♬ Love Is In The Air
Love is in the air everywhere I look around
Love is in the air every sight and every sound …♬

Music and Lyrics by Harry Vanda, George Young , recorded by Tom Jones.

MacBook Air 2011

This is a guest post by my friend Sherry Katz, a recovering lawyer and now computer forensics consultant.  I loved reading Sherry’s articles on technology when she was a lawyer/technologist and now I love her articles as a forensics consultant.  Her advice on the new MacBook Air is posted here with her consent:

I have use of several laptops as I use them in my work (forensic analysis, ediscovery).  Among them are an 11″ Macbook Air, a 13″ Macbook Air, and a 17″ Macbook Pro.  I also regularly use a couple of Dell laptops and a few HP laptops.

The current generation of the Macbook Air is amazing.  I work with technology every day, and the new Macbook Air is the best and most fun to use laptop I’ve ever had experience with.  The lack of a network adapter is not a problem.  I got a device for $15 that adds a network port and three USB ports through the USB.  The use of screen real estate is ingenious, and the 11″ is as efficient and viewable as a 13″ PC.

Performance is stunning.  Even with the i5 processer and only 4 MB of RAM, boot time is less than 10 seconds, and everything happens instantly.  Programs open in a snap. The touchpad is great; the only usable touchpad I’ve found. (more…)

♬ My outlook on life is positive! ♬

Lyrics and Music by: Ray Cappo and John Porcelly, recorded by Youth of Today.

Outlook on the Mac

“I believe that Outlook for the Mac may be the most important app that Microsoft has ever created for the Mac environment.” – Gerry Purdy, MobileTrax

This is a guest post written by Gerry Purdy, PHD. I have been following Gerry’s posts on the state of wireless for some time now and always find them to be interesting and insightful. This particular post is published here with his permission.

“Over the past six months, Microsoft has (rather quietly) finally introduced their very popular Outlook email management system on the Mac platform. It allows Mac users to enjoy the same benefits as Windows users.  However, there are a number of things that are important to enterprise IT, Apple and users beyond the obvious financial benefits to Microsoft.

If you owned a Windows PC and wanted to migrate to a Mac, the process could be very difficult or, if you were using Outlook, impossible. The reason has to do with Outlook’s internal file structure which uses ‘OST’ and ‘PST’ files.

Before Outlook became available on the Mac, there was no way to copy the files over to the Mac and use them with either Mac email or Entourage.  Now, with the implementation of Outlook on the Mac, anyone can copy their Outlook email files from their Windows PC over to the Mac, load Office 2011 for the Mac and open the Outlook files on the Mac.  I have tried it, and it worked flawlessly the first time. (more…)

♬ Change your thinking, Change your mind, Back to the future…♬

Music and Lyrics by D. Ross, B. Wray, J. Wray; recorded by Diana Ross.

Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future

When one thinks of mentoring, one tends to think of the sage, wise counsel passing along his or her accumulated wisdom to the younger generation. While there is considerable need for this to occur, it is not the only mentoring that can take place in a law firm. Matt Starcevich, PHD, in an article: “What is Unique about Reverse Mentoring, Survey Results” in www.coachingandmentoring.com quoted Alan Webber, the co-founder of Fast Company in describing reverse mentoring (“RM”):

It’s a situation where the old fogies in an organization realize that by the time you’re in your forties and fifties, you’re not in touch with the future the same way as the young twenty-something’s. They come with fresh eyes, open minds, and instant links to the technology of our future.

Jack Welch, when he was Chairman of GE, ordered his top 600 managers to reach down into their ranks for Internet junkies and become their students.

A RM relationship can benefit both parties – the one doing the mentoring as well as the person being mentored. The younger associate gets face time with a senior partner. The senior partner gets the opportunity to gain new skills and see the world through younger eyes. In the survey, Starcevich asked “Why enter into RM?,” 41 per cent selected, “To gain technical expertise” and 25 per cent selected, “To gain a younger perspective.” This supports the notion of capitalizing on the technical knowledge base and younger perspective of the mentor. (more…)

♬ Who would have guessed
That it’s as simple as it seems…♬

Lyrics and Music by: Katy Perry, Glen Ballard, and Arnold Matthiew, recorded by Katy Perry and Glen Ballard.

