Tag Archives: cloud

Inky E-mail is an Attractive New E-mail Client

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Posted in E-mail Management, Macintosh, Windows and tagged , ,

Microsoft Outlook’s e-mail is the behemoth in the legal world.  Lawyers who don’t use it are likely using one of Microsoft’s free products (Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail) or going directly to their Web e-mail.  Inky is a new e-mail application that installs on Windows and Mac and provides an attractive alternative for those not using Outlook.

Inky describes itself as cloud-enabled.  It’s a bit confusing because you don’t actually do anything on their site.  Once you install Inky (octopus logo!), you tell it how to access your Web mail or other e-mail servers.  It automatically loaded settings for both Google Mail and Yahoo! Mail, which is now common among e-mail clients, including Zimbra and Thunderbird.  It also picked up my own mail server, which has custom settings, and this impressed me because I added 3 accounts without actually configuring anything.

The cloud element of Inky appears to be entirely a processing function.  They store your Inky password on their site, but it is encrypted.  Their FAQ says that their staff can access neither your password nor information about your e-mail.  When you open Inky on your computer, the cloud servers synchronize what you see on your computer with what’s in your e-mail accounts.

I am really attracted to the interface.  It’s exceptionally clean – it reminded me of the very crisp MetroTwit twitter client – and the layout is intuitive. The default view is a unified inbox.  As you can see below in the Windows client, the feel is very much of a modern Web site.  There is a scrolling icon bar on the left with clear flags for new messages.  The icons either use a product logo, for Google Mail for example, or common icons for things like Compose Mail (envelope with pencil).  When you click the inky logo at the top left corner, the menu widens to give you full labels.

inky-unified-inboxI really liked the drop down menus at the top where I could quickly switch to view just unread e-mail or go to a specific account.  If you leave the inbox and view just the Google Mail account, you will have a folder list at the top that reflects your inbox and other Google Mail labels.

The compose mail view is also clean and easy to use.  If you are using Web mail, you’ll find the toolbar similar to the options in Google, Yahoo!, or Outlook.com Web mail sites.  It will access your contact list for auto-filling the address and you can send from any of your configured accounts.

inky-compose-screenIt lacks the integration with calendars and other tools that products like Microsoft Outlook and Thunderbird offer.  On the other hand, it has some additional filtering tools to automatically flag mail as a subscription, for example, and have an icon on the left menu show you when you have new messages that apply.  You can’t customize what goes in to these so you may still want to rely on setting filters in your Web mail account and having e-mail sorted into folders before you access it with Inky.

It’s hard to know where Inky is going, since it’s a free application and very new.  If you need a lightweight, easy to read and use e-mail client, Inky will fit your bill.

 

 

Managing Cloud Files in the Cloud

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Posted in File Management and tagged , , ,

Otixo is a way to create seamless file sharing between multiple cloud accounts.  If you are using cloud services to manage your files, you may also have created more than one account with one service.  Otixo attempts to provide a single management layer for those accounts.  The best known – Dropbox, Box.com, Sugarsync, Microsoft’s Skydrive, Google’s Drive – are just the tip of the iceberg.  The latter two are free with your broader Live.com or Google.com accounts.

My personal experience is to use one account for personal files that are synchronized between my home PC and any mobile devices I use.  A second account is used to synchronize specific, non-personnel content from my work computer to the cloud.  In this way, using one service or the other, I can keep a cloud copy of work I have in progress or that is already completed.

I tried out Otixo to see how it worked. It was easy to add multiple cloud accounts and, once created, I could shift a file from one to the other without having to first download it to my computer.  This is not something I do often but I can see how it would be useful.  It means you’re making a copy of a file but – if you’re on an unencrypted mobile device, for example – it means that copy is not leaving an encrypted environment.

Otixo creates a single management dashboard for your cloud file synchronization content.

Otixo has has the ability to share resources from more than one account in what they call a space.  Say, for example, that I was working with colleagues and some of my files were in Google Drive and others were on Dropbox.  Rather than having to move those files to a single resource, I can create a single resource that can incorporate the content from the original sources.  The activities function shows the latest activity the space.  You can select collaborators with which to share information.

My use of cloud storage is relatively limited to providing a backup point of access.  Otixo’s tools aren’t really relevant in that environment since I’m not moving content around.  Another possible  use would be if you are changing from one service to another and just want to drag your content over.  Otixo charges for bandwidth used but free accounts start with 2 GB of transfers a month.  If you are managing your information across multiple cloud file services, it could fill a management need in simplifying your access.

Greplin Goes to Full Indexing

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Posted in Document management, E-mail Management, File Management, Research Management, Search and tagged , ,

If you use Google Docs or Mail or store your files in Dropbox, you should be aware of Greplin. It enables you to search your mail and documents stored in the cloud (here’s my previous post about it). Greplin recently announced that it was now indexing full content stored in Dropbox. Before this, a search in Greplin would return just documents whose titles matched your search query. Now the results will be based on an index of the full text of your documents.

