♫ You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one…♫
Music and lyrics by John Lennon.
In the Supreme Court of the United States decision in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, decided Feb 25, 2008, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. quoted John Lennon’s lyrics from Imagine (in full in a footnote) and referred to them in the text of his opinion. He asked:
” What, for example, is “the message” of the Greco-Romanmosaic of the word “Imagine” that was donated to New York City’s Central Park in memory of John Lennon? See NYC Brief 18; App. to id., at A5. Some observers may “imagine” the musical contributions that John Lennon would have made if he had not been killed. Others may think of the lyrics of the Lennon song that obviously inspired the mosaic and may “imagine” a world without religion, countries, possessions, greed, or hunger.”
Litigators and those seeking to persuade juridical bodies or indeed, people in general, have come to realize the strong message and imagery that song lyrics create in our minds and in our imaginations. They evoke not only an intellectual component, they also reach into the emotional and the sensory sides of a person’s mind. If a picture is worth a thousand words, is a song worth a thousand pictures? We are moving up the scale in terms of being able to connect with as many different components of a person’s personality and thinking processes as we can when we bring in musical, lyrical and emotional components to our work.
In a world filled with digital information at our fingertips, just imagine where all this can take us! You may say I am a dreamer, but it looks like, courtesy of Judge Alito, I am not the only one…
♬ My kind of town, chicago is
My kind of town, chicago is
My kind of razzmatazz
And it has, all that jazz…♬
Lyrics by Sammy Cahn, Music by Jimmy Van Heusen, recorded by Frank Sinatra.
On April 2-4 in Chicago a once-in-a-year, not-to-be-missed event will take place. This year – of all years – should be the year lawyers, administrators, legal technologists, researchers and anyone involved in the delivery of legal services makes a bee-line to TECHSHOW in Chicago. Why? Simply because this recession is the best opportunity to upgrade your systems and technology to be able to take advantage of the upswing (that is coming, notwithstanding the financial news). It is difficult to either introduce new technology or get people to change when they are going gangbusters…hence the Stephen Covey 7th habit: “Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal”.
This economic downswing is the perfect opportunity to take a step back, examine not only what you are doing from a business perspective but also how you are doing it. What principles of workflow and efficiency can you apply to your practice? How do you determine what are the best strategies for you and your firm? What have other firms done and how well is it working for them? Lastly but certainly not least, what can you do for yourself to improve your own personal productivity and effectiveness?
I have found TECHSHOW to simply be the best resource in this regard. The collection of minds that assemble and speak, discuss, go out for dinner and mingle are the ones that will stimulate you, raise issues and ask questions at a depth equalled nowhere else.
The keynote speaker is non other than: Richard Susskind, OBE, who has 25 years of legal technology experience, and serves as Chair of the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information and has been IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England. In an interview in The Times Online, Richard states:
Sir Richard will no doubt be addressing similar themes in his keynote, based on his latest book: The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services. But Richard is but one voice to be heard at TECHSHOW. There are 60 other notable presenters (including many Canadians: Nils Jensen, Steve Matthews, Joel Alleyne, Jean-François DeRico, Dominic Jaar, Peg Duncan, Donna Neff, Dan Pinnington and yours truly).
Tracks range from “A Day in the (techno) Life” to Solo and Small Firm, Trial Skills, e-Discovery Update, Tech for Financial Management and others. Sessions range from Records Management Policies and Systems: Back to the Drawing Board? to Getting to Paperless: A Lawyer’s Step by Step Guide, Got Apple Envy? Macs in a PC World and my two personal perennial favourites: 60 Sites in 60 Minutes and 60 Tips in 60 Minutes. There is also the full exhibit hall to visit with its incredible array of legal technology offerings.
By registering as an early-bird by Feb. 28th, combined with a program promoter discount, you can save $150 off the full registration cost. The Law Society of British Columbia’s program promoter code is: # EP929 and the Canadian Bar Associations’ is: EP927. A full list of program promoters may be found here.
