How to Find Your Free Copy of U2’s Songs of Innocence

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songs of innocenceYou probably know by now that U2 released it’s new album, Songs of Innocence, at Apple’s big event earlier this week and that Apple has made it available as a free download to iTunes users until October 13th.

However, you may be wondering just how in the heck can you get it. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it should be, and trust me, it’s well worth it (as this disc is awesome).

Follow these simple steps to get your copy:

  1. Launch iTunes.
  2. Select the submenu item Store > Home.
  3. Under Quick Links on the right side of the page, click Purchased.
  4. On the Purchased page, make sure that the following tabs are all selected: Music, Albums, and Not in My Library.
  5. Click the U2 album’s iCloud download symbol (in the upper right of the album art).
  6. Enjoy the free musical goodness.

If you want more detailed instructions, check out “How to Get Your Free U2 Album” by Josh Centers, published at Tidbits.

How to Dictate to Your Mac (for free)

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dictation-iconMost lawyers, particularly older ones, dictate as part of their daily life. Did you know that your Mac will allow you to dictate to it? Well, it’s true. Even better, it’s super easy and highly accurate (and free).

The ability to dictate to your Mac is built directly into OS X, and when enabled, you can dictate directly into any app that you can type in, which covers most programs, including Word, Pages, Mail, Chrome, Safari, etc. By default, dictation requires an internet connection, because it sends your spoken words to Apple’s servers to be translated into text.

To enable dictation, simply go to  > System Preferences > Dictation & Speech and make sure Dictation is turned “On”. You have the option here to use “enhanced dictation”, which enables you to dictate when you are offline, though it is not as accurate.

You can also select a shortcut key to turn the dictation on. By default, it’s Function + Function, but you have other options or can customize your own if you prefer. The internal microphone is the default input, but you can specify an external microphone at System Preferences > Sound > Input, which may come in handy if you work in a noisy environment.

So, if you want to dictate with your word processing program, you can either (a) go to Edit > Start Dictation or (b) press fn + fn and start talking. When you are finished, click “Done” (or press Return) and your words will appear on screen. Of course, you can include punctuation by saying “comma”, “period”, etc. as you go.

Dictation will highlight any words that it unsure whether it deciphered correctly, and you can then right-click on those words for alternatives and options or you can edit them yourself. You can learn more about dictation here.

Solo & Small Firm Conference Is Coming to Greenville

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SC Bar SSF 2014Each year the Solo & Small Firm Conference is the place to be for all SC attorneys who are solo practitioners or practice in the small firm setting. From networking to marketing to picking up tips on how to incorporate the latest technology into your practice, you’ll find it at the Solo & Small Firm Conference.

This year’s theme is “Reinventing Your Small Firm Practice: Strategies & Solutions” and it will feature three tracks of programs allowing you to completely customize your conference experience.  With topics such as “Cloud Computing: The Good, The Bad, and The Ethics”; “A Systems Approach to Small Firm Practice”; “Are You Mac-Curious? If Not, You Should Be!” and “Essential Skills & Strategies for Legal Research” (as a sampling) – it is sure to be an information-packed day which will measurably improve your practice.

The special guest speaker, a friend of our firm, and a nationally known author and speaker, Nerino Petro, is a regular contributor to local, state and national publications and has a wealth of knowledge to share with all SSF Conference attendees. He will be presenting three separate sessions, as well as joining the always popular Tech Tips & Practice Pointers panel at the end of the day along with other featured speakers, Courtney Kennaday, Dave Maxfield, Ed Walters, and our own, Ben Stevens.

The early bird registration for this fantastic seminar starts at $205 for Section Members and $230 for Non-Section Members, but this special rate ends September 5, so register now (Click Here for Registration Information).

Review of SkinIt’s InkFusion iPhone Case

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SkinIt CaseSkinIt was generous enough to allow us to create an InkFusion custom iPhone case to test and review. As my husband Ben (TheMacLawyer) has said before, he prefers his iPhone to go “naked”, so I was the lucky one to get to design a cover just for me.

While reviewing the design and product specifics on SkinIt’s website, I was excited to read that these covers are printed with the highest resolution print technology available today. The print is then sealed with a smooth, glossy clear coat finish which helps prevent fading and chipping and also further protects your phone from scratching.

