Tuesday Tip: Who DAT… What DAT

by Tony Rushin

This is definitely not a tip about the New Orleans Saints and their silly “who dat” phrase.  C’mon – we’re Falcons’ fans here.  Rise up!

This tip is about .DAT files:  specifically winmail.dat files that you may have received or that may have been reported to you from an email recipient.  Winmail.dat files look like gibberish to the recipient.

Inadvertently Sending Winmail.dat Emails

If you use Outlook, and a Microsoft Exchange server (in the cloud or at your company) sends and manages your email, then you may inadvertently be sending winmail.dat files to recipients who don’t use Outlook.  You really don’t know you’re doing it unless the recipient tells you.  If that happens, ask the recipient to take a screen shot of the email they received and send it – along with the email you sent – to your IT support person immediately.

This is a problem that can be easily fixed on your Microsoft Exchange server.  It has to do with Rich Text Formatting (RTF) and the Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) that’s used to send those emails (sorry to get all nerdy on you).  The TNEF settings need be correctly configured so non-Outlook recipients get HTML formatted emails (instead of RTF) so they can actually read the email or attachment.  I’m not going to get into all of the technical details but it’s a pesky problem because it can seem random and specific per recipient.  If you’re an attorney interacting with a new client this can be frustrating – especially when deadlines are looming and communication between the law firm and the client is crucial.

If your IT support person doesn’t know how to fix the issue, here’s a Microsoft resource and another resource to send their way.  In addition, here’s the method many of our engineers use (note: the fix is applied on a per email address basis since you don’t want to force the entire firm to send all messages in plain text or RTF):

Modify the recipient’s entry in the Personal Address Book

The sender can use the following steps to remove the RTF format from the recipient attribute in the Personal Address Book:

1. On the Tools menu, click Address Book.
2. In Show Names From, click the Personal Address Book.
3. Select the addressee that you want to set as plain text, and then click Properties on the File menu.
4. In the SMTP-General tab, click to clear the Always send to this recipient in Microsoft Exchange rich text format check box, and then click OK.

Receiving Winmail.dat Emails

The surest way to fix the problem is to contact the sender and have them fix it on their end (see above).  However, what if the IT department on the sending end isn’t as responsive as you’d like them to be?  Are there any ways you can take matters into your own hands and fix the problem on your end?  The answer, thankfully, is “yes” but the receiver-side fixes aren’t always foolproof.  If you receive winmail.dat emails from a frequent sender then it’s worth the effort to get it fixed on the sender end.  Here’s a short blog with some good receiver-side solutions.

Now if you get a winmail.dat email, don’t get frustrated and say “who dat” or “what dat” – take action and “do dat”!

Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA.  We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms.  Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value are the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firms.  This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly.  We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.

NFMGMA May 2013 Educational Session – Marketing Your Practice

Jamie Verkamp – (e)Merge: Medical Marketing Consultants

by Richard Stokes

Every day, in just about everything we do, we’re quite literally bombarded by advertising from all forms of media that want us to either buy something or take action on something.  Think about it: with television, radio, the Internet, email, telemarketers, magazines and billboards – to name a few – we’re surrounded.  Most of it becomes background noise to me, but if the timing is right and I’m looking for whatever it is that is being marketed and it’s marketed well, I will pay attention.

So, you ask, what does this have to do with physicians’ practices?  Well at this month’s North Fulton MGMA meeting we’re going to hear from Jamie Verkamp with (e)Merge, a medical marketing consulting firm.  Jamie is a keynote speaker, leader, facilitator, trainer and consultant for (e)Merge and has become a nationally recognized thought leader in the healthcare industry.

Jamie is going to be taking us through an in-depth look at medical practice marketing.  Specifically she’s going to explore:

• What drives the patient decision-making / ”buying” process
• How practices can better “speak patient” in their marketing messages
• What marketing / advertising channels are available
• How to determine which marketing efforts are best for your practice and your practice’s goals
• Common mistakes that many healthcare organizations are making
• How to avoid those mistakes and lots of examples of practices who are “doing it right”
• How to make wiser decisions that will ultimately increase “word of mouth” advertising and referrals to your practice
• Marketing tactics that are low-to-no cost and can mean big savings and big ROI when implemented properly
• All things related to social media  

Jamie says that marketing, and the right marketing for practices, is so important today because patients are now consumers of healthcare.  More healthcare spending takes place out-of-pocket and in many instances, patients have more options with insurance companies on what providers they can choose.  What this means to providers is that there’s more competition so you’ve got do what you can to ensure the patient will choose you.