Chicago has all that jazz (and blues!) and it also has my kind of Conference…TECHSHOW is…I hope to see you there.
♫ Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten.. ♫
Words and music by Natasha Bedingfield, Danielle Brisebois, Wayne Rodriguez, recorded by Natasha Bedingfield.
I was greatly saddened today to read in the New York Times of the passing of John Mortimer QC, the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey. Horace Rumpole, the consumate British barrister who was never destined to be awarded a well-deserved “QC – Queen’s Counsel” designation, lived large in the pages of the books written by Mortimer, forever quoting his lifelong mantra: “Never plead guilty!” Rumpole lived for the law, he never compromised his ethics and he sought justice when lesser lawyers would have taken an easier path.
Following his days fighting Judge Bullingham in the Old Bailey, smoking his small cigars, he would return to his mansion flat at 25B Froxbury Court to be greeted by: “She Who Must be Obeyed” namely his wife Hilda, herself the daughter of a prominent QC and the former Head of Chambers where Horace practices.
Rumpole set the standard for the trodden, but not beaten, barrister – who continues to hold his head high notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of life.
John Mortimer QC was quoted by the NYT as being in the “schizoid business of being a writer who had barristering as a day job.” Budding writers would do well to follow his example and ‘live your life with your arms wide open, for your book is still unwritten’.
To Sir John, tonight I will be raising a glass of “Chateau Thames Embankment” and toasting his memory…and saying a quiet word of thanks for many many hours of enjoyment spent with my friend Horace Rumpole.
♫ Doin it right, doin it right,
Doin it right, doin it right ♫
Words and Music by Tom Lavin, recorded by the Powder Blues Band.
This post inaugurates a new thread for this blog – the technology-oriented “Cheap is Good but Free is Better!” thread. This thread will concentrate on how to do more with less. It is a response to today’s economic situation and is intended to be a collection of cost-effective tips for technology in a law office.
This first post is on how to create a PDF of something that is on your desktop – presumably something that is displayed in a browser. It could be an image, it could be instructions that are on the screen (but you don’t want to print the whole web page)or it could be video playing in a browser.
If you are on a PC, at the simplest, you can use “print screen” (by pressing both shift and ‘PrtScr’ on your keyboard) in Windows to capture an image of your desktop. Then go to ‘Paint’ (click on “Start” then “All Programs” then “Accessories” then “Paint”) and then paste the screen capture image into Paint (click on “Edit” then “Paste” in Paint). From there, if you only want to use a part of the image, select a portion of the image with your mouse and right click in the middle of the box to cut out that section and save it to your clipboard.
You can save the final cropped selection as a:
- monochrome bitmap (*.bmp, *.dip)
- 16 color bitmap (*.bmp, *.dip)
- 256 color bitmap (*.bmp, *.dip)
- 24 bit bitmap (*.bmp, *.dip)
- JPEG (*.jpg, *.jpeg, *.jpe, *.jfif)
- GIF (*.gif)
- TIFF (*.tiff, *.tif)
- PNG (*.png)
If you want to make it into a PDF, you can use one of the free PDF conversion sites on the web such as:
- Primo PDF (http://www.download.com/PrimoPDF/3000-10743_4-10264577.html?tag=lst-0-1). Note that there are no licence restrictions on Primo PDF, which is probably why it is #1 most popular Business & Productivity software download on CNET’s Download.com.
Of course, on my Mac – I just use “Grab” (“Finder” then “Utilities” then “Grab”), which comes with OS X. From there, you can choose between:
- Selection
- Window
- Screen
- Timed Screen
and save your image as a *.TIFF or print it as a *.PDF (which saves it as a PDF file).
Back to the Windows world for a moment, if you want to get fancier than what MS Paint will do, you will have to go to something like:
- SnagIt (http://www.techsmith.com) – thanks Diane Ebersole
- Gadwin PrintScreen (http://www.gadwin.com/
printscreen/) or IrfanView (www.irfanview.com) – thanks Nerino Petro - Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp) – thanks Jim Calloway
- Adobe Captivate (http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate) – thanks Catherine Sanders Reach.