When designing your cover, you can choose from over 400 licensed brands or over 7,000 designs provided by SkinIt. Or, you can do what I did, and choose your own image in the SkinIt Customizer and add text and shapes to create your very own unique case. The cover offers “edge-to-edge color” and they are made of “tough, lightweight, high specification Amorphous Thermoplastic” (a.k.a. really good protective stuff to make sure your phone doesn’t get accidentally damaged).

They offer “Lite” and “Pro” versions, and the price points reflect the two levels of protective layers. Each version offers their ultra vivid and razor sharp color print technology. The cases are available for the iPhone series, some iPods, some iPads, and even the Galaxy S phones. I received my finished product, a “Pro” version for the iPhone 5,  about 2 weeks ago and have been using it ever since. Here’s a quick run down of my thoughts:

Pros: Very slick design, easy to hold and just feels good to use. I haven’t dropped my phone on any truly hard surfaces, but when I have allowed my phone to slip out of my hand onto a desk or counter, the phone case seems to absorb the impact well. I get a lot of attention and questions about the case. No one can get over how sharp the image is and how professional the quality. It’s hard to tell it was custom and looks like any other image case you can buy with a mass produced stock image.

Cons: The one and only con I can find about this case is that having the second impact absorbing liner, which is part of the “Pro” package, makes it difficult to press the top button to put the phone to sleep.

You can get more information about SkinIt’s InkFusion cases and/or order one for yourself here.

Review of Presentations by David Sparks

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presentationsWhat are you afraid of? You’ve probably heard that some people fear public speaking more than they fear death. I know many attorneys who fall into that category. However, whether they realize it or not, most lawyers give presentations as part of their job, whether to the Court or to a civic organization. The manner in which they present can affect their reputation. I’ve seen some great lawyers give horrible presentations, and I’ve seen mediocre attorneys absolutely wow an audience.

I believe that if you decide to do something, you should do it with excellence. There are several resources to help you give an excellent presentation, including Presentations, the new Book from my good friend David Sparks (a/k/a MacSparky), which was released earlier this week. David has published other award-winning “Field Guides” on topics such as Paperless and Email, but Presentations may just be the best of the bunch.

His new book will benefit both beginners and power users, as it explains how to create exceptional presentation to connect with your audience, the technical wizardry necessary to create a stunning presentation, and walks you through the day of your presentation to make sure it goes off without a hitch. Presentations is available in both iBooks and PDF formats, though the iBooks version includes 44 screencasts, audio interviews, and other rich media assets to help you make your next presentation riveting.

Even after giving so many presentations over the years, I picked up several helpful tips to incorporate going forward. In fact, David’s book is so good that it has its own feature film type trailer. Check it out below, and then pick up Presentations to make your next one the best it can be:

How Lawyers Can Use Circus Ponies NoteBook in Trial

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Circus Ponies NoteBook is a unique productivity tool that can be used in many different ways.  My good friend, Kern Lewis, a trial attorney in Grapevine, TX, has used this program for several years to help organize his cases and present them at trial.

Kern recent conducted an hour long webinar to demonstrate his techniques, and he was kind enough to record it and allow me to share it with my readers.  I have uploaded the video to YouTube, which you can view here or below.

Kern has also been generous enough to share his NoteBook template referenced in the video.  You can get your own copy of Kern’s sample template by emailing me and asking for it.

I want to extend my heartiest thanks to Kern for his time and effort in producing this video and also for his willingness to allow me to share it with my readers.  If you are interested in learning more about Kern’s practice, I encourage you to visit his firm’s website WarriorsForJustice.com.

Keep Your Computer Awake With Caffeine for Mac

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caffeineCaffeine comes in handy sometimes. No, not the kind in your cup o’ joe, but the free app for the Mac. If you aren’t familiar with Caffeine, it is an app that enables you to keep your computer awake for a specified length of time. In other words, it prevents your screen from dimming, your screensaver from activating, and/or your computer from going to sleep for a set period of time.

When you install Caffeine for Mac, it puts a little coffee cup icon in your menu bar, and you activate it by simply clicking on the cup. You can choose your default length of time, from five minutes to five hours to indefinitely. To turn it off, simply click the coffee cup again. This can come in very handy when you are transferring large files or even when viewing Netflix.

