The Connected Lawyer

PC World has an article on 20 fantastic and free open source programs. PC World groups the offerings in Graphics, Multimedia, Utilities, and Miscellaneous.

The article talks about several great programs, including Filezilla, which is one of my favorites. Filezilla is the easiest, yet full featured, FTP program that I have ever used. I highly recommend it.

The article also makes some good recommendations such as MediaCoder, which convert the format on just about any media file there is; Audacity, which is the most sophisticated, yet free, audio recording program you will find; and 7-Zip, which gives you many more “zipping” options than does the utility built into Windows.

I encourage you to check out the article. I bet you will find a powerful yet free program that suits your needs.

Last week I wrote about an eseminar that Rick Borstein and Tim Huff from Adobe were presenting about 30 tricks for using Adobe Acrobat. I attended the seminar and thought that it was excellent.

If you did not attend the webinar, I recommend that you download the written materials. The materials contain lots of screen shots and are easy to follow. Based upon comments during the session, the eseminar should be uploaded to Adobe’s website in a day or so.

In addition to the tricks that I learned (which were several) I was also impressed with how Adobe Connect worked. I had never before experienced Adobe Connect. The interface was very nice. Also, it appeared to allow the presenter to take polls very easily to gauge the user experience level and software version of the attendees.

Acrobat is a program that I use every day in my work. Yet, I am constantly amazed at the many things that the program can do. Without a doubt, it is one of the most powerful programs in your arsenal. I have found, however, that most people use it for nothing more than creating or reading PDFs. Acrobat does so much more, however.

Just recently, I have integrated Acrobat into my research. When I find relevant cases on Westlaw, I email the case to myself in Word format. I then print the case to PDF and then do all of my commenting or highlighting on the electronic version. This means I have all of my thoughts with me all of the time without having to carry around stacks of cases with my illegible notes.

If you are using Acrobat only to create and read PDFs, check out the eseminar and see some of the many things that you can be doing with Acrobat.

PC World has a great collection of pictures taken by our benevolent overlord Google and distributed to us through Google Maps. The series includes pictures of capsized ships, camels, a giant pink rabbit, and 10 acres of Oprah Winfrey. My favorite is the migrating elephants.

When I travel, I have a terrible tendency to over pack. If you suffer from the same issue, you will want to check out One Bag. The One Bag theory is that you can travel “pretty much anywhere, for an indefinite length of time, with nothing more than a single (carryon-sized) bag.”

The site has some great tips on how to travel light including lists of what to pack, as well as suggestions for the bag to use, and how to pack your bag.

Check the site out and see if you next trip isn’t a little better if you travel with less stuff.

I know that sometimes I get frustrated with my cell phone. However, this seems to be a bit of an over reaction.

A man in Sydney used an armored personnel carrier to destroy six cell phone towers. According to the news report, the police were able to arrest the man after the tank stalled while he was preparing to attack a third cell phone tower.

Apparently the man attacked the towers because he believed that radiation from the towers had caused his “head injury.”

My biggest question when I first saw this story was where did the guy get the APC. It turns out, however, that he simply stole it from his former boss, who rents it out for weddings and motor shows. Thus, it appears that it is a decommissioned APC.

My favorite line of the news story came from the magistrate who arraigned the man.

Magistrate Terry Forbes said there was a strong case to be made for the case to be dealt with under the Mental Health Act.

Those magistrates are kings of the understatement.

As another addition to their continuing attempt to take over the world, Google has added Google Translate to their stable of applications.

Just as with everything else that Google does, the interface is simple and it works as intended. If only all software companies designed their products in this manner.

As a bonus, Google also offers Translation Browser Buttons that allow you to translate a particular piece of text or an entire webpage with just one click.

I happened across a post that promises 30 random ways to a happier life. You should hop over to the post and read all 30. Below I have pulled out some of my favorites.

7. Pick a team in any sport and be a hardcore fan.

It is amazing how much a shared community exists among fans of particular teams. Please note that this does not require you to strip and paint yourself in your team’s colors when the temperature is below freezing.

9. Own a car that doesn’t own you.  There may be no bigger waste of stress than worrying about the looks of a car.  Let it go.

I am constantly amazed at how much of many people’s ego is tied directly to their car. A car is a method of conveyance. It does not determine who you are. If you have the means to own the car that you desire, then go for it that is important to you. I see too many people, however, place themselves terribly in debt just so they can be driving the latest “hot” car.