In addition, practices are under mounting pressure to cut costs and spend wisely. Marketing, when done effectively, is one area where wisely-invested dollars can be tracked and a clear ROI can be measured.

The top three points Jamie wants us all to leave with are:

• A better understanding of how to connect your marketing message with your target patient
• At least one low- or no-cost tactic that you can implement into your office right away
• A good story to tell your physicians / managers / staff about one of the successes shared during the session  

After the meeting she hopes you will be able to better identify if you are making one of the top 5 marketing mistakes and be able to immediately implement one of the “point-of-care” (AKA “in office”) marketing tips that she’ll share during the session.

Jamie highly encourages your interaction so please ask questions during the event.  She also says that the following are good resources for more information about the topic:

• Their website: www.emergewithus.com and Twitter feed
• MGMA national website – great blogs, articles and the media section is full of several good books related to the topic of marketing
• Get more active on LinkedIn and the MGMA group – it’s a national list serve with a wealth of information
• Get involved on Twitter! A number of organizations, administrators and physicians are now “tweeting” and it can be a great place to research and share information. Some of the hashtags that relate specifically to healthcare social media and healthcare marketing are; #hcsm (healthcare social media), and #hcmktg (healthcare marketing). Many thought leaders share lots of insights through these hashtags and she says she learns something new every day by following these two key conversations. 

This is going to be a very educational meeting so if you haven’t already registered for this month’s event, what are you waiting for?  Feel free to share this with your peers and colleagues and invite them to attend as well.  North Fulton MGMA.

Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA.  We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms.  Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value are the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firms.  This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly.  We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.

Tuesday Tip: Comcast Still Stinks

by David Gracey

It has been several years since I have griped about Comcast so I figure it is long overdue. I have somehow managed to lull myself into a sense of calm with our home Comcast service, or maybe it’s just that Comcast hasn’t done anything in a while to ruffle my feathers and I have a short memory. But their consistent lack of commitment to customer service and delivering a quality product is so astounding that we all need to be reminded. Unfortunately their service has been this way for years.

The Gracey family has a fairly simple setup at home. The irony is that I run a technology company but we have a pretty low tech home system. We have a three TVs that each need a cable box, one DVR, Internet and telephone.  Louise and I watch only a handful of channels, including the big broadcast networks (If we are home on Fridays, 20/20 is on.), the news channels and occasionally History or The Weather Channel. The girls watch Disney, Nickelodeon, Animal Planet (Shark week, Cupcake Wars and Phineas and Ferb are favorites) [it bothers me that I know the correct way to spell Phineas and Ferb!] and we rent an occasional movie. When I can pry the X-Box controller out of my 13-year-old son’s hands, he watches ESPN. So we are talking, what, 10 channels or so? (I would complain about only paying for the channels one watches but that’s an entirely different rant for a future Tuesday Tip).

Three years ago when we switched to the “triple play,” we reduced our overall monthly expenses by eliminating another abomination of a company, AT&T, and moving our phone line over to Comcast. A small victory eliminating AT&T but I was now all in with Comcast, which makes me twitch.

So my latest bill came from Comcast and showed a 30% increase from the prior month. A voice in the back of my head said that the “special” pricing we had gotten years ago had finally expired. Louise volunteered to call their customer no-service department to inquire. Sure enough (and an hour later) we confirmed we were now on their regular pricing model and had to fork over almost $200 per month. And we don’t even have premium movie channels!

But the biggest problem of all is that Louise has a Comcast email address. A year ago when we faced the prospect of having to fire Comcast, I told her that she would have to get a Gmail account. That was a grim day in the house of Gracey. Animals and small children hid. She was depressed for days and we hadn’t even made the switch. But the situation was avoided when Comcast relented on their price increase. Time has a way of making things better so this time around, Louise just said “let’s get this thing done.”  So regardless of the Comcast issue, we are going to climb the “email change” mountain so we are free-and-clear to fire Comcast if we can’t get a better rate.

So thus here is the pain I must endure:

1. Get on AT&T’s website to get a competitive price for similar service.

2. Call Comcast (another hour), ask for the retention department and then threaten to jump ship if they can’t match the pricing.

3. If that doesn’t work, call AT&T and have one of their cavemen come rip up our house.

Wish me luck.

Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA. We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms. Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value are the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firms. This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly. We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.

Technology Converts Time into Money for your Law Firm

It is evident that in today’s world integrating technology into your business to improve efficiency is immensely important. Law firms can leverage technology to implement new processes and serve clients more effectively. Implementing technology into your law firm will convert time into money.