Either way you can be doing it right for little or no cost!
♫ Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way…♫
Words and music by James Lord Pierpont.
At this time of the year I would like to wish each and everyone the Best of the Holiday Season and a Happy New Year. This upcoming year will be a challenging one and as such I hope for Peace, Hope and Happiness for all.
As has become my tradition, at this time as my gift to you I offer a few minutes of reflection. I hope this slide show and music (please turn your speakers on!) brings to you a time of calm and joy. The music is of course, Jingle Bells by James Lord Pierpont and is performed by the Argyle Alumni Choir, Argyle Senior Secondary School, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Frances Roberts, Director. Used with permission.
This is also a bit of an experiment in hosted slide shows. You can select two different versions – one is on SlideShare – the other is on YouTube.
I find the images much sharper on SlideShare – but the music/picture synchronization is a bit jerky and odd. YouTube doesn’t have the sync problem, but the images are much less sharp.
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: bilinsky roberts)
Best wishes for a safe holiday filled with warmth, comfort and good cheer!
(Thanks to Steve Matthews for technical assistance in hosting the slide show).
♬ Three is a magic number
Ya it is, it’s a magic number
Somewhere in that ancient mystic trinity
You’ll get three
As a magic number…♬
Written and performed by Bob Dorough
Steve Matthews, the creator of the Canadian Legal Blog Awards, has just announced the 2008 Clawbie Nomination process. True to Steve’s creative and delightfully quirky mind, rather than just submitting a nomination, he has invited people to nominate three Canadian Legal blogs via a blog post.
Never being one to turn down a creative challenge, here are my three choices to kick things off:
1. Slaw.ca: Hardly day goes by where I don’t look at Slaw and see what is on people’s minds. The cooperative weblog idea is a powerful one – here we see web 2.0 concepts in action – and the resulting dialogue between posts and comments makes the blog totally fresh and intriguing. The points of view come from all across Canada. The topics are driven by what the Slaw community feels is important. It is like being part of a great big respectful conversation that never stops – and never stops being interesting. This is my nomination for Simon Fodden and the rest of the crew for crafting, nurturing and growing this ever so Canadian social legal blog.
2. Twitter. OK, now I know Steve will say this isn’t a blog per se. Nor is it a Canadian blog per se. But it is a micro-blog – and there is a community of Canadians twittering – and tweating and listening to each other and to others – on Twitter. I think these Canadians have crafted their own collective micro-blog on Twitter – and it is fascinating! Where Slaw is about a big, deep, thoughtful community, Twitter is about being part of a different, dynamic, ‘flow of consciousness’ community. The Canadians in the Twitter community know who they are – but that doesn’t get in the way of anything. This is really about having a dialogue with people. Kevin O’Keefe (an American, if that matters) just posted to Twitter on the Clawbies while I was writing this. Twitter is everything about breaking legal and technology news and being involved – or part – of the story at the same time. So my nomination is for all the Canadians who are on Twitter and crafting their own micro-blogging community within a community!
3. law21.ca: Jordan Furlong is doing great things on his blog that deals with what my old mathematics professors would call inflection points. These are points where a function changes curve and interesting things are happening. Jordan is extraordinarily skilled in picking up on those inflection points in the legal community’s function and providing insightful commentary thereon. Well thought, well done and well received. Keep up the good work Jordan – my third nomination.
And so I encourage you to visit www.clawbies.ca and read the nominations and nominate a blog or two yourself! Oh – and Vote too! That makes three – nominate, read and vote – an ancient magical trinity!
♬ Now that ain’t workin… that’s the way you do it… ♬
Words and Music by: Mark Knopfler and Sting (Thomas Sumner), recorded by Dire Straits.
