Instructor's Bio:

THE LAW OFFICES OF DOUGLAS SMURR provide its clients based in Guatemala and Mexico with a unique service - immediate personal access to attorneys practicing in California and the United States Federal Courts. The firm delivers this service from its offices and affiliates located in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Mexico City, and Guatemala City, and offers its clients transactional, litigational, and negotiational representation in the following areas: International Business Transactions, International Trade, North American Free Trade Agreement, Business Negotiations, Corporate, Partnerships, Joint Ventures, Licensing, Franchising, Mergers, Contracts, Real Estate, Wills and Trusts, Trademark, Copyright, Immigration, Litigation, Collection, and Diplomatic Law.

Due to his extensive personal and practical experience of living and working in both the United States and Latin America, Mr. Smurr understands the needs of his clients in a manner that is unmatched by other attorneys. In addition, THE LAW OFFICES OF DOUGLAS SMURR maintain professional relationships with various governmental and regulatory bodies in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, Tijuana, Mexico City, and Guatemala.

Mr. Smurr received his Juris Doctorate in 1987 with an emphasis in international trade and business transactions from McGeorge School of Law, and graduated on the Dean’s List. In 1983, he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of California, Davis, in International Relations with a concentration in Latin America Affairs. In addition, Mr. Smurr served as a staff writer, and Legislation Editor of the Pacific Law Journal. During the mid 1980's, Mr. Smurr worked for the California Senate Select Committee on The Pacific Rim, where he drafted and interpreted legislation, and helped in the formulation of California’s trade policy toward Mexico. Since 1995, Mr. Smurr has served, and continues to serve, as an Instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA), Extension Department of Business and Management. The courses he teaches include: Doing Business in Mexico, International Business Management, Introduction to International Business, and Doing Business in Latin America. Mr. Smurr is the author of a two-volume book entitled: Doing Business With Mexico, Academic Publishing Service, 1996. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Smurr served as Director of the Latin American Department for the law firm of Frank, Greenberg & Simone at its Los Angeles office.

In addition to his transactional experience, Mr. Smurr has extensive litigation, trial, appellate, and arbitration experience in both the California state and the United States federal courts and various arbitration bodies. His trial experience includes a favorable jury verdict of more than $800,000.00. Mr. Smurr is a member of the International Law Section of the State Bar of California, as well as a Member of the International Law Section of the Los Angeles and San Diego County Bar Associations. Mr. Smurr is married to Liliana Ferrer, a Mexican national, and member of the Mexican Foreign Service. Currently, Ms. Ferrer serves as the Deputy Consul General in Guatemala City.

Students' Bios:

Information to be supplied

Email ALL of your graded assignments through the Embanet program to the Grading Room.

Do Not email your assignments to my private email address (smurfer@guate.net.)

SPEED TIPS

If you find that the internet is running slowly, get off the net and try getting online at a different hour. For example, my internet provider gets really busy between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. So if I plan on being on the internet for a while I always avoid those hours. Usually, I find that early in the morning and late at night is when there is the least amount of congestion.

Another problem may be that you have a bad connection. Even though my “Connect To” window states that I am connected to my server at the fastest rate, I constantly find that the connection has “passed out.” Try disconnecting from your provider and then immediately reconnect. If you do not notice an immediate improvement in the speed, the chances are your provider is congested and there is nothing you can do but wait. If your provider is congested, disconnect and try it again later. Most of the time, however, I find that disconnecting and reconnecting solves the problem.

If you note that the website you're trying to download is sending you data but there is a long time delay between the bits of data you are receiving, hit your Reload or Refresh button. This will reconnect you to the website, and hopefully provide you with a faster connection to the remote server.

Lastly, each time you visit a site your browser places all of the information on your computer's operating memory (RAM). If you visit a lot of sites, like I do, this will quickly use up your available RAM and seriously inhibit the speed of your computer. In extreme cases, it causes your computer to freeze up.

To avoid this problem, you should clear your browser's cache memory every once in a while (if your computer has less than 32 MB of RAM you should clear the cache more frequently). To do this in Netscape, select the "Edit" drop down menu, then go to "Preferences", then select "Advanced", followed by "Cache", and finally click on the "Clear Memory Cache" button. In Microsoft's Explorer, select the "View" drop down menu, select "Options", then select the "Advanced" tab, and finally inside the Cache box click on the "Empty" button.

MINIMIZING ONLINE TIME

Saving To File
The easiest way to minimize your time on the internet is to save the web document you are viewing. Before you save such files you should create a Temporary File on your hard drive. You may name the file what ever you like. You should save all of your webpage documents into this file.

Once your browser has completely loaded the document, click on the "File" drop down menu on the upper left corner of your browser, then select “save as” from the pop up menu. When a window comes up asking where you want to save the file, direct your browser to save the document in the temporary file you just created on your hard drive. Name the file that you are saving something that is easy to remember and make sure the file is saved in the HTML format.

After you have saved all the documents you desire, disconnect and get offline. Once offline, you may reopen the documents you just saved. To do this, again click on the "File" drop down menu on the top left corner of your browser. If you are using Netscape, select the “Open Page” option. If you are using Microsoft’s Explorer select the “Open” option.

Your browser will then ask you what file you wish to open. Select the “Choose File” button for Netscape users, and the “Open File” button for Microsoft Explorer users. Then direct your browser to the temporary file that contains all of the saved files (they should all end with: .html or .htm). Once you have the file you wish to open highlighted, click the open button, and voilà, there is the webpage you wanted. Now you may read or print the document as you wish.

Printing Files
As soon as your document has loaded fully, you may print out its contents. After you have sent the print command to the printer, you may move on to your next website. in this manner, you may read the information at your leisure.

Printing Select Pages
With both Netscape and Microsoft Explorer you have the option to print only selected pages. To do this select "File", then “Print” and then in the print pop up window enter the pages you wish to print in the “Print Range” box.

A problem you may run into is determining which page numbers of a multi page document you wish to print. In Microsoft’s Explorer, and in the older versions of Netscape there is no way to determine the exact pages - you just have to guess and print a page and adjust accordingly.

For those of you using the newer versions of Netscape you have the capability of scrolling through the document printer page by printer page before you actually print out the document. To take advantage of this great option, go to the “File” button and then select “Print Preview”. This option saves me a lot of paper and printing toner.

If you encounter difficulties with using Embanet first go back through the notes or pages you printed out from the Orientation classes you took and see if these address your problems.

If you can get online with Embanet, go to “Student Services” and then to “Technical Questions” to receive online assistance.

If you cannot access Embanet, you may contact either Andy Lapin (your Course Manager) or Sarah Techa (your Assistant Course Manager) at the following telephone numbers or email addresses:

		Andy Lapin 1-800-784-8436 ext. 248 alapin@onlinelearning.net
		Sarah Techa 1-800-784-8436 ext. 246 stech@onlinelearning.net

If all the above fail, you may contact me via fax or email at the following addresses:

Douglas Smurr 011-502-365-4691 (fax) [502 is the code for Guatemala] smurfer@guate.net