SOFTWARE, HARDWARE & BOOKS
Binder 2.0
SPbinder
SurePrep
http://corp.sureprep.com
The rich and varied history of the traditional
office binder stretches all the way back to
the first patent issued for one, in 1854, and
includes a remarkable stream of improvements in the U.S. and Europe, from adding
rings and putting holes in the spine, to the
critical technology of reinforcement labels for
structurally compromised punched holes.
That’s all over.
As with everything else, the digital world
has consigned much fascinating physical
history to the dustbin of, well, history — but
with huge gains in efficiency. Consider, for
instance, SurePrep’s SPbinder, a Web-based
electronic binder and workflow system that
makes it far easier to organize, prepare and
bookmark your firm’s tax workpapers. It lets
you simply drag and drop scanned documents into place, and includes a comprehensive set of annotation and sign-off tools
to streamline return preparation and review.
It has cross-referencing and automatic reports to track sign-offs; helps standardize the
presentation and review of your workpapers;
and can even identify missing documents.
Perhaps most important, it will never pinch
your fingers.
management solution. It stores documents,
integrates with e-mail, and helps streamline
workflow and ensure compliance with document retention and destruction policies just
like the Software-as-a-Service version, but
keeps the data firmly within your firm’s control and off the cloud.
feature if you should happen to lose half of
the device. Einstein, we have no doubt, would
be impressed.
Fewer refills
WorkForce Pro line
Epson
www.epson.com
offers five different conversion methods to
make sure you get exactly the results you desire — or at least, the best results available
within the law. Remember, one of the main
goals in both situations is avoiding prisons,
Turkish or otherwise.
Life on the Moon
Sheetster Pro 4
Extentech
www.extentech.com
Putting spreadsheets on computers was like
putting a man on the Moon — an amazing
achievement, but one that begs the question,
what next? What’s next for spreadsheets is
to take them online, which is what Sheetster
Pro does, making it much easier to deploy,
share and collaboratively edit spreadsheets.
The latest version of the open-source spreadsheet server, which is compatible with Excel,
includes enhancements to the user interface
to make it more familiar, and to allow users to
embed personalized, programmable live data
charts and tables into blogs and Web pages.
It’s the difference between going to the Moon
once, and living there.
Plans and goals
Strategic Planning and Goal Setting
for Results
The Rosenberg Associates; $95
In the course of his eternal research into
what makes firms tick (and tick better),
firm management expert Marc Rosenberg
discovered that even though many were engaged in strategic planning, the results they
achieved varied wildly. This latest in his series
of monographs is a compilation of all the best
practices that make the difference between
creating a strategic plan and actually fulfilling it.
Spooky action
iTwin
i Twin Inc.
www.itwin.com
In quantum physics, two atoms can become
entangled so that, no matter how far apart
they are physically, a change to one imme-
diately affects the other. Einstein called it
“spooky action at a distance;” we call it a lot
like the i Twin, a neat little device that lets you
connect two computers securely and with-
out cables, no matter where they are. Leave
half the device plugged into
your desktop,
As soon as the “Toner low” light on the lo-
cal printer starts blinking, we here at New
Products stop printing, terrified of being the
last person to get a readable printout — and
of thus becoming the person responsible
for changing the toner cartridge. If we had
one of Epson’s new line of WorkForce Pro
printers and all-in-ones, these slow-downs
would happen less frequently, as the line
comes with new extra-large ink cartridges.
They also have more paper capacity, to help
avoid the “Load paper” light, and faster print
speeds to cut down on the “Stop lingering
near the printer and get back to your desk”
light. The all-in-ones let you scan to PDFs for
document management, and include built-
in Wi-Fi networking, and they all come with
Epson Connect, a collection of cloud and
mobile services that let you print directly
from a mobile device.
Before the lawsuits
Decisiv Email 3. 6
Recommind
www.recommind.com
There’s a reason the words “incriminating”
and “e-mail” appear so often together: Lawyers know that some of the most important
(and sometimes damning) information in
companies is stored not in their official databases, but in the millions upon millions
upon millions of e-mails sent and received
every day by their employees. But unless a
company has sophisticated e-discovery tools
(or dozens of underpaid paralegals whom
you can bill at high rates) to sift through them
all, it can be hard to get at all the valuable
information hidden within them.
Recommind’s e-mail management solution, Decisiv Email, lets employees file and
access e-mails quickly and easily, with pre-dictive features that suggest where an e-mail
should be filed in the system, and search
features to help you find it when you need it.
The latest version, 3. 6, includes mobile filing
and access tools so users can file and search
for e-mails from their iPhones, Androids and
BlackBerries, full integration with Outlook
2010 and Exchange 2010, and the ability to
instantly sync Outlook folders with Decisiv
Email folders.
Foreign adventures
Forex Converter
IceStat and AlphaBricks
www.icestat.com
Get off my cloud
ProSystem fx Document
On-Premise
CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
http://cchgroup.com
The cloud’s great and all, but it’s not necessar-
ily everyone’s cup of tea. For those who prefer
to keep their feet on the ground, CCH has
released ProSystem fx Document On-Prem-
ise, a firm-hosted version of its document
and plug
the other half into
your laptop or another com-
puter while you’re on the road, and you can
access all the files on your desktop without
having to make copies or multiple versions,
and back up the contents of your remote
computer to your PC back in the office. It
leaves no temp files when unplugged, offers
hardware-grade encryption and two-factor
authentication, and has a remote-disable
Attempting to convert a spreadsheet full of
financial data in some foreign currency is
like being interrogated by a Turkish customs
officer with a brick of heroin taped to the
small of your back: You want to get it over
with as quickly as possible, but you also want
to be extremely careful to get every answer
right. The Web-based Forex Converter lets
you convert entire Excel spreadsheets all at
once, rather than one value at a time, and
New and improved!
Intuit Inc. has allied with Verizon Wireless to offer Intuit’s GoPayment app and
pocket-sized credit card reader in Verizon’s
retail stores and business-to-business sales
channels. ... Insperity Inc. has expanded the
mobile app for its ExpensAble Corporate expense management solution to Droid and
BlackBerry devices, in addition to iPhones.
... AuraPortal has launched its Online Commerce Module, which allows companies to
sell products on the Web. ... If we had an iPad,
we would love it and pet it and call it George,
but we would also get it one of Newer Tech’s
NuGuard GripStand 2/GripBase Bundles,
which include a protective plastic shell to
keep your iPad safe, a detachable handle to
make it easy to hold, and a variety of stands
and temporary mounting options to make it
easy to view.