Those of you who have been reading my chronicles of my movement over to the “white side” (as I am referring to my adoption of my white MacBook) know that I have been struggling with porting over PowerPoints that were developed on the PC onto the Mac. In some cases, the PowerPoint would open in PowerPoint for the Mac, but some (or all) of the graphics in the PowerPoint slides would be simply *gone*.
Now I knew that what I was doing was not working – but for the life of me, I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. I finally went searching out on the web and found a blog entry that stated that if the graphics had been simply “cut and pasted” into the PowerPoint, that these graphics could not be ported over when the PowerPoint was opened on the Mac.
So I went back to the PC – opened one of the offending PowerPoints…copied each graphic inside the PowerPoint and saved it as a JPG file. Then I deleted it from the PowerPoint and used “insert” and “picture” and selected the JPG version of that same graphic to drop it back into the PowerPoint. I did this for every graphic (it actually doesn’t take all that long, since you already have the graphics that you want) and finally saved the PowerPoint. Then I opened it on the Mac. Voila! All the graphics were there in glorious colour.
So for anyone else who is facing this problem – that’s the way you do it!
♬ Apple fall out of the tree and hit the ground
…
Ohhhhhhhh watch out for that gravity storm
It don’t give no warning signs
Ohhhhhhhh watch out for that gravity storm…♬
Words and Music by: Jimmy Buffett, Jay Oliver, recorded by Jimmy Buffett.
My old cell phone is dying and as such, this started me thinking about a replacement. “Why just get another cell phone?” was the question that I asked. Being laptop-centric, I have not had the same ‘pull’ towards a BlackBerry that others have felt, but still the appeal is there…
So in thinking about the BlackBerry, I decided to think a bit wider (and with my recent Mac-focus), I was interested in comparing the new BlackBerry Storm (on www.Telus.com) with the iPhone (on www.Rogers.com). While the web pages seemingly make it difficult at times to compare different products between different vendors (see a bit later in this post for more on this topic), this is what I came up with in terms of a comparison (any inaccuracies are my fault):
Now onto my experiences in trying to find out this information!
Telus makes it practically impossible to find out any meaningful information on the BlackBerry Storm – the ‘Specs’ page is skeletal at best. I found I needed to go to: http://www.blackberry.com/blackberrystorm/specifications.shtml to get any kind of meaningful info up on the Storm. Worse yet, the Telus web site is circular…you start clicking on links to try to delve deeper, only to end up back where you started after wandering a crooked path…
Apple Inc. isn’t much better. If you try to find out the applications that have been developed for the iPhone, the website says that you have to browse the App Store using iTunes. Now – consider this – you are in an office environment where the IT department has locked down your desktop. iTunes is *not* going to be an application that most businesses will support on the desktop. So – what do you do? Call them (1-800-MY-APPLE). Well…the fellow who answers says: “Just install iTunes”. I counter with: “I can’t – the desktop on my computer is locked down”. His answer: “Well, find a computer that has iTunes”. I say: “This isn’t helping me. If you are serious about bringing in business users, why don’t you just list the applications that are available in a web page?”
This exchange only highlighted to me that the Mac fellow in the “I’m a Mac – I’m a PC” ads needs to listen to his PC counterpart, at least in terms of meeting the needs of business users a bit more. Unfortunately, it only reinforces the image that the Mac-world is still too consumer-centric for serious business users. As a result, I think Apple had better watch out for the BlackBerry Storm…
(Thanks to Steve Matthews for helping me sort out how to paste in the comparison table to the blog post!)
♬ That’s what it’s all about
Hey, this is the life I couldn’t live without… ♬
Words and Music by Craig Wiseman, Steve McEwan, recorded by Brooks & Dunn.
The continuation of the chronicle of the pluses and minuses of living with a Mac.
First the minuses.
This part of the post has less to do with the Mac as it does about Microsoft – which was part of the reason why I went to a Mac in the first place – to try to experience something other than being held captive to the Windows – Microsoft environment. I am learning you can run but you can’t hide – even on a Mac.
