Do you constantly minimize windows to get to your desktop to run a program - or to get to a shortcut on your desktop? If so, there is a great toolbar in Windows that allows you one-click access to your often-used programs, and to your desktop - no matter how many windows are open.

The Quick Launch Toolbar is one of the toolbars in Windows that is turned off by default. When the Quick Launch Toolbar is displayed, you now have access to all of the programs that you use on a regular basis. My favorite is the Show Desktop button.

You can follow the steps below to display the Quick Launch Toolbar, and move the Show Desktop button to the beginning of the toolbar for easy access. If you have problems with this process, you can click on the link at the end of this article to download the complete article which explains how to recreate the Show Desktop button (if it has been deleted), and how to move the button to the Quick Launch folder.

Here's what I do for all of my clients - and family and friends!

• Right-click on the Taskbar and uncheck Lock the Taskbar (if it is checked)
• Right-click on the Taskbar and select Toolbars - Quick Launch (if it is not already checked)
• Move the Show Desktop button to the beginning of the Toolbar
• Add shortcuts to their favorite programs

When you first display the QuickLaunch Bar, you will probably see a bunch of icons, i.e., Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, etc. You may not see the Show Desktop icon at the beginning of the Toolbar - however, it is probably still there. If your Toolbar is locked, and there are more icons than can fit in the allotted space, there will be a double chevron to allow you to select the other icons on the Toolbar.

Click on the chevrons to display the other icons. Point to the Show Desktop icon, and drag it to the beginning of the Quick Launch Toolbar. NOTE: Be careful not to release the mouse unless you see a solid black vertical bracket.

You can also delete any of the icons on the Quick Launch Toolbar that you don't need - they are just shortcuts, so you won't be deleting any programs. Right-clicking on any icon - select Delete and click Yes. You can also add anything (a shortcut, a file, or a folder) to the Toolbar by right-dragging it to the Toolbar. Again, release the mouse when you see the vertical bar and you will have 3 choices: a) if you are dragging a shortcut, select Copy, the shortcut will remain in it's original location; b) if you select Move, the shortcut is gone from it's original location; and c) if you are dragging a folder (or a file that is not a shortcut), select Create Shortcuts Here.

When the Quick Launch Toolbar is displayed, it is important to remember that you only need to click ONCE on an icon to launch a program, or open a folder. If you double-click, you may be launching the program twice, or opening a folder twice.

I love my Treo 650! The Treo 650 comes standard with a phone, Palm and camera, and gives you lots of other features like web and e-mail access - all for a pretty reasonable price.

You may have heard about the new Treo 700w that recently was introduced - and you may be thinking to yourself "Should I upgrade to the Treo 700w", or if you are considering buying a Palm for the first time, "Should I buy a Treo 700w".

First of all, the most important issue with the Treo 700w is that it does not use the Palm Operating System - it runs MS Windows. This means that if you want to synchronize it with Amicus, you would have to first sync to Outlook, then to the Treo. Not a great idea if you ask me! One other thing - the screen resolution on the Treo 700w has been scaled back, which results in a noticeable loss of sharpness.

The Treo 700w does have 2 advantages - it will connect to the high-speed Edge data network offered by Verizon, and it has a much better integrated camera. The former is helpful only if you want to do a great deal of web surfing from your phone (not a rewarding experience on a 240 x 240 screen). The latter may be meaningless to lawyers who often opt for the camera-free version of the Treo 650 to avoid security hassles at the court house. (Personally, I think the camera on my Treo 650 is great!)

So if you already have a Treo 650, rest assured that it remains the best smart phone for mobile lawyers. If you are considering buying a smart phone, you would definitely be Smart to buy the Treo 650.

(This article was taken, in part, from InTouch Legal's newsletter - sign up on their website for more legal news at www.intouchlegal.com)

Have you ever run across a locked record in Amicus? If you click on the Lock icon, it may show something like "This record is locked by XXX", where XXX is one of your Team Members. And that Team Member isn't even in today - so you know they aren't using the record.

A locked record can be anything from a File to a Contact to a Phone Call Record - when a record is locked, it doesn't always mean that someone is currently editing (or viewing) the record. Very often it means that someone was in Amicus - in that record - when something happened to their computer and shut down improperly.

Here's what I advise my clients - let all of your Team Members know that anytime their computer locks up or shuts down while Amicus is running, there is a possibility that something will become locked. Chances are that the next time they open Amicus, they will get a warning box that says "Amicus Attorney has detected that it did not exit correctly. Please make sure that you exit Amicus Attorney and Windows every time before shutting off your computer or you will lose data". At this time, they have to click on OK, and Amicus will open. Then I recommend that they exit Amicus, and ask the Administrator to unlock their records.

The Amicus Administrator can press Ctrl-S to view the User Status list (or select Users - User Management - Status). Then click on the Team Member's name, and select Users - Recover Functions - Unlock Records. This will unlock the records for the selected user.

If the records are not unlocked this way, one of the Team Members may run into one of the locked records at some time. This is a preventive measure to be sure that any potential locked records are unlocked before Team Members run into them. I also advise my clients that they may want to run the 'Unlock All Data' feature in the Amicus Administrator periodically - just in case Team Members do not notify you if Amicus closes improperly. Just be sure that all Team Members are logged out of Amicus prior to running the "Unlock All Data" feature.

If you are using Amicus Client/Server Edition, you have the ability to set an Automatic Backup in the Amicus Administrator. You can set the backup for any of the following intervals: twice a day (at 12 noon and 6pm), hourly (between 8am and 6pm), once a day (any time), weekly (Weds & Friday at any time), weekly (any day at any time), or Never.

There are a few things that are very important to know about Amicus backups. One is that the Amicus Administrator must be open for the backup to run. So if you are running Amicus Administrator as a service, you may normally keep the Administrator closed. If it is closed, the backup will only run whenever you open the Administrator. So unless you have a really good reason for keeping the Administrator closed, remember that the only way to allow the automatic backup to run is to keep it open.

The other issue with the Automatic Backup feature is the secondary backup location. A lot of Administrators believe that it is a good idea to create a secondary backup, in addition to the primary backup. I thought so too - until one of my clients ran out of disk space!

Here's why this could happen. In the Configure - Backup Options dialog box, you can set the Number of Rolling Backup Files between 1 and 99. My feeling is that 5 Rolling Backup Files is plenty! The big problem is that the Rolling Backups only applies to the Primary Backup - not the Secondary Backup! That means that if you have selected a Secondary Backup location, each backup will stay in the backup folder unless you (or someone else) deletes it!

So here's a scenario using my Amicus database as an example. My database is just a little bit over 19 MB; and I have my backups set for 12 & 6, with 5 Rolling Backup Files. The estimated space required for the total backups is 62 MB. Here's what happens: The first day, Backup 1 is done at 12 pm; Backup 2 is done at 6pm; on Day 2, Backup 3 is done at 12pm; Backup 4 is done at 6pm; on Day 3, Backup 5 is done at 12pm; Backup 1 is overwritten at 6pm; and so on. If I had the secondary backup set, Day 3 - 6pm would be Backup 6; Day 4 - 12pm would be Backup 7; and so on. So after 10 days of 2 backups a day, my backup location has just saved 248 MB of data? Now look at the size of your database - it is probably much larger than mine. With a 500 MB database in the same scenario, your backup location would be collecting 8 GB of data!!

So you may want to review your backup options, and look at the backup locations to make sure that you are not running out of disk space.