Sometimes I am dense. I’ve been reading blogs for years (and now blogging myself), but I never stopped to explain to those folks who may be new to blogging what a “blog” is and why subscribing to blogs can be a great idea.  As someone who may have stumbled on to this blog via a search engine search or a link from another site and who may not really understand what all this “blogging stuff” is all about, I thought it would make sense to briefly explain what blogs are and how you can subscribe to a blog to bring interesting information to you (instead of you having to go out and search for info).

As someone who loves to “play” with new technology (just ask my long-suffering wife!), I sometimes forget that other folks barely tolerate or even hate new technology (folks like my Mom, whose VCR has been flashing 12:00 for 3 years.)

But what I have found is that even these technology-haters will embrace new technology when it serves an interest or need in their lives. So I thought I would use this article to explain why I think everyone can benefit by reading blogs on topics that interest YOU. And trust me, there are blogs on virtually every topic you can imagine from the most exotic hobbies, to travel, to professions, to sports, to technology, etc. If you have an interest, there is bound to be at least one and maybe hundreds of blogs that discuss that interest in great detail.

Put most simply, a “blog” is simply a great way to have information delivered directly to you AND, if you wish, for you to be able to send your comments, questions or ideas back to the blog author.

The good news about the automatic delivery of blog articles is that you don’t have to go out and hunt down information– once you have subscribed to a blog (I will explain how easy it is to subscribe to blogs below), new information is automatically sent to you whenever the blog author writes a new article. That means no more having to go back to a website you enjoyed to see if they have added any new information since the last time you visited– you just sit back and let the new stuff be delivered to you.

As for being able to add your own comments to the blog: This lets you share in the conversation about the topic with both the blog author and the blog readers. The two-way communication between the author and readers can be very interesting and thought provoking. Commenting is totally optional and if you just want to be a silent blog reader you can easily do so for as long as you want without ever posting a comment.

So how do you subscribe to a blog? Let’s use mine as an example. If you like what you are reading here and have an interest in topics involving New York law, you can easily subscribe to my blog several different ways:

The easiest way is to just sign up here and we will automatically send new posts to your email address.

Another easy but more sophisticated way to subscribe is to use something called an “RSS Reader”. This is software that goes out and automatically grabs the posts from any blogs you have subscribed to and pulls them back on to your computer in one convenient location for your reading pleasure. If you already have an RSS Reader installed on your computer, you can just hit the Subscribe button on our blog.

If you do not have an RSS Reader, you can download a great FREE RSS Reader at: www.google.com/reader.  Google’s Reader is great and the price can’t be beat!

Want to learn more about blogs? You can download a cute and highly informative video about them by going to http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs.  They also have a great explanation of RSS here.

Happy blog reading!

Jim
_________________________________________
James B. Reed, Esq.
Personal Injury & Malpractice Attorney
Ziff, Weiermiller, Hayden & Mustico, LLP
303 William St., Elmira, NY 14902
Tel. (607) 733-8866  Fax. (607) 732-6062
Toll Free 1-800-943-3529
mailto:jreed@zifflaw.com     http://www.zifflaw.com 

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E-mail can be a tremendous tool for the busy trial lawyer trying to stay in touch with his clients and office.  In fact, I LOVE E-mail and I frankly advise new clients that the best way to keep in touch with me is via E-mail for two reasons:  (1)  E-mail is easy to file in our case management software so I always have ALL the details of the E-mail to refer to as the case progresses, and (2) I respond more quickly to E-mails than I do to the phone (that’s probably a personal quirk of mine but I find myself always turning to my E-mail Inbox first and my Voicemail second– my thinking is that since I have this quirk, it’s better to embrace it and use E-mail than to fight it!  :-) 

But E-mail can also be VERY dangerous if not carefully used.  A billion dollar oooppppsss by an attorney illustrates the point.  A lawyer for the drug company giant, Eli Lilly & Co., was working on a billion dollar drug case.  This lawyer had two people named “Berenson” in her Outlook Contacts:  one Berenson was co-counsel in the case and the other Berenson was a New York Times reporter. 

By now you are probably guessing what happened with a “confidential” E-mail that the lawyer was mailing to her co-counsel regarding a “confidential settlement” that they were working on in the case….. Yup, it got emailed to the Times reporter rather than to her co-counsel.  Can you say OOOOPPPPSSSS?

The moral of the story is a simple one:  Always, always, always check to make sure that the TO: address in your E-mail is the correct person.  For those of you who use Outlook, you may want to consider turning off the Auto-Complete function that automatically inserts an E-mail address as you type the first few characters of the E-mail address.  Some people also configure a default Delayed Sending feature in their E-mail program so that ALL emails are automatically delayed a certain period of time– this permits you to delete an E-mail IF you discover your mistake before the E-mail sending time.

The bottom line is Be Careful and Practice Safe Computing.  The computer CAN be our best friend or our worst enemy…..

Thanks for reading,

Thanks, Jim
_________________________________________
James B. Reed, Esq.
Personal Injury & Malpractice Attorney
Ziff, Weiermiller, Hayden & Mustico, LLP
303 William St., Elmira, NY 14902
Tel. (607) 733-8866  Fax. (607) 732-6062
Toll Free 1-800-943-3529
mailto:jreed@zifflaw.com     http://www.zifflaw.com 

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Have you ever experienced the frustration of trying to find a zip code for a particular address? Well, the good news is that there are several easy ways to find a zip code:

• Google it! Just put in a simple search: zip code Elmira, NY. It will provide the various zip codes for Elmira.
• There are many internet search sites that can provide area codes: Addresses.com
• Most phonebooks have a page in either the front of the book listing all the local zip codes.

If you are looking for local zip codes in our area of the Twin Tiers (Upstate NY) here is a pretty comprehensive list:

Read the rest…

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