I am called upon to give presentations extensively and since I need to work and share presentations with others, this meant that I use PowerPoint (and the entire Microsoft Office suite for the Mac). Despite the fact that it is a Microsoft product, it is very Mac-like in how it operates. But there are times when you need to visit the Microsoft website – for example, when you wish to download the Clipart that Microsoft makes available for PowerPoint users. I give all due compliments to Microsoft for the Microsoft Clipart collection – it is wonderful and I thank Microsoft for continually updating it and adding new graphics to the collection. My PowerPoints would be very boring without them!
But – here is where it gets interesting. Downloading MS Clipart into a PC is a bit of rigmarole – but at least it is a fairly straightforward rigmarole. Not so when you are using a Mac.
Once you realize that the same process for downloading Clipart for the PC does not work for a Mac, you start searching the Microsoft help section of the Office website for more info. MS takes you to a web page on configuring MS Explorer to download MS Clipart. Problem is, MS stopped supporting MS Explorer for the Mac when Apple brought out Safari. I don’t even think you can find MS Explorer for the Mac anywhere. No luck here.
Thank goodness for Mac users who have struggled with this and posted their tips on the same MS web page that talks about configuring MS Explorer (I note that there is no assistance offered for configuring Firefox or Safari to download Clipart …but I digress).
The process is as follows (this is all after you have selected the clipart, clicked on ‘download’ and gone thru the MS consent approvals):
“Click the cipart you want, and download it. After you have saved the file to your desktop, add the extension .cil to it. After this, you can import it: Have Word or Powerpoint open, go to “Insert Clipart”, choose import, and direct to the file you just downloaded.
Good luck, Oliver Reiser”
Except that this doesn’t quite work any more – you also need to follow this tip:
“I noticed when I imported the clip into Clip Gallery, that even though I had added the .cil extension, the file was still not available for me to select–it was light grey. While on the Import window I had to go to “Enable” and select “Microsoft Office Online Files” from the drop down box. Only then did the .cil file I could see in light grey become black, and allow me to select it for import..”
Then the clip is imported into MS Clipart Gallery (except that it isn’t sorted into the categories that MS has established such as “people” etc….all the Clipart you import is loaded into just one folder. I guess you have to sort it yourself). You can then finally copy and paste the clipart into your PowerPoint. Whew!
I couldn’t have said it any better than:
“Megan Poore: Gee. Could Microsoft make this any harder for Mac users?”
I would only add that you have to do all of this each and every time you wish to download a piece of Clipart.
Sheesh!
And to continue the saga regarding Clipart in prior PowerPoints done on a PC – I am still experiencing the loss of Clipart when I open the PPT in MS PowerPoint for a Mac. I am still at a loss on how to stop this from happening.
Ok – enough for the minuses.
The pluses of living with a Mac so far:
1. The screen. Even thou my MacBook is only a 13 inch screen, it is certainly the best screen on any laptop I have ever used. Bar none. I have the fonts set quite small and yet I don’t have any difficulty reading the words on the screen, without the use of reading glasses. Photographs are simply stunning on this screen.
2. The keyboard. One of the things that I disliked about most keyboards is the constant ‘click click click’ when you are working. Not on the Macbook. The keys are wonderfully tactile yet quiet. The keyboard doesn’t take away from your concentration.
3. The consistency. The menu bar in every Mac program has ‘things’ in the same place. The drop down menus don’t reorder themselves or default to a silly short list that only ends up wasting time when you are searching for something that you can’t seem to find and you are not sure of what it is called.
4. The ‘sleep and wake up’ function. When I was on a PC laptop, about half the time the laptop would not ‘wake up’ from a stand by or hibernated state – and I ended up with 5 minutes of wasted time while the laptop rebooted (and I risked the loss of data resulting from the crash). The Mac goes to sleep – instantly – and wakes up just as fast. Every time. Without the need for a reboot. I leave all my applications open on the MacBook and forget about them – there isn’t the concern that Windows will crash and I risk corrupting files as a result.