Email is the bane of most lawyers and law offices. It has become a real problem handling the volume of incoming emails. Fortunately there are three tools that can help tame the email beast provided that you are using Microsoft Outlook as your email client. These are “SimplyFile”, “EZDetach” and “Adobe Acrobat Standard” or “Adobe Acrobat Professional”

“SimplyFile” and “EZDetach”

SimplyFile

SimplyFile is undoubtedly the best tool I have found for helping with email. It is an Intelligent Filing Assistant for Microsoft Outlook. Once you install the plug-in for Outlook, SimplyFile “guesses” the folder that an email should go. One click later – and it is filed. It does the same for outgoing emails too – which ensures that all your emails – both incoming and outgoing – are in the correct client folder in Outlook. No more searching in “Sent” to try to find an email that you did on a client file.

This filing ability vastly speeds up handling the email avalanche! (more…)

♬ Tell me what you want and i’ll give you what you need… ♬

Lyrics and Music by Patrick Simmons, recorded by The Doobie Brothers.

PLTC 2011 Logo

The 2011 Pacific Legal Technology Conference will be held Friday October 7, 2011 at the new West wing of the Vancouver Trade and Convention Center.

The Pacific Legal Technology Conference is a bit different from other legal technology conferences due to the fact that attendees can take the conference survey and tell us which courses, issues and topics they would like to see in the program. The survey contains the ‘short list’ of topics that the Advisory Board pulled together in their preparations and deliberations.

So: Welcome to the 2011 Pacific Legal Technology Conference Survey – where you can design the conference that you wish to see! I invite you to have a hand in designing this year’s Conference by indicating to us which proposed sessions are of most interest to you.

This survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete and we ask that you complete the survey on or before JUNE 30, 2011.

Here is a link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NN3PKZF

Furthermore, at the end of the survey you will receive a web address entitling you to a special survey respondent admission rate for this year’s conference. This special rate of $325+ HST CDN ($325 USD) (or $225+HST CDN for law students/staff ($225 USD)) is our way of saying ‘Thanks’ and represents a $50 savings off of our Early Bird Rate!

This special survey rate is only good until July 31, 2011 – you have to complete the survey by June 30, 2011 and send in the registration by July 31, 2011 to be eligible for this offer.

Furthermore, by completing the survey you are eligible for a draw for one of two free admissions to the Conference.

Thanks for your participation!

Tell me what you want and as Chair of the Conference, I will endeavor to give you what you need…

♬ Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see…♬

Lyrics and Music by Irving Berlin.

This is a great guest post by Gerry Purdy PHD, the Principal Analyst, Mobile & Wireless services for MobileTrax LLC.  I have been reading Gerry’s “Inside Mobile” newsletters for some time now, but this latest one on Apple’s iCloud was a really good analysis of what Apple aims to do with the cloud and – in consequence – how this changes the way we all look at the cloud . So with Gerry’s permission secured, here is his post entitled:  Blue Skies Ahead for Apple’s iCloud:

iCloud

“MobileMe wasn’t our finest hour … we have completely rewritten and integrated it into iCloud.” - Steve Jobs

I had one of those ah ha moments as I watched the replay of Steve Jobs delivering part of the keynote address at last week’s Apple WWDC (World Wide Developer’s Conference) at which he announced that they are opening iCloud to developers by providing a family of application programming interfaces (APIs) that will help developers build cloud-based services.  This is basically the same thing that Apple did when it announced the App Store and provided developers with a host of APIs that enabled them to build apps, which have grown to over 425,000.

Did Apple need to also announce an iCloud Store?  Not really, because the store front is already there.  Developers can now build apps for iOS that reside in the cloud and connect to them via the Internet, typically, over a wireless link such as Wi-Fi or 3G/4G. Watch for an entirely new kind of cloud-based service environment that works in concert with local iOS apps that enable a hybrid between local apps and cloud apps. (more…)

♬ Isn’t it a bit surprising
How one’s fortunes ebb and flow
And only to the enterprising
Does the magic fortune cookie go
Believe me
It’s the time of your life so live it well..♬

Lyrics, music and recorded by Randy Neuman:

Emperor's New Clothes

I remember growing up there would be ‘fads’ (probably still are, albeit I have long since aged out of those teenage angst years). I recall wanting to be part of the ‘cool kids’ and wished to jump on some of those fads and try to seem ‘cool’ (I have long since realized that ‘cool’ is an evasive and momentary target and one best left to others to chase. I never was and will never be ‘cool’ – just ask my daughter. But I digress..)

