Peer to Peer Magazine

WWW.ILTANET.ORG 29 We used BitLocker on every laptop to ensure that if they were lost or stolen, the echo data stored locally and system access would be safe. We permanently set the keyboard/mouse inactivity lock setting to 15 minutes to eliminate potential malice exposure of our "always ON connection." If someone left a laptop unattended, it would lock in 15 minutes and be protected by BitLocker. READY FOR ANYTHING The past three years with this setup have been a great success. The system is rigid but very stable and performs business tasks extremely well. The widespread availability of Wi-Fi and cellular data connectivity makes the seamless part of the laptop work wonderfully. Our attorneys and paralegals are almost never disconnected from the office, which is a good thing for the firm. Our billable hours have increased, and the attorney/paralegal reviews of our setup have been overwhelmingly positive. CONNECTIVITY We used Microsoft's Direct Access product combined with Windows 7 Enterprise when handing out the laptops. Sure, it's a virtual private network (VPN) solution; however, the VPN connection is created at the point of logging into the laptop versus an extra application that must be opened and logged into. This eliminated several steps and a plethora of mouse clicks for our attorneys and made the entire VPN experience feel seamless. We nicknamed it "the always on connection." Once you are logged in to your computer with your network ID, you can immediately access all the firm's resources. INSURANCE POLICY We implemented Microsoft's User Account Control (UAC) to ensure the programs on the computer stayed consistent and to ensure nothing conflicted with our fine-tuned setup. The biggest complaint we have received is that our laptop setup is not very fun. However, to keep the laptops healthy, we stuck to our UAC guns. If users need a critical program, we can access their computer wherever they are and load it for them. We also have a special UAC user account where the password changes every two hours using a simple PowerShell script. This special UAC account can be provided to a trusted user to install an approved program themselves. We also implemented email retention rules, which helped keep local OST files lean. (OST files are files in Outlook that can be accessed offline.) We also pushed users to save important items in the document management system versus folders within email. We have set retention policies on mailboxes and size limitations. PROTECT THE INVESTMENT To ensure the laptops were not physically tortured, every employee signed an agreement to take care of the equipment and keep it safe. The laptops have held up well, and negligent behavior has been nonexistent. We have had some cracked cases and damaged buttons, but overall the condition of our laptops is excellent, especially considering how much our international attorney population travels. used this perception to our advantage. We installed solid-state drives (SSD) to make normal processing much quicker, and to eliminate boot-up wait time. In our nonscientific tests, the SSD gave us an overall performance boost of 10 times. I've read several articles that agree with our findings. The laptops boot in only a few seconds. This gives the user a sense of speed and starts their laptop experience on a positive note. It also gives the cell or Wi-Fi connection the time necessary to get "settled" before the user makes demands on it. PREPARING EMPLOYEES We had all employees go through a training process, which included an intense section on remote working with Wi-Fi or cellular networks. During training, we set expectation levels related to remote Wi-Fi/cell connections versus our in-office gigabyte connectivity. We encouraged users to practice at home, so when they are on the road they are comfortable switching between Wi-Fi and cell. One major advantage of this approach was that they would already know their hardware worked at home so they could travel with confidence knowing their equipment is fully operational. If a problem were to arise, users could start troubleshooting their Wi-Fi or cell connection before contacting the helpdesk. We needed users to understand the wireless technologies and not just follow a set of generic instructions. Even instructions with a complex flowchart could not accommodate the variety of obstacles they might encounter. They needed a good understanding to succeed. We set up all of our software to work in offline mode all the time. This way the software acted the same whether users were in the office or traveling. We added remote control software to every laptop so we could access their computers wherever they were to troubleshoot or support them. This also gave us insight into connectivity issues. If we could not "see" them from the remote control software, we could communicate that they had no connection to the Internet and needed to rectify that before gaining access to the system. We needed users to understand the wireless technologies and not just follow a set of generic instructions.

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