Technology Tips

The battles seen in the US over software patents could spread to the UK and the rest of Europe if the unitary patent is allowed to come into force.

Europe's 'Unitary Patent' Could Mean Unlimited Software Patents
The battles seen in the US over software patents could spread to the UK and the rest of Europe if the unitary patent is allowed to come into force

Just as the US software industry is experiencing the long-anticipated all-out software patent wars, the European Union has a plan to follow the same course. When the Hargreaves report urged the UK to avoid software patents, the UK government had already approved a plan that is likely to impose them.

View Expanded “Send To” Menu

Sometimes you may want to quickly move a folder or file to another folder on your computer, network or even a mail recipient. One of the fastest ways of doing this is right-clicking the file/folder and choosing “Send To”.

You can get an expanded “Send To” menu by holding “Shift” and right-clicking on the file or folder. This will give you even more destinations for your document/folder.

Add Any Folder to Favourites

To-do lists are a great way of increasing productivity. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the tasks we have to do during the course of a week, but we can eliminate stress by creating achievable goals. If you take the time to write down the tasks you need to complete, you will find that the list will help you to put your workload in perspective and keep the end in sight.

Here are some tips on creating to-do lists to make your workload more manageable:

1. Be realistic. Set achievable outcomes for each day and don’t put too much on your list.

Dropbox

Dropbox is the best way to back up your files and keep your files synced between multiple computers. Once installed, Dropbox creates a folder in your Documents or Home folder. Anything saved to this folder will be backed up online and can be synced to any other computers that have Dropbox installed on the same account. You can also share folders with your friends who use Dropbox. The basic account is absolutely free and gives you 2 gigabytes of storage space. It is cross platform and runs on Windows, OSX and Linux.

Avast Antivirus

Organise

Use folders or labels to organise and manage your email. If you have a good reference system set up, you won’t ever have troubles looking for mail. Paper documents are filed for ease of use, and email should be treated the same way.

Archive

Keep your correspondence; you never know when you will need it. Most modern email systems provide plenty of space, so it’s good to get into the practice of saving any mail that isn’t junk. That way you can’t be accused of not sending somebody something when you have actually sent it and vice versa. During my career I have referred back to old emails on many occasions and have resolved a few disputes by looking in my archived mail.

Create filters/rules

The world has changed a lot in the past 10 years. The rapid development of new technology and the changing landscape of the online world has changed the way we work and, for many, where we do our work from. Here are my top 10 ways how IT technology has changed over the decade.

Every regular windows user will be familiar with the combination of keys: CTRL+ALT+DEL. This magic combination is used to lock the screen, log in or more often than not force an unresponsive application to close. Other commonly used key combos are CTRL+C and CTRL+V for copying and pasting or F5 to refresh a page in your Internet browser. These common shortcuts are incredibly useful and improve productivity by making tasks that would usually require some pointing and clicking possible with only a few keystrokes.

These are not the only key combos around that can improve your productivity and make your working day a few minutes shorter; in fact there are a lot more. Here are some of the more useful ones:

Conducting research on the Internet can prove to be either a gold mine, rich with nuggets of knowledge and information, or a mine field littered with stretched truths and dead ends. Which of these two you experience depends on how you go about your research, where and how you look for information, and how you organise it when you find it.

Here are five top tips to make your research easier, more accurate and more effective.

1. Know your sources.

Working from home as a Virtual Legal Assistant is a great way to freelance and find freedom in the way you work. As recently as ten years ago this sort of remote working, although not unheard of, was not really as practical as it is today. The technology just wasn’t affordable, and the legal world has been noted to be quite cautious when it comes to new technologies.

In these changing times, however, it is becoming more common for all kinds of administration tasks to be outsourced to remote workers. Budget constraints, changing attitudes and cheaper technology are leading more organisations to seek out third-party secretarial services.