Technology is the driving force behind efficiencies in business processes. According to Schwab’s 2010 RIA Benchmarking Study, firms with a proactive view of technology—those that see it as critical to their business strategy—leverage technology more effectively, and therefore achieve significant time and cost savings. With the help of technology, your law firm will become more efficient allowing you to save time, take on more cases and make more money. Actually, what you do with that efficiency and time savings is entirely up to you; here are a few of the many good ideas we’ve heard:

• Coach your son’s t-ball team (like this patient father http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZJfMK7pFOU)
• Take on the pro-bono cases you’ve always wanted to.
• Go to the mountains – whenever you want.

Work Remotely

IT systems give you remote access to your company’s electronic network, so you can work from home or when you are out of town on a business trip. This in turn increases productivity which ultimately gives rise to profits: That means better pay and less strenuous working conditions.

Relationships with clients

Automating processes creates a consistent environment, helping reduce errors and improve efficiency while creating a consistent experience for clients. Having Network 1 support your IT needs will allow you to spend your new-found time seeking out new clients and creating stronger relationships with your current clients.

Protecting Information

A well-designed and implemented IT security and disaster recovery plan will protect the firm’s valuable records. According to an article in Science Daily, IT security engineering systems protect your electronic information from being hacked, or wiped out during a technological disaster.

Integrating information technology into your law firm can help improve internal operating efficiency and quality. Our managed IT services help law firms bill more hours, keep the rain-makers making rain and let the attorneys do what they do best: practice law. 

Ready to build a better IT relationship? Give us a call to learn about Worry Free IT.

Network 1 Consulting, Inc.
(t) 404.943.0800
email: info@Network1Consulting.com

 

Tuesday Tip: Lost Your iPhone? Can’t Find Your Spouse?

by Richard Stokes

I once heard someone say that despite what you might think, people aren’t looking for a single device that does everything.  Rather they’re using multiple devices and choosing the one that best fits the setting.  For example, in a doctor’s office you wouldn’t find a physician using his/her iPhone to take notes during a patient consultation and conversely you’re not likely to see a physician holding an iPad to their ear to make a phone call.

As a result, many of us, myself included, own multiple devices and I can only imagine what it would be like if I ever lost or misplaced one of them.  Remember when you only had to worry about walking out of the house with your wallet and keys?  Now you’ve also got to keep up with your smart phone, iPad and maybe even a laptop.

So before it happens to you – get the app ‘Find my iPhone.’

This is a fantastic tool that gives you the ability to track, locate and even erase the data on the misplaced or compromised unit from another linked device.

The first thing you need to do is install the app on all the iOS devices you own and want to keep track of (iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads).  Note – the app is centrally tied to your Apple ID so you can’t add other devices that are not registered under you.  There is another app, detailed later, that allows you to link to friends and family in this same manner.

Now, let’s fast forward and say you’ve lost one of them:

• Open the ‘Find My iPhone’ app from one of the other devices that you loaded the app on (you can also do this from your iCloud account)
• You will be prompted to enter your password
• Tap on ‘devices’ and all the devices you have registered will be shown
• Tap on the device that is lost and it will pull up a map using GPS that will show you the exact whereabouts of that unit (It does have to be turned on – otherwise it will only show you its last known location)
• Once you’re in the general vicinity of it and you’re still having a hard time finding it (i.e. – it’s lost between the sofa cushions) you can instruct it to play a sound to help you pinpoint it

If it’s not turned on you can activate a feature called ‘Lost Mode’.  This will not only lock the phone, which can only be unlocked by a 4 digit passcode that you set, but you will also be emailed when the phone comes back online again.  You can then track it via the GPS system.

To connect to devices outside of your control there is an app called Find my Friends. As the name indicates it’s used to connect with other users for the same purposes.  This does, of course, assume they agree to you being able to track them.  Anyway, an interesting and timely use of this application was during the tragic events that occurred at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

A friend was participating in the event and had given his iPhone to his wife to hold while he was running.  After the incident, he and his daughters were trying to locate her but couldn’t call because the cell phone network was down.  So, using his daughter’s iPhone they were able to locate her by using the ‘Find My Friends’ app which found his iPhone and hence her.

For some additional information on how to use the ‘Find My iPhone’ app and how to get the most out of it take a look at this article: http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Lost-iPhone.  Bottom line – save yourself the headache and future stress and get the app – it’s free!

Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA.  We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms.  Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value are the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firms.  This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly.  We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.

