Tag Archives: WiFi

2016 ABA TECHSHOW Takeaways: 10 Security Steps to Take Now!

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The incomparable Tim Baran from Legal Productivity has done it again. His post, 10 Actionable Privacy, Security & Encryption Takeaways From #ABATECHSHOW is a must-read for all lawyers.  (Important enough that I bumped the post I was planning to publish today.)

Included in Tim’s roundup:

  • Password managers
  • Secure web browsing with HTTPS Everywhere
  • No-track search engines
  • Using false answers to security questions to foil ne’er-do-wells
  • Encrypted telephone conversations and text messages
  • Encrypted files in the cloud
  • Protecting your smartphone camera
  • Using multi-factor authentication
  • Turning on automatic updates
  • Communicating over VPNs in lieu of insecure public WiFi

This is the best of the best.  Take two minutes from your day and read Tim’s post!  While you’re at it, consider subscribing to the Legal Productivity RSS feed for great practice tips on technology, mobile lawyering, marketing, organization, making money, and wellness.

Using Google Voice in Your Law Practice

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The February issue of Multnomah Lawyer, the official publication of the Multnomah Bar Association, has an excellent article by Charley Gee about using Google Voice.

As Charley describes:

Google Voice is a service from Google that provides a user with a telephone number, voicemail, conference calling, and text messaging service. It is accessible from any computer with access to the Internet, or from a cellphone or tablet.

The best feature of Google Voice is its price: free. Using your Google account, just sign up, select the number you want from a list of available numbers, and verify and connect your cell phone to the account.

Google Voice supports call routing, text message archiving, and voicemail to e-mail transcription.  (But not emergency service calls.)  If traveling, you can access voicemails and make calls without cell service:

Google Voice users can make and receive calls and text messages, as well as fetch their voicemail, over the internet instead of a cell tower signal. I’ve accessed my voicemail and text messages from remote locations around the state just by finding a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Great tip Charley!  My only caveat is to keep security risks in mind when using Wi-Fi.

If you are evaluating Google Voice vs. Skype, read this post.  For more thoughts on the benefits of using Google Voice in your law practice, check out what Go Matters has to say.

If you’ve committed to Google Voice and want to know about using it on your Android Phone or iPad, see:

How to Use Google Voice for Your Primary Android Phone Number and Messages or App Review: Google Voice for iPad.

Final Thoughts

I blogged earlier this month about how to cope with Gmail outages.  Google Voice is tied to your Gmail account.  If Gmail goes down, Google Voice may also experience an outage.  Without a doubt, you will lose WiFi functionality, voicemail to e-mail transcription, and perhaps other features.  A cursory search did not return an answer to the question: How many times has Google Voice experienced an outage?  However, searching for “Google Voice outage” returns numerous results dating back the last few years.  Whether Google’s uptime stats are better or worse than the competition is hard to gauge.

Finally, I can’t write a post about Google Voice without expressing how much I like Ruby Receptionists, our very own home-grown virtual reception service based in Oregon.  Ruby Receptionists goes far above and beyond Google Voice, with the advantage of personalized, live reception services.  Read about this awesome service for lawyers here.  For another take, see this post.

All Rights Reserved [2014] Beverly Michaelis