Well, I recall trying to convince my mom to let me try or buy or do something that would lead to being considered ‘cool’. The answer, invariably, was: “Well if everyone was going to be a lemming and jump off a cliff, would you do it too?” While at the time I thought she was simply being a maddingly frustrating parent, in her way she was testing me to exercise my own judgment and consider longer-term goals and whether this latest fad met my goals or someone else’s.

Right now, Social Media seems to be one of these ‘fads’. That isn’t to say that it should be ignored. Exactly the opposite. Like any new tool, it needs to be considered in terms of your existing business goals, strategy and marketing plan. In other words, all of us have to consider how not to be a ‘legal lemming’ and just follow the crowd in jumping off the cliff. Drago Adam (drago@adamadgroup.com) of the Adam Marketing Group of Vancouver, in one of his recent “Monday Morning Motivator” email newsletters put it well and as such, I have quoted his article here (with his permission): (more…)

♬ Because it keeps on working …♬

Lyrics and Music by Peter Kingsbery, recorded by Cock Robin.

ioSafe Portable Hard Drive

I have been a big fan of the ioSafe line of disaster proof external hard drives for some time now (back in October I wrote about the ioSafe Solo Pro hardened hard drive). I use a 1.5 terabyte SoloPro to back up my MacBook (using TimeMachine) regularly. I even replaced the internal hard drive using the SoloPro/TimeMachine back up and the data transferred perfectly to the bigger internal MacBook hard drive and I was up and running in no time. Voila!

But now ioSafe have come up with a hardened portable hard drive! Does it get any better than this? Look at the specs: (more…)

♫ And I’m thinking two is better than one… ♫

Lyrics and Music by Martin Johnson, recorded by Boys Like Girls with Taylor Swift.

Having recently acquired an iPad2, I am just starting to explore how to integrate this tablet into my daily workflow. As with any new gadget, I had questions as to the degree the iPad2 would replace my MacBook or fit into my existing workflow. Surprisingly, I have found that, rather than replacing my MacBook, the iPad has integrated into the workflow quite nicely. So here are the initial steps in my journey with the iPad2:

I realized that using the onboard screen keyboard was not something that I was prepared to use long-term if I was going to use the iPad seriously. So the first thing that I did was to purchase a Kensington iPad wireless keyboard + case:

Kensington iPad Case & Wireless Keyboard

This provided me with a nice bluetooth keyboard along with a very attractive leather case for carrying and protecting the iPad. The bluetooth setup was straightforward and the iPad ‘discovered’ the keyboard in short order once the settings were turned on in “System Preferences” on the iPad. In addition, the Kensington case props the iPad up on an angle in front of you with the keyboard out level in front. Great for working at a desk but not really suitable for lap-use, since the iPad is just propped up and if you shift or move, this may dislodge the iPad from its ‘groove’ that keeps it upright. But otherwise I love the case and the keyboard. The case is really designed for the original iPad which is thicker, so the iPad2 really needs a small bit of foam between the back of the iPad and the case to keep it tight in the case. Not really a problem. (more…)

♫ Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,
And I’ll try not to sing out of key.
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends… ♫

Lyrics and Music by Lennon & McCartney, recorded by The Beatles.

Mandatory e-filing for certain documents in the Land Title Office in British Columbia is coming:

Moreover, phase 2 of the mandatory e-filing requirements is expected to include subdivision and strata plan applications.

So what is a lawyer (or notary public in BC) to do? Well you can learn how to file documents electronically in BC. For some lawyers and notaries, this is a given.

There is no question that the business case for the Land Title and Survey Authority to mandate e-filing (the “Electronic Filing System – EFS”) has been made. EFS offers may advantages to both lawyers as well as to the LTSA. The LTSA needs to update their business processes, it needs to accommodate a large number of staff retirements and it sees the EFS as the way to handle a large number of increasing complex land title and survey submissions. EFS is essential to the LTSA to maintain its service level commitments to the people of BC (full disclosure: the writer sits on the LTSA’s Business Transformation Advisory Committee). Lawyers can prepare documents in advance, submit them with a ‘hold’, have them submitted with a ‘meet’ etc – all electronically.

However, not everyone adjusts to technology at the same rate. For those lawyers and notaries that only file periodically, they may not have the time, energy or resources to learn the new EFS system, notwithstanding that the LTSA offers free training. What are they to do? (more…)