Tuesday Tip: XP Sunset – Less Than 1 Year Away

by Tony Rushin

Microsoft’s incredibly popular, and stable, operating system – Windows XP – is less than one year away from its sunset date of April 8, 2014.  For good measure, Microsoft is also ending support for Office 2003 on that same date.  After that time Microsoft will no longer provide security patches or other updates to the software.

XP was “born” on August 24, 2001, so it will be almost 14 years old next April… that’s nearly 98 years old in operating system years!  XP has been a workhorse and still, according to Global Stats, is running on nearly 24% of the PCs in the world (as a comparison, 6% run Vista, 52% run Windows 7 and 3% run Windows 8).

Since no support means no security patches, you can rest assured that the bad guys will be targeting these 24% of PCs next year.  Don’t take the risk of being exposed; start planning now to upgrade your PC.  Even if the bad guys don’t get you, 3^rd party software and printers will stop supporting XP which means you won’t be able to print or run your favorite software if you hang on to your Windows XP machine for too long.

Here are some tips to help you plan your upgrade:

Business

• Plan to replace at least 25% of your XP machines each quarter – starting now – so they are all replaced by March 31, 2014.  For example, a law firm that has 8 XP machines should plan on replacing two machines each quarter for the next four quarters.
• Don’t load a new operating system on an old PC; buy a new PC with Windows 7 on it.  Most likely if the PC is running XP it’s 4+ years old.    The time and pain involved to upgrade an old, slow PC will far outweigh the price of a new computer.
• Yes, we said to buy a new PC with Windows 7 on it.  Windows 8 has some great, and fun, features but it’s not ready for wide deployment in the business world (see David Gracey’s Tuesday Tip: Windows 8 – Is Upgrading Worth the Hassle?).  Business-class PCs will have the option to get Windows 7 preloaded on them for another year or so.

Home

• Have some fun and buy a Windows 8 machine if you’d like.  Consider Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet or a touch screen PC to take advantage of the features in Windows 8.
• A caveat to the above: If you use your home PC a lot for business, you should probably stay away from Windows 8 for now.  However, you may need to search pretty hard for a consumer-grade PC that will come with Windows 7 preloaded.
• If you can wait for Black Friday there are typically some bargains – both bricks and mortar retail plus on-line.  On the last two Black Fridays I’ve gotten a good laptop deal: at Best Buy for my wife’s home-based business and on-line from g for my son at Georgia State. 

Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA.  We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms.  Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value are the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firm.  This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly.  We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.

Tuesday Tip: Excel Conditional Formatting

by David Gracey

This tip is for fellow Excel nerds out there. It will probably be old news for you financial advisors and other folks who work daily with Excel. Regardless of whether you have heard of “Conditional Formatting” or not, this tip is for you.  As sad as this sounds, much of my life centers around Excel spreadsheets: computer inventory sheets, monthly bank account summaries and lists of varying types.  I’ve used Excel most of my adult life but until recently I had never used Conditional Formatting of cells, so this was new to me.

Let’s say you have a list of some sort and you have several columns of information.  At work we keep track of our clients’ computers, when they were purchased and what software runs on them.  It is important to know the age of the computers because each year, our clients budget for purchasing new computers.  Having this information handy allows us to make informed decisions about who is going to get a new computer this year.  Below is the spreadsheet that we use:

Column E is the date the computer was purchased.  I want to show the newest computers in green, older computer in yellow and really old computers in red.  This really helps the oldest computers stand out and lets our clients decide when Adam will get that new computer he’s been waiting for.  I’ve created a formula behind the scenes that automatically changes the color of the cell based on the age of the computer.  If I were to manually fill each cell with the green/yellow/red, then I’d have to adjust it each time I printed out the spreadsheet.  A much better way is to use Conditional Formatting and create 3 rules.   Here’s how:  highlight the cells you want to format, in my example that’s cells E7 thru E20, and click on “Condition Formatting” from the HOME menu bar.

That will bring up a dialog box where you click NEW RULE.  In my case I create three rules, one for each color.  The tricky part is to know what formula to enter to get the desired results.  You can use a cool function, TODAY(), that returns the value of today’s date.  When you subtract 1,096 days from today, you get a date 3 years ago.  So make the color for that RED by clicking the FORMAT button and choosing a fill color.  The result will be a RED cell for any date older than 3 years ago.

Save this rule and create two more rules, one for green and one for yellow. Now every time you open the spreadsheet, the colors will be updated based on the current age of the computers.

Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA.  We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms.  Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value is the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firm.  This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly.  We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.

---