10. Love what you love.  Don’t trick yourself or others.

This is just great advice. Don’t let others control the things that make you happy.

11. Cut out people that bum you out.

Those clients whose telephone calls you keep dodging because you can’t stand them. Get rid of them. Let them be some other attorney’s headache.

12. Find joy in condiments.  Similarly, acquire tastes just for the hell of it.

Great advice. Right now I am learning to like blue cheese.

13. Stop imagining that people are saying things about you.  They’re mostly just worried about themselves.

You will definitely be much happier if you follow this advice.

19. Learn the basic rules of the major sports.

Very useful for small talk. On a related note, if you live in a metropolitan area where a sports team is doing particularly well or particularly bad, it’s useful to have at least a passing knowledge of this. This topic will definitely come up in small talk situations.

22. Change is unavoidable.  Embrace it, on every level.

Truer words were not spoken. However, this is one I have trouble with. I am not a fan of change.

25. Treat yourself to nice underwear.  Life is too short.

Few things will ruin your day faster than having to wear underwear that you hate.

I saw an interesting discussion about confidentiality notices in email messages. The opinion of both authors seemed to be that the notices, attached to all email communications are “dumb.”

As an attorney I see these appended to email messages all of the time and I have often questioned their efficacy. I understand the concept that such a disclaimer may place a recipient on notice that he should not distribute the email.

Nevertheless, are you reducing the effect of the notice when you attach it to ever email that you send? When the same disclaimer is included in a email to (1) a colleague about setting up a court time, and (2) the same colleague discussing confidential settlement discussions, has the effect of that notice been reduced?

In effect, by placing this notice on all emails, do we render the notice worthless?

In my practice, I do not routinely include such a notice in emails. Instead, if I am sending an email containing sensitive, confidential, or privileged information, I will manually append such a notice–usually at the top rather than the bottom of the email.

Doing so also gives me the chance to think about whether I should be sending the information via email in the first place. Perhaps a telephone call or a personal meeting it the best way to discuss the information.

Rick Borsetein of Acrobat for Legal Professionals is hosting a free e-seminar called “Thirty Dirty Tricks for Acrobat 8.” The seminar is on Thursday July 26 at 10 PST.

Rick is a great presenter and will undoubtedly provide us with some useful tips we did not know before. It’s a one hour seminar, its sure to provide you with some great information, and its free. What’s not to like?

If you want to get an idea of what Rick’s and Adobe’s e-seminars are like, you can check out Rick’s presentation on Securing Legal Documents. Rick provides a link to the presentation here.

I had some good comments relating to yesterday’s post about using iTunes with Windows. Based on the comments, it appears that iTunes runs much better on the Mac than it does on Windows. That is certainly good. However, it does little to evangelize to non-Mac users.

I want to elevate a couple of the comments to a post and discuss them.

Samantha Wilson said:

Yes, but it takes no time at all. I’m no expert, but it’s my impression (from my knowledge of common sense coding and how well iTunes works) that the large updates replace some of the existing code, so even though you’re downloading fifty megabytes, and iTunes is increasing slightly in girth, it doesn’t grow by fifty megabytes.

First, I would disagree with the assertion that updating “takes not time at all.” I spent 21 minutes updating yesterday. Second, I was not concerned that iTunes was growing by 50MB every update. My concern was why an incremental update from version from 7.2 to 7.3 took 50MB. I can understand a major download between versions (from version 6 to 7). But, from .2 to .3? Surely this process can be streamlined.

Also, why do I have to essentially download the entire program again to install an incremental update? Obviously, I already have the program, that is why I am updating it. Why do I need to reenter my email to go from version 7.2 to 7.3? I am aware of no other program that treats incremental updates in this manner.

Neil Squillante commented:

Regarding issue 1, you need QuickTime to watch those TV shows of yours.

Based on Neil’s comment, it appears I needed to be clearer with my objection to the bundling of QuickTime with iTunes. I have no problem if Apple includes QuickTime in its download of iTunes. I think that makes sense. iTunes should include all of the programs needed to listen to or watch things you purchase from the iTunes store.

The problem that I have is that I should not have to download and install iTunes if all I want is QuickTime. QuickTime is a popular format for movies on the web. I should be able to watch those without having to download and install iTunes as well.

Thanks for the comments!