, where your credit card will be charged for every minute the man on the phone cannot solve your problem. Step 4 – Give up.

Not anymore. These things are truly Plug and Play, as easy as upgrading your rubberball mouse for a laser one. Dead simple and very fast. Think I’ll cancel my Roadrunner service if I can get another home modem.

**** UPDATE – Clear is sending me a new home modem and a box to ship back my USB mobile modem.  Looks like Time Warner isn’t going to be providing me internet very soon.

When you walk in, this is what you see. I am borrowing the desk from my folks, who are helping out with this venture. It is large, oak, and brown. I have used it plenty in the past, and found that while it looks very nice, it can be uncomfortable to work behind day in and day out, especially for someone who is as tall as I am.

Here we see another donated piece, the shelf, which will be filled with brochures and other Michael McLees, LLC materials. The chairs and small tables were purchased second hand from a used office furniture store. They are leather and quite comfortable, especially for reception chairs. All pictures have a golf theme, and are borrowed until I can find my own.

This is my desk, credenza, and file cabinet. All were purchased used from another office furniture store. While they may not look it from the pictures, they are the heaviest pieces of furniture I’ve ever had the misfortune of trying to move. I’m so lucky I had help from family. I am used to moving even large pieces of furniture (even up stairs) with little trouble by myself, so I was quite humbled by the desk, which must weigh over 300 pounds.

The chair is a Contessa, which I purchased for $200 used. New, they run about $1,500.

This is a used desk (glass on top likely to be thrown away) and 4 rolling chairs. I’ll hold conferences here, until I can afford to pick up a dedicated conference table, which will fill the currently empty room.

The office has come together nicely, but it still is quite sterile. I’ll be going to Office Depot for items like trash cans, calendars, etc…, all the little things an office needs on a day to day basis. I am going to devote next week to reviewing the various pieces of equipment I have purchased, so stay tuned.