Category: Office Tech

(Update August 28, 2018: I am delighted to report that the firm mentioned below, that had had a “C” rating for their web site security, has today corrected the problem and now has an “A” rating.)

There are many ways that a web site could be insecure.  One of the ways is to implement SSL (“https://”) poorly.  It turns out to be quite easy to find out whether your SSL implementation is strong or weak.  You simply plug your web address into the SSL tester provided by Qualys.  Maybe your web site will get an A+ rating!  Here are how some well-known intellectual property law firm web sites performed in this SSL test. Continue reading “How good is your web site security?”

Readers of my blog will recall that I have mentioned the importance of protecting your web site with SSL (meaning that the web site supports “https://”).  The SSL protects the visitors to your web site, as well as boosting your Google search ranking.  Now comes yet another smart thing that you should do to protect your web site — setting up DNS Certification Authority Authorization (CAA).  CAA is a thing that does not cost you any money to do, and you only need to do it once.  CAA greatly reduces the risk that a bad person could compromise the SSL protection on your web site.
Continue reading “A smart way to protect your web site — CAAs”

Recently I scheduled a PCT Seminar which will take place in Silicon Valley in October.  One question was, how to publicize it?  And I realized that one possible approach would be to mail out post cards to people in Silicon Valley who are registered to practice before the USPTO.

So the question was, how to accomplish getting post cards sent to these people?

In the old days, the way one would accomplish this is to go to a local printer, get post cards printed, put stamps on them, and mail them.  Or you would obtain a postal permit and go through the many steps required to mail such post cards without putting stamps on the cards.  And of course one would need to print address labels and put the labels onto the cards.

Regular readers of this “office tech” department of my blog can guess what is coming next in this blog article.  Of course it turns out that nowadays there are Internet-based ways to do this that are much more efficient and very inexpensive. Continue reading “How to mail promotional post cards”

When I founded our firm a quarter of a century ago, I did some of the things that were absolutely mandatory in those days, for example:

• Contact Martindale-Hubbell to get the firm listed there
• Get a postage meter
• Get a fax machine and connect it with a dedicated land line telephone line

We used to pay a thousand dollars a year for our listing in Martindale-Hubbell, but we dropped that maybe ten years ago.  We got rid of our postage meter, which used to cost us a hundred dollars a month, maybe five years ago.  And now in 2018 we have dropped our public fax number.  Maybe you should, too.   Continue reading “We don’t list a fax number any more”

Over the years I have usually been very lazy, paying little or no attention to my cell phone bill.  Years ago I sort of got into a rut, clicking around to use whatever cell phone plan on AT&T offered unlimited data and unlimited domestic calling and unlimited texting.  Maybe a year ago I found I was paying $180 per month, and then I got it down to $120 per month, and then with a phone call I got it knocked down to $80 per month.  I thought I was doing pretty well, and then realized that there are MVNOs that charge a lot less.  I finally took the plunge and now it looks as though I will be paying $23 per month for unlimited talk and text and data.  In this blog article I discuss factors that I think you might want to consider in possibly switching to a less expensive carrier. Continue reading “Saving money on your cell phone – Mint?”

In this article I will propose that you buy your next cell phone from a different place than before, and maybe you will save several hundred dollars.  Oh and toward the end of the article I will say a word or two for iPhone users. Continue reading “Selecting a new cell phone”

A few days ago I wrote a blog article asking readers all around the world to please try making a few test telephone calls.  I also sent out an email blast to our firm’s email mailing list, asking readers to please read the blog article and place a few test calls.  The goal was to test out some special telephone numbers in the 883 country code (called iNum numbers).  I was intrigued by the results. Continue reading “Results of the test telephone calls”

A loyal blog reader asked:

What prevents the U.S. telephone carriers from ending the use of spoofed caller-IDs? It would seem possible to put an authenticated (tokenized) caller-ID system in place for in-country calls that maintains the originating number, or at least flags the displayed number with some symbol if it cannot be authenticated.

This is a very good question.  The answer might surprise him. Continue reading “Why caller ID spoofing is not easy to prevent”

A decade ago some Internet geeks set up a new kind of telephone number — an “iNum” telephone number.  A regular telephone number always starts with a country code.  Calls to Switzerland for example use a country code of “41”.  Calls to North America use a country code of “1”.  Just by looking at the telephone number, you can see what country it is associated with.  But not iNum numbers. Continue reading “Calling an iNum telephone number”

When I launched my law practice back in about 1994, one of my first purchases was Foonberg’s excellent book How to Start & Build a Law Practice.  The advice given in Foonberg’s book is timeless and enduring.  To this day I urge anyone who is launching a firm to buy and read this book.  Continue reading “Foonberg’s Client Curve of Gratitude”