As before, Greplin is a personal tool. Although you can access it from anywhere you have an Internet connection, you log in to your account to search across your other cloud services. No-one else can search Greplin and see your information.

Windows Mesh and Microsoft SkyDrive are Dropbox Alternative

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Posted in Document management, File Management, Windows and tagged , , , ,

Online backup and file synchronization have gained a lot of interest since Dropbox came on the scene. Lawyers who are comfortable using the cloud for file storage can drop a file on their computer and have it automatically copied up to Dropbox’s servers. When you are out of the office, you can access those files from anywhere with an Internet connection. You can also have those files automatically copied back down to another computer, keeping your home and office PCs synchronized. There are a number of other products that edo the same thing, including Box.net and Sugarsync.

Windows 7 users can also use Windows Mesh, which provides a synchronization tool to your Microsoft Skydrive account. While Skydrive provides 25 GB of free storage space, you can only sync 5GB of it using Mesh. This is comparable to the free storage of 2GB at Dropbox and 5GB at Sugarsync.

Why would you use Mesh instead of Dropbox? There is no question that Dropbox is the pre-eminent storage utility site, having been extended with extra scripts by its users or integrated into other products, like Rocket Matter’s practice management. If you need that extra space, though, it is nice to have some archival storage space up in the cloud. Using a Microsoft sync product may also mean that your overall environment is simplified by relying on their products for more of your functionality.

Search Your Personal Cloud with Greplin

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Posted in Add-on, Document management, E-mail Management, Evernote, File Management, GMail, Screencast, Search and tagged , ,

I ran across an old New York Times article mentioning Greplin, an interesting cloud search tool.  The site will index your information from online services you use, sites like  productivity tools like Google Docs and GMail and Evernote to social media and research tools like Facebook and Twitter to file storage sites like Dropbox.com and Box.net.  Lawyers who are moving their practice further into the cloud and off their local machine may need a replacement for the desktop or internal search tools they were using.  Greplin is a great option.  Here’s a 4 minute screencast on how it works:

The Greplin index remains on their servers so, like all cloud-based content, lawyers should consider whether the index – which contains the text of files stored the services Greplin searches for you – contains confidential information.  You should review their privacy policy and particularly the section on encryption.

I have had an account with Greplin for awhile and was converted to a free account when they rolled out a premium version.  I haven’t been a big fan because I search from my browser and rarely remembered to go to the Greplin site in order to search.

They have fixed that and rolled out a Google Chrome extension for the service.  Now that I can search from my browser without going anywhere, it is more likely to become an integral tool for me.

Print Off Your Research Through the Cloud

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Posted in Android, Apps, BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, Macintosh, Windows and tagged , ,

One of the challenges lawyers will face as they become more mobile is how to manage their information. There are obvious ways if you can keep it electronic: print to PDF or save it in its native format and upload it your cloud-based storage or e-mail it as an attachment. There are some documents that you may need to save in print and we are starting to see some interesting options developing for printing from anywhere. While Google Cloud Print is getting a lot of press, it is not the only game in town.

Let’s look at Google Cloud Print first.  When it was initially released, it would only find locally-connected printers.  So despite leveraging the Internet, networked printers weren’t available.  That’s changed and – once you’ve configured it through Google Chrome – I can now see both my networked laser printer as well as my locally installed printers, both physical and virtual, like PDF printers.  It’s free but it’s usefulness is limited.  It will only work from Cloud Print enabled resources, and there aren’t many.  It’s obviously early days, though, and this is going to have a big impact for mobile researchers.

Printershare is an alternative and it has a free version that is essentially a trial.  You can print 20 pages and then you need to upgrade. Mobile users may be particularly interested in Printershare because you can print from just about anything and it will find nearby printers using WiFi and bluetooth networks.  Using the Printershare Android app, I could locate nearby printers as well as printing back to my own, remotely shared printer.  Printershare is available for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android.

PrinterOn is another print-via-the-Internet resource, based here in Canada.  You can download and install your own free version of their PrintWhere software.  They also offer an iPhone/iPad app as well as one for Blackberry.  Once installed, the PrintWhere software discovers available printers.  When you send a print job, it is encrypted and sent from PrinterOn’s servers to your printer.  I wasn’t successful at getting their software to run, but I’m inclined to see it as a problem with my machine (and perhaps Windows’ firewall) in light of the success they’re having bringing PrintSpot (printing hot spots) online.

There are other ways to print remotely by configuring your network to allow Internet-based print requests to come in and find your printer.  That’s great if you’re comfortable managing that set up, but I’m going to keep my eyes on cloud-based printing as it seems to be the easier way to have printer access when I’m away from my network.