SoloSmallTech

We bought my wife a Macbook a couple of weeks ago after she finally agreed that her broken-screened, dead-USB, no-battery laptop was nearly unusable. (Most of those conditions were my fault, albeit by accident.) So we picked up a $1,099 white Macbook.

My wife is not a technophobe, but she is no geek, either. She was up and running, on her own, in minutes. The Macbook is ready to go right out of the box. She especially loves the size, long battery life, and the fast recovery from suspend when you open the case—seriously valuable features for wired litigators. And OSX Leopard is just beautiful. It makes Windows look clumsy, and Ubuntu dowdy, by comparison.

Of course, it works just fine with her Outlook Web Access and file access for her work, and she has no problem opening Word and Powerpoint documents in iWork, which, at $80, is a steal when compared with Microsoft Office.

As some know, the three other attorneys and one law clerk I share office space with also use Macs. I am the lone rebel in the office, using Windows until recently, and now Ubuntu, but always a PC. Playing with my wife’s computer, I am wavering. I am definitely going to get us a Mac Mini for a living room computer—once they include a Blu-Ray player, anyway—but I may just get myself a black Macbook when it comes time to upgrade my trusty ThinkPad T43.

If you are reading this blog, I assume you probably read some other blogs, as well. As far as I can tell, less than a quarter of you read the RSS feed, which means most of you visit my website.

While I appreciate the attention, an RSS feed reader like Google Reader (my personal favorite), FeedDemon (Windows), or NetNewsWire (Mac), is a great way to flip through all the blogs you read at one location. (You can also subscribe using Microsoft Outlook, if you do not want to use yet another program.)

If you subscribe to your favorite blogs using a reader, whenever a new article is posted to any of the blogs you read, it will show up in your reader, kind of like your e-mail inbox. Open up your reader when you feel like checking in, and browse through the articles. Saves time, and makes it easier to skip the articles you do not care to read.

Look for the RSS feed icon (at right). If you already have a Google account, just click on it. If you want to subscribe using Outlook, FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, or another software feed reader, right-click > “Copy Link Location,” and paste the feed address into your reader.

I picked up a bucketful of new Tweeters during June, and there are two Twins vouchers sitting on my desk for one lucky Twitterite. I used the list randomizer at random.org, and one name rose to the top, which, lacking dramatic theme music and a commercial break, I will announce just after the jump:

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Jott is old news, but is it also still in beta, so I don’t feel badly for only posting about it now. Jott lets you call from your cell phone, tell Jott what to do, and Jott will transcribe your voice into an e-mail you can send to yourself or someone else, a text file, your to-do list, and more.

For the keyboard-challenged, Jott is a great way to cut out the middleperson—usually a secretary printing out e-mails and transcribing dictated responses—and focus on getting things done seamlessly.

Best of all, Jott is free to join.

Luis Suarez, who works for IBM from the Canary Islands, got tired of wading through piles of e-mail, so he moved most of his communications to social networking tools, especially blogs. To keep up with his co-workers, he used an RSS reader (I use Google Reader for the same thing) to stay on top of their blogs.

Lawyers can make use of social networking tools, as well. A litigation team could make extremely effective use of a blog to track ideas, due dates, documents, and more. It would need to be a non-public blog, obviously, but this would be easy to accomplish.

One of the problems with e-mail is it is sent, received, and then lost. If team members communicated on a blog, that information would be constantly available and frequently reviewed.

I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip | New York Times

To play, go to twitter.com/samglover and follow me. I will select one winner from everyone who adds me by tomorrow.

If you are a Flickr user, you may have noticed that you can edit photos right in your browser using Picnik. You can also use Picnik by itself, but it is especially nice to be able to upload your photos just once.

Pro tip: most photos need some adjusting. Some cameras are better than others, but this holds especially true for cell phone cameras. If you want to enhance color with minimal fuss, use the “auto-fix” button to spruce up your photos.

This summary pretty much says it all:

“When a company as tech savvy as Intel, with full source code access and having written several large chunks of the OS, says get stuffed, you know you have a problem. Well, everyone knows MS has a problem, but it is nice to see it codified in such a black and white way though. Reassuring, like a warm cup of tea, or a public kick to the corporate crown jewels.

The way I see it, you have three options: (1) stick with XP until the next version of Windows if you don’t mind using seriously old—yet still functional—technology; (2) get a Mac, and enjoy cutting-edge technology well-suited to lawyers’ needs; or (3) switch to Linux, save money, and enjoy also-cutting-edge technology on your current machine.

Intel won’t touch Vista | Inquirer (via BoingBoing Gadgets)

A few weeks ago, I started using Google Calendar to publish a free/busy version of my calendar on my website. I am so glad I did.

Scheduling—especially for busy attorneys—can be a royal pain. It often involves several phone calls or e-mails, at least, and it can be much worse when you are trying to schedule something with an attorney who sends scheduling information like “I am free at 2:00 on the 3rd” and nothing else. As if it is inconceivable that you would have anything on your calendar at that date and time. All that back-and-forth is a big waste of time.

Now, I just point opposing counsel, potential clients, and others to my public calendar and ask them to give me a couple of options when I am free.

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