I found this video on YouTube about Google Chrome OS.  The days of installing programs the computer are numbered; it's all internet these days. Check out the video, It just makes  sense.

PS I highly recommend NOT using Internet Explorer.  Chrome, Firefox, and Safari are all nice and free.

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Just Do it the Fast and Easy Way

I was copying and pasting using perhaps the most popular series of keyboard shortcuts of all time- cut, copy, and paste.  When I stumbled upon another handy shortcut. 

By pressing ALT (Option) + "C" iCal opens up a new window.  I was expecting to just copy some info from one place to another and there I had iCal, staring me in the face.  This handy shortcut works whether iCal is running or not. 

I am a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts, they just save so much time and effort.  In case you didn't know and have been right-clicking your way around, the shortcut for:

• Cut is CMD (or CTRL on PC) + X
• Copy is CMD (or CTRL on PC) + C
• Paste is CMD (or CTRL on PC) + V

A very non-techie friend asked me today how to make iTunes stop playing.  I pressed CMD + Tab to bring up the application switcher, pressed tab, while holding down CMD, until I reached iTunes and then pressed Q, also while holding down CMD.   It blew his mind and it looks like this...

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For years I have been trying to avoid being like that guy- chained to a desk. 

My strategy has been to let machines do everything they can -  a rapidly expanding category to be sure. To get this done requires face-time with the machine. But which one?

A few years ago, I would have said a really fast and reliable laptop or desktop.  But now the only critical machine is a server, the others are just ways of getting to it. I prefer a Macbook or iMac, but in a pinch any computer will do. 

This brings me to my point - Websites, blogs, and Web 2.0 apps.  All these run on servers yet many people set them up as separate things.

Should my firm have a website or blog? Really?

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I attended the social media for lawyers at New York Law School.  Here is the Reader's Digest version:  technology is inescapable, the Internet is here to stay, social media is real, law firms and many lawyers are already doing it, and it works. But it may seem like a full-time job.  Maybe not. 

Topics Include: Meeting Potential Clients, Getting Started with a Web Presence, Getting Started with Social Media, Twitter Quick Start Tips

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The core of my thoughts about computers in the law office is captured in a phrase I attached as a tagline to one of my websites "We are an information industry and this is our age." In my view, few industries are better situated to reap digital benefits than us.

I spend much of my time on this site discussing the "basics" and reviewing discreet tips and techniques. But Digital practice is far more than getting a little more from Acrobat or a Mac.  That stuff is just the threshold, what may come next is much more interesting.

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Apple released, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard, the refined version of Leopard on Friday.  It is fast and very responsive and has some nice upgrades to the expose features, more on that in a latter post. 

This is a warning about Snow Leopard and the Fujitsu Scansnap. The Fujitsu Scansnap Quick Menu does not work in Snow Leopard.  So if you use it to alter the settings for each scan be prepared to do without something until Fujitsu fixes it. 

Fujitsu says it'll be done in 2009 and they have released a patch for now.  More on this issue from Fujitsu.

I hate to see two of my favorite things not play well together.

I have been using Acrobat 9 pro in Snow Leopard and open up a PDF with Acrobat 8 Pro and so so far no troubles. Losing Acrobat would be hurtful, I'll keep you posted.

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I have been thinking about new language for the paperless office concept. Paperless is unnecessarily confusing in the context of a paper dependent industry. And the concept is laden with baggage of a failed promise. Computers were supposed make the office “paperless”, instead they made every person a publisher. But most importantly, “Office” fails to capture the real value of 21st century computers in the law office.

We need a fresh start and a specific focus; we need to start talking about “Digital Practice.”

“Paperless” v. “Digital”: It’s about having more not doing without.

Just the word “paperless” is enough for many lawyers to dismiss the idea immediately. Lawyers do paperwork, end of discussion. I’ve seen it happen many times and without prior knowledge of how paperlessness works in the law office it is difficult to avoid rapid foreclosure.

Oddly, explanations of how paperless really works in the law office puts the paper back into the equation. A paperless law office is not actually paperless; it is an office than engages in selective printing. The central idea is to shift from printing documents by default and instead scanning to digital or refraining from printing a file already digital. Documents are then printed as required or desired.

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I’ve never liked the phrase “paperless office”; it brings too much negativity and confusion.

The law has been recorded, delivered, studied, and transferred on paper for the entire career of every living lawyer. Why now must we talk of being without something so familiar, convenient, and comfortable? In the legal industry, I think the effect of an assault on paper particularly potent.

A law office without paper is unthinkable. We are lawyers, we do paperwork, and that is that. For most industries, paper merely supports or commemorates the actual product or service. A doctor, plumber, mechanic, musician, artist, or builder can deliver value without paper; we can’t. So long as ideas must be captured in fixed form, the paper is the product and service.

What’s next? Food-less restaurants and liquor-less bars. At least, that’s how it feels to me.

Let’s change, or drop, the vocabulary to avoid the confusion, and see if we can get some lawyers on board with something worthwhile.

Let’s focus on the actual benefits and convenience modern technology brings to people doing a job and forget about offices without something.

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