2014 Black Friday Predictions for Apple Products

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Apple Black FridayContrary to what many people think, Apple items do go on sale, and Black Friday is an especially good time to snag a deal on an iDevice.

So what’s the best way to get Apple goodies on sale? Rule number one: Do not buy from Apple. Rule number two: Check out the article from DealNews before you buy.

Some of the highlights of their Black Friday predictions for 2014 include:

  • MacMall, Walmart, and Best Buy offer better deals on Black Friday than buying directly from Apple.
  • The recently debuted iPad Air 2 will likely see deep discounts on Black Friday from certain retailers, and iPad minis could see discounts of $50 as well.
  • Black Friday is usually the best time to buy a new MacBook Air, with retailers often shaving $200 off the latest model’s price.
  • Certain carriers may offer discounts of up to 50% off the subsidized cost of the new iPhone 6 with a 2-year contract, but the discounts on the iPhone 6 Plus will not be as steep or numerous.

You can learn more about what to expect at DealNews, and you should consider subscribing to the DealNews Select Newsletter to get a daily recap of all of their deals or downloading the DealNews app.

Take Control of Your Email with Boomerang

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boomerangWhat if you could take control of your email? You determine when emails appear in your Inbox or when they were sent to your recipients. What if your email could automatically remind you if don’t hear back from a recipient?

All of this – and more – is possible thanks to Boomerang, a plug-in for Gmail and Outlook that can help you transform from email novice to email ninja in no time. This plug-in helped me reduce the average number of emails in my Inbox to less than 10 (down from a number that I’d be embarrassed to mention).

It is not an understatement to say that Boomerang is one of the best and most helpful applications that I have ever found. It enables me to control my email instead of it controlling me. Boomerang has many more features than I can cover in this article, so please visit their website to learn what all it does and to view demonstration videos. However, I have highlighted some of the best features below:

boomerang 2Make emails reappear. One of the best features of Boomerang is its ability to take emails from your Inbox and then make them reappear at a later time. For instance, if you receive calling instructions for a meeting next week, you can set it to return 15 minutes before the start time instead of allowing that email to clutter your Inbox in the interim. You can even add a note to the email to remind you why you wanted it to be returned.

Send emails later. You can schedule an email to be sent at the perfect time. When you finish writing the email, the “send later” button enables you to determine exactly when the email will be sent. Even better, you can specify the desired time in many different ways, whether that’s “in 10 minutes”, “tomorrow morning”, or at a specific date/time (12/03/14 at 5:34pm).

Remind you to follow up. You can tell Boomerang to return an email to your Inbox if you don’t receive a reply within a specified time, if the email is not opened within a designated time frame, or if you just need to see it again as a reminder. It also enables you to get “read receipts” and track when emails have been opened – even in Gmail, which doesn’t provide this functionality natively.

Free iOS Security Webinar

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ios securityMore lawyers are managing their practice and accessing client data on the go on their iOS devices. Unfortunately, very few small law firms have the proper measures in place to protect their confidential client data. If needed, could you convince a Board of Ethics that you had done your due diligence to protect your client’s data?

There’s a lot more to mobile security than enabling the password on your iPhone or iPad. Strong iOS security starts with becoming familiar with the most common threats to compromising firm data on your iPhone or iPad. While many assume they are not at risk since they are not a ‘big’ law firm, the opposite is true.

Join legal technology expert Tom Lambotte (CEO of GlobalMac IT and author of “Hassle Free Mac IT Support for Law Firms”) on Thursday, November 20, 2014, from 12:00 p.m. – 12:30 p.m. (Eastern) for “Securing Your iPhone and iPad: Don’t Put Your Client’s Data at Risk”. In this free webinar sponsored by Rocket Matter, Tom will discuss real world scenarios that put your client’s data at risk, as well as actionable steps you can take to secure your mobile device and keep your client’s data and other information safe.

Click here to learn more or register for this free webinar. Trust me, it will be well worth your time.

This Halloween… Who’s Keeping An Eye On Your Computer Network?

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halloweenThe following Guest Post is from my friend (and Legal IT Guru), Tom Lambotte of GlobalMac IT. His company provides complete end-to-end IT services to Mac-based law firms nationwide with 5 to 50 users: 

Many attorneys, paralegals and office managers we have come into contact with over the years wait FAR too long to have a checkup and update to their computer network’s health and security. Unless someone is actively performing regular daily/weekly/monthly maintenance, a nasty virus, malicious hacker, unexpected software corruption, hardware failure or dozens of other problems could catch you off guard and result in extensive downtime, data loss and expensive data recovery efforts.

That’s because many law firms do not perform regular maintenance on their network or do not have the time and therefore are overlooking many serious threats that are increasing exponentially over time. At some point, disaster strikes and they find themselves in a real mess, with a network down and employees sitting idle, waiting to get back to work.

By then the damage is done, and it can cost thousands of dollars to get the network back to normal, if that’s even possible. What saddens me even more is the fact that almost every one of these costly disasters could have easily been prevented if someone had checked their network’s security and health to remove these threats on a regular basis.

From now until Halloween (October 31st), GlobalMac IT offering our readers with 5 or more Macs a FREE Network Checkup ($497 value) so that you have no excuse for not making sure your computer network is safe and sound.

No More Excuses! This Free Network Checkup Will “Exorcise” The Demons Hiding In Your Computer Network. Schedule your FREE Network Checkup to “see” if you are truly safe from spyware, viruses, hackers and other SPOOKY disasters by calling GlobalMac IT at 440-941-1622 or info@globalmacit.com. (Please note, this offer is only available to Mac-based law firms with 5+ Macs.)