Again, Lighthead Software offers this app for free, and it’s available here. I first mentioned Caffeine in a blog post six years ago, and I’ve used it ever since. If you don’t have it, check it out, and I’m sure you’ll find it to be useful, like I do.

Document Tagging 101

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document taggingThe folks at CHL Software know a thing or two about document management. Their product, Doc Moto, is one of the leading document and email management programs for Macs. They published the following article about document tagging, which they have allowed me to share with my readers: 

FIND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR USING ACCURATE DOCUMENT TAGGING — A NEW INNOVATION IN DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

Remember that U2 hit, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For“? The song isn’t actually about document management in law firms, but read the lyrics and it very well could be.

The inclusion of full-text searching in the Mac and Windows operating systems has actually set document management back. The problem with these tools is that they find too much. Accordingly, purely searching the content of your documents doesn’t help find the specific matter and specific document you’re looking for.

That’s why document tagging is so important. What’s document tagging? Continue reading because it’s a major innovation for legal document management.

Just about a year ago we received a support question from one of our biggest law firm clients that really surprised us. “Does DocMoto support file content searching?” Well of course it does, but the firm didn’t see the feature because of a setting in their system. Shockingly, they had been using DocMoto for over a year and had never noticed they didn’t have content search available. So we asked them why. The answer, “Content searching doesn’t help that much since all our matters are very similar. That’s why we use tagging.”

DOCUMENT TAGGING 101

In DocMoto parlance a tag is a label. Lawyers and their staff apply (or stick) tags to documents to effectively categorize their documents (including email). A document can have as many tags (or labels) as necessary.

The Problem With Simple Keywords

I know what you’re thinking. Mac-based firms have a number of tools that support tagging. Even Apple’s own Finder does in OS X Mavericks. But the problem with almost all of these tools is that the tags are really just lists of keywords. Allowing users to add totally free format lists of keywords might work in a true solo practice (one lawyer), but as soon as more users exist you need much more control.

Give a Tag a Type

The first step to improving the power of a tag is to give it a “type.” DocMoto supports three basic types — “text”, “numbers” and “dates.”

When a tag has a type searching becomes so much more powerful. For example if a tag is a date, and is a “review date” it is a simple task to find “All Contracts for Review This Month,” or “All Contracts Overdue.”

Choose Your Tag Values From a List

The second step to improving the quality of tagging is to make sure users can only choose values from a predefined list. This guarantees that only tags with known values are in DocMoto. It ensures consistency throughout the practice and removes any problems with spelling, abbreviation or other inconsistences.

There Is Still Room for the Free-Format Tag

Of course there are always some tags that really must be free format. A “Comments” tag for example. Naturally DocMoto supports these as well, but they are your last resort for miscellanea, not your sole tool.

Collecting Tag Data From Your Users

It’s one thing to set up some powerful and consistent tags, but how can you ensure your users complete them? DocMoto takes a very simple but powerful approach — it asks users to enter tag information at the point of adding or checking back a document. DocMoto doesn’t want to overburden busy users, so tags can be marked as mandatory or optional, and the tag set required can be varied easily from one folder to another.

NOW YOU CAN FIND YOUR DOCUMENTS

What does your firm get from tagging. Well you can find documents very fast (e.g., while you’re on the phone with a client or in court). For law firms that matters. It improves efficiency and can even help you win a case!

DocMoto is a professional level document management system designed for law firms using Mac or that want to switch to Mac.

Tagging is just one of many features that attracts law firms to DocMoto. You can learn more about the features and benefits of this program at the following links:

Free Webinar: How Lawyers Can Use Adobe Acrobat Like a Pro

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adobe acrobatAll attorneys need to know how to use and work with PDF documents. In the practice of family law, this is a must. Adobe Acrobat is the dominant player in the PDF arena, and it is therefore the one that most lawyers will use.

There is a free webinar available to help lawyers learn how to get the most out of and use Adobe Acrobat like a pro – Adobe Acrobat: The Paperless Secret Weapon, presented by Catherine Sanders Reach, Chicago Bar Association’s Director of Law Practice Management and Technology.

Catherine is an expert in this area, and you can access this free webinar by clicking here.