HIGH-SPEED FLYING

 If you're constantly searching for wi-fi hot spots, it might be time to invest in a mobile broadband card, says Brett Burney.

Many providers offer the option to use your mobile phone as a wireless modem, but the dedicated cards "require less fuss," says Burney, a Cleveland-based consultant. And, he notes, the cards can be used to create a personal, secure "hot-spot" that can be shared with others.

CradlePoint's PHS300 Personal Wi-Fi Hotspot router is one option, another is the MiFi 2200, offered by Sprint Nextel. The instant connectivity can be particularly handy for traveling litigators (think instant war rooms) or for anyone stuck at an airport. But before you pull out the plastic, check your existing contract for any restrictions, and read the fine print of costs and fees, cautions Burney.

Read it in the November issue of Law Technology News.

BEISBOL TECH

 To celebrate the World Series and the 2009 season, I thought it might be a good time to highlight tech tools available to baseball fans.

FutureLawyer's Rick George was the first to turn me onto ScorePad, which helps you score the game on your PDA. Says Georges: "The best thing is the daily MLBStats upload, which keeps the user current for every player every day."

I've shelled out a lot of money for a lot of baseball tech: I was a charter subscriber to XM Radio; and fought hard to save Extra Innings (which lets you watch almost every MLB game on TV). I even have a silly Derek Jeter message that greets callers on my cell phone.

One tech I did not like was MLB TV, which theoretically allows you to watch any game on your computer when you are out-of-market. I tried it in 2007 and it was dreadful, for a slew of reasons I won't elaborate in much detail here, other than to say the customer service was awful (45-minute waits on the phone were typical), and the system rarely recognized that you were not at home, insisting you were subject to a blackout. I suggested that it could be easily solved by simply having users (already vetted via passwords) type in the zip code where they were located, but was repeatedly told that "ohh nooo somebody might lie." (What are the odds that a significant # of users who pay $100/season for the service are going to lie?)

Anyway... I  revisited computer TV feeds during the American League Championship Series, when the Yankees played Anaheim in a day game on Oct. 19. To my surprise, I could not find any live internet radio feed and I didn't have an AM radio handy to hear our local broadcast on WCBS. I figured it wouldn't be politically correct to leave work at 4 -- or to pretend to work in our lunchroom -- so I broke down and spent $9.95 to buy the new computer postseason.tv package.

I was pleasantly surprised. Produced in affiliation with Fox, it wasn't the same as watching the Fox game on TV, but it was pretty damned good. You get Joe Buck's microphone; and can watch four (out of eight possible) camera angles. It even has Twitter integration, but I didn't try that.

It took a while to get used to, but overall, it was a satisfying alternative (for the desperate) to watch/listen to the Yankees, who lost a tight game that went 11 innings.

Good job, Fox Feeds and TBS Hot Corner!

FAST TURNAROUND

Sometimes, it takes a change in our routine to appreciate how fast we adapt to change.

I had jury duty this week, which presented an abrupt change to my normal routine. I am also nursing a sprained ankle. So Tuesday, when I was ordered to report to 100 Centre Street (if you watch Law & Order, you know the building) I decided to splurge and take a cab to the courthouse — rather than try to negotiate the subway (which has a lot of stairs). I didn't think it would be a good idea to be hobbling along in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the early morning rain with my leg in a cast.

In my nervousness about getting to the court on time, I decided to take only my computer bag, and accidentally left my cell phone at home. I settled into the jury room, which has wi-fi access, pulled out my loaner laptop, and quickly realized that I was completely screwed. The loaner  (mine is still in the Apple hospital after my logic board fried in Florida last week) didn't have our VPN software installed -— and I had no way to call our help desk. To make matters worse — we just switched our Outlook Web Access domain name and I had not memorized the URL.

Then I remembered — I have a Google Gmail account! So I e-mailed the help desk and, within minutes, the remote IT calvary was at my side.

First, they e-mailed me the OWA info so I could log onto my regular e-mail. Then sent me clear instructions on how to download and activate Cisco VPN software — and voila I was in the VPN.  Good so far, but my then my Entourage wasn't synching. Within minutes, the help-desk crew remotely accessed my machine and got Entourage running.

Total time: about 15 minutes. Result: instead of fuming and losing several unproductive work hours when I wasn't in a courtroom, I was able to  crank away.

For all the whining I do about technology, this adventure made me smile with satisfaction.

Huge KUDOS to James Mackey and our IT team. Everybody has to  endure the hurry-up-and-wait of jury duty, but thanks to our IT team, I was able to take full advantage of the "wait" time. What a difference from even a few years ago, when even one of the above problems would have knocked me out of commission, and so bored I would be counting the ceiling tiles! Technology -- and great IT staff -- really do make a difference.

And even luckier: we got sprung early! So I've done my civic duty now and New York promises not to call me again for six years!

AMBROGI'S OCTOBER PICKS

Web Watch: In the October issue of Law Technology News, Robert J. Ambrogi explores an array of new websites of interest to the legal profession, including WhichDraft.com, which helps users automatically assemble contracts and other legal documents. Users start the process by finding the type of document they want and then answering a series of simple questions.

Lawyers can also use the system to automate the assembly of their own documents. Ambrogi also explores Casemakerdigest, which offers summaries of recent cases, and Harvard University's new site, DASH, which offers access to scholarly articles written by faculty and students, as well as new sites from Littlearth that help users search for specific information, such as PatentSurf and Case-Law.

REBEL CALL

Our former ALM colleagues, Edward Adams and Molly McDonough, have just completed a two-week road trip -- one component of the ABA Journal's "Legal Rebels: Remaking the Profession" project. Adams is now the editor and publisher of the ABAJ; McDonough is the online assistant managing editor. They were joined on the tour by reporter Rachel Zahorsky and video dude John McQuiston.

The idea of the project was to identify lawyers who have changed the practice of law, and to report using just about every conceivable type of media: video, audio podcasts, wikis, photo slideshows, flicker, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. They even offered a "song of the day" during transit.

Taking full advantage of sponsor product placement (Hertz provided the SUV, Sprint the phones and Starwood the crashpads), the journey started in Boston and ended up in Washington, D.C.

They conducted daily interviews with a wide range of lawyers, including "Free Talker" Frank Aquila, and "Gossip at Law" David Lat (who was profiled, and then conducted a very strange interview of Steven Brill, the founder of American Lawyer Media).

Hats off to the ABAJ team for an ambitious adventure that demonstrates the strengths (and some of the weaknesses) of the exciting and sometimes overwhelming new technologies we are all grappling to understand and use.