Can Your Mac Run Mac OS X Yosemite?

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mac os x yosemiteAs you are no doubt aware, Mac OS X Yosemite is now available, and many have already made the switch to take advantages of its new features (and it’s free). However, if you haven’t yet made the move, do you know if your Mac is actually able to run Yosemite?

The easy answer is that if your Mac is running Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9), it is able to run Yosemite, as they both have the same system requirements. To make it easy, here’s Apple’s list of Macs that will support Yosemite:

  • iMac (Mid-2007 or later)
  • MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
  • MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
  • Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
  • Xserve (Early 2009)

If you need help determining whether your Mac has the required 2GB of RAM or 8GB of available storage space for the installation, click here for Macworld’s step-by-step guide. As for me, I haven’t downloaded Yosemite yet (because I have been unusually busy at work), but I plan to do so in the next week or so.

Source: “Which Macs can run OS X Yosemite?” by Leah Yamshon, published at Macworld.com.

Why Do I Blog?

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blogOver the last 8+ years, I’ve published almost 800 articles here at The Mac Lawyer. How did it start and why do I blog? I didn’t start it to make money, become famous, or anything of the sort. While I have gained some notoriety from this blog, it’s never made any money and that’s o.k.

The truth is that I started this blog to fill a void. In my very first post, I wrote “While there are many excellent legal technology blogs online, none are specifically devoted to using Macs in the law office. I hope that this blog will become a useful resource for its readers.”

One of the “must read” blogs for attorneys is Legal Productivity, as it’s smart, well written, and full of helpful and practical tips. Tim Baran published an article today entitled “Why Do You Blog? 23 Lawyers Weigh In“. which includes contributions from the blogging illuminati, including Lee Rosen, Tom Mighell, Ernest Svenson, Bob Ambrogi, Jeff Richardson, and Sam Glover.

Tim was kind enough to interview me for his article, so if you’ve ever wanted to know why The Mac Lawyer blogs, read Tim’s article and find out. Thanks to Tim and the Legal Productivity team for including my contribution and for their consistently great work.

When Is the Best Time to Buy an Apple Product?

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Do you ever find yourself torn? You love Apple devices, but you also love finding a deal. Have you ever wondered when is the best time to buy an Apple product? Well, you’re in luck, because the bargain-hunters at DealNews analyzed the deal lifecycle of four landmark Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, and MacBook Air) to see when retailers offer their best discounts, and their findings are contained in the following infographic:


when you buy your favorite Apple device

Source: “When to Buy a Mac or Apple Device: Save Money With Careful Timing” by Louis Ramirez, published at DealNews.

Rocket Matter Releases iPad Edition

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Rocket MatterRocket Matter created the first cloud practice management software for the legal community in 2008, and since then it has become the premier total law firm management software in the cloud. My law firm has used Rocket Matter since the day it launched, and we couldn’t be happier with it.

However, the folks at Rocket Matter are not ones to rest on their laurels, as evidenced by the numerous new features and refinements rolled out in recent years. Now, they have released their new iPad edition, and they are once again leading the way with the first and only tablet platform for today’s busy, mobile lawyers.

portriat-1This release (shown at right) heralds a new era of legal practice management software with a dedicated tablet platform that’s fast, easy-to-use, and accessible both online and offline. Lawyers can now enjoy legal iPad software that delivers incredible productivity gains and at the same time has the beauty and the simple elegance of the iPad itself.

Larry Port, Rocket Matter’s CEO, says

We’re excited to announce today our evolved platform and sleek new look. The Rocket Matter iPad Edition is not just a mere ‘app’ – it’s an entire tablet-based solution that ties into Rocket Matter’s cloud data storage. We’ve carefully watched how lawyers, law firms, and bar associations have all eagerly embraced the practical advantages that tablets can provide. We took these observations, combined them with direct suggestions from our lawyer partners, and did what we do best: built software that is simply unmatched in legal practice management.

You can learn much more about Rocket Matter’s iPad edition and see a video of it in action here. Lawyers with Rocket Matter subscriptions will be able to download the iPad Edition from the Apple iTunes store starting today.

Small PDF Solves Most of Your PDF Needs

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Lawyers all work with PDFs on an ever-increasing basis, and we will only do so more in the future with the advent of electronic filing.  Small PDF is an online “one stop shop” for almost all of your PDF needs (for free), including:

  • small pdfCompress PDF – Dramatically reduce the file size of your PDF
  • Merge PDF – Combine several PDF files into one single file
  • Split PDF – Create a new document from selected pages
  • Word to PDF – Convert your Word documents to PDF format
  • Excel to PDF – Excel spreadsheet conversion to PDF
  • PPT to PDF – Converting PPT presentations to PDF files
  • JPG to PDF – Convert images to PDFs exactly the way you want
  • PDF to JPG – Convert pages to images or extract pictures from your PDF
  • Unlock PDF – Unlock (some) password protected files

If you want to learn more about what Small PDF can do for you and your practice, visit SmallPDF.com. It’s easy to use, and remember – it’s free!

The Mac Lawyer at SC Bar Solo and Small Firm Conference in Greenville

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SC Bar SSF 2014

The South Carolina Bar’s Solo and Small Firm Conference is being held in Greenville this Friday, and its theme is “Reinventing Your Small Firm Practice: Strategies and Solutions.” We’ll investigate the latest trends in technology and explore alternatives to traditional law practices.


Ben Stevens will be giving two presentations at this conference:

  • Are You Mac-Curious? If Not, You Should Be!
  • Amazing Apps, Practical Practice Pointers, Terrific Tech Tips & Wonderful Websites

If you haven’t made plans to attend, you should. If you do attend, please find me and say hello.