5. Wireless connectivity. It seemed on the PC that I was spending long periods of time trying to connect to different wireless networks – trying to recall the different protocols for each network (was this one WEP? What was the password? Etc…). Not so on the Mac – it connects with ease and remembers the passwords for me. Nothing could be easier.
All in all, the experience in moving to the Mac has been positive. Yes, I miss my right-click (sigh – I am getting used to the keyboard shortcuts as a result). I am adjusting to the ‘two-finger drag’ that is the equivalent to the scroll on the PC. But the frustrations of living in the PC- Windows world are fading and now I find myself wishing I was using a Mac instead of a PC when I am in the office with the Law Society of BC instead of only on my own time. I sincerely think my productivity would go up and the lost time fighting with PC-based problems would diminish. Isn’t that what it is all about? I am quickly becoming adjusted to the life that I couldn’t live without….
♬Gone gone gone, she been gone so long
She been gone gone gone so long…♬
Words and music by Bill Henderson and Brian MacLeod, recorded by Chilliwack.
This post is concerned with Clipart and in particular, how my Mac handled the Clipart on my old PC.
This particular story has two parts. The first was a quirk; the second has become a real concern.
Dealing with the first situation: I have lot of digital photographs that I carry around on my laptop. Needless to say, since I now carry my MacBook, I wanted my digital pictures on my spanking new MacBook.
The process to port over the pictures was straightforward – I copied them onto a portable USB hard drive and then connected the drive to the MacBook and told the MacBook to copy the pictures into iPhoto, the photo software that came with the MacBook.
It did a fine job –in fact, too good of a job. The problem is that the Mac also saw the folder that contained my downloaded Microsoft Clipart photos that were on the portable hard drive – and copied all those Clipart photos as well into iPhoto.
Now my digital pics are intermingled with the MS Clipart photos and now I have to figure out how to get the Clipart photos out of the iPhoto folder and into the Clipart folder on the Mac or simply just delete them (which I really don’t want to do since it is a large amount of Clipart). I would have hoped that the Mac would have detected that the images were from different folders and asked me whether to preserve the folder structure. Oh well…all in all a minor quibble.
I have to say that the digital photos do look wonderful on the MacBook screen, which is excellent. A nice touch is the MacBook allows you to set up a screen saver with your digital pictures (similar to the Windows screen saver) except on the Mac, it will display different photos on your dual monitors at the same time. That was a nice twist and a welcome one at that. Furthermore, the Mac’s picture transitions are well done.
However, moving to the second concern: along with my digital photos I also copied over all my presentations that were created in Microsoft PowerPoint on my old PC. I have given many presentations over the last few years and accordingly, there were a lot of PowerPoints to copy over. One in particular was a Web 2.0 presentation that I presented at the annual meeting of the College of Law Practice Management in September in Chicago. I have been requested to present this same presentation at the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section’s meeting in Arizona this month. This particular presentation has a lot of graphics in the form of clipart photographs included within in the presentation. It was created in the latest version of MS PowerPoint (2007).
To my dismay, when I opened this PowerPoint on the Mac, half of the Clipart images were simply *gone*. I was looking at big blank spaces on the slides where the images should have been. PowerPoint on the Mac stated that there were ‘conversion issues’ in moving the PowerPoint onto the Mac.
Now I am concerned – I have the PowerPoint on a USB flash drive with me and will borrow a PC in order to give this particular presentation. But does this mean that all my existing PowerPoints created on a PC will have a large portion of their graphics dropped when I open then in the Mac version of PowerPoint? The main reason for acquiring Microsoft Office in the native Mac format was to ensure compatibility between all my old data which now resides on my Mac but which was created on PCs. I am now living with a degree of uncertainty that I simply did not want or need at this point.
I can’t help but think how much of my data is now gone, gone, gone….