If you’ve signed up for our free trial, you probably noticed many new features this week. We’re most excited that we’ve significantly improved the PDF viewing experience in the browser. You can now view your PDFs across all major browsers without downloading them or leaving WarRoom. We’ve also made uploading PDF’s significantly faster and made it easier to take notes alongside the PDF that you are viewing.

PDF handling is extremely important to the workflow of most attorneys. Our goal is to create the best PDF viewing and note-taking experience on the web. Please let us know how our PDF handling is working for you.

We are excited to announce that all WarRoom accounts (including the free trial) now include Secure Socket Layer (SSL) 256-bit encryption at no additional cost. We have already enabled SSL for all existing users, so you can automatically take advantage of this added security feature.

We are committed to ensuring the highest level of security to our customers. To learn more about the security measures we take, visit warroomlaw.com/security.

We are excited to announce that we have opened our beta program to the public. Both public and private beta users get exclusive access to our latest features and updates. Visit warroomlaw.com/signup to become a beta user today.

I’ve decided to build a new social network. Here’s a screenshot: 

I’m calling it Cellbook. Will you sign up? Do you think you’d be happy using it? 

While Cellbook looks and sounds ridiculous, millions of people are forced to use software like this everyday. Business owners and managers spend billions of dollars on software that looks just like this. Why? 

Why would a manager refuse to use spreadsheet-like software to manage his social network, but have no problem subjecting his employees to stare at a spreadsheet for 8 hours a day?

Of course, there are a few good reasons to use spreadsheets. I would use a spreadsheet if I were doing some intense computational math. But for basic business applications we should be well beyond looking at columns and rows.

Both desktop and web applications are able to render views that talk to databases in the background so users never have to see them. Unless your goal is to make work miserable for your employees, it’s probably a good idea to find software with actual views and clean interfaces.

Don’t think the look of software makes a difference to your employees? Go spend an hour on your iPad, then spend the next hour looking at a spreadsheet on an old PC. Which do you prefer? There’s no reason why boring business software can’t be made to look as beautiful as the iPad apps you love.