Features
Document Management: Go Green, Save Green »
by Shell Haffner

In Search of a Paperless Office »
by J. Anthony Vittal and Yvonne M. Renfrew

The Virtual Law Office: Engineered for Efficiency »
by Joseph Kashi

Is Cloud Computing Green Computing? »
by Jack Newton

Disposing of E-waste »
by Andrea Cannavina

Why Pay More? Buying Refurbished Office Equipment »
by Wells H. Anderson

Green Efficiency Tips »

2010 Techno-Gift Guide »
by Jeffrey Allen

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ROAD WARRIOR
by Jeffrey Allen
Data Security in a Mobile World  »
THE CHAIR’S CORNER
by Joseph A. DeWoskin
Bein’ Green  »
GENERAL PRACTICE, SOLO AND SMALL FIRM DIVISION NEWS
“Shaping Our Future” Membership Questionnaire; Law Student Mentoring Program; ABA Midyear Meeting Details; GPSolo Division Spring Meeting Info  »
PRODUCT REVIEW
by Jeffrey Allen
West Case Notebook  »
PRODUCT REVIEW
by J. Anthony Vittal
WordPerfect Office X5  »
PRODUCT REVIEW
by Jared D. Correia
Credenza  »
BEING SOLO
by David Leffler
Credit Card Processing for Solos  »
TECHNO ETHICS
by James Ellis Arden
Good for the Planet, Bad for Your Ethics?  »
SITES FOR SORE EYES
by Jim Calloway and Courtney Kennaday
Websites for the New Year  »
MAC USER
by Victoria L. Herring
My Working iVacation  »

FEATURES
Getting the Highest Return From Legal Technology
Tools »
How to evaluate technology tools wisely to enhance operations.
Legal Project Management for the 21st Century
Have an aversion to new techniques? Open your mind for higher profits.
Law on the Run: Is Anyone Cleaning Up After Me?
Automating the erasure of metadata can save you cash over the long haul.

COLUMNS
MacNotes »
Apple’s new releases.
SurvivingEmail »
Email Marketing: Best Practices From One of the Experts
TechNotes »
BlackBerry 101: The Hidden Essentials
Sites for Sore Eyes »
Do You Have an Appetite for Apps?
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HTC Evo 4G and Android 2.2 Operating System.
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Difference Makers Awards, Council Nominations, and a teleconference primer
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A service of the ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division
Technology eReport
Technology eReport Newsletter | ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division
http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/ereport/2010/vol9/num4/index.html[11/4/2010 11:10:30 AM]

Image courtesy of Apple, Inc.

The iPad comes with a high-resolution, 9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS (in-plane switching) display. Apple designed the iPad to display content in portrait or landscape orientation. The IPS display technology has a wide, 178-degree viewing angle. The iPad weighs in at about a pound and a half and measures 9.56” x 7.47” x 0.5”. Apple claims up to a ten-hour battery life for the iPad.  Apple has made the battery inaccessible, as has become its custom, so you cannot simply pop in a new battery and must rely on an external power supply for recharging or operating an iPad with a discharged battery.  Fortunately, my experience with the iPad to date supports the claim of long battery life.  I have not tried to push the ten hour limit, but I have used my iPad for several hours at a time without exhausting as much as 50% of its power.

Apple offers two basic versions of the iPad: WiFi only and WiFi plus 3G. Each version also gives you the choice of 16 GB, 32 GB, or 64 GB of memory. I encourage you to opt for the higher memory units, as the iPad has no provision for additional memory.  I chose the 64GB WiFi+3G version for myself.  I have already maxed out the memory and find myself moving apps, books, movies and music on and off the unit far more often than I would like in order to accommodate different circumstances.

The iPad has the same docking connector as the iPhone and iPod. Like the iPhone, it has no other ports for data or charging.  Apple offers a number of accessories: The list includes a dock, a keyboard dock, a case that folds up to make a stand for you to use the iPad with its virtual keyboard, a VGA adapter that will let you connect the iPad to a projector or other VGA device, and a camera connection kit that will allow you to transfer pictures directly to your iPad. You can also use the Apple Wireless Keyboard and other Bluetooth accessories with the iPad.

The WiFi iPad requires a hotspot to give you Internet access. The WiFi plus 3G version works through accessible hotspots and also gives you the option of a 3G cellular connection. Apple set up an arrangement with AT&T, which changed the plan very shortly after the iPad came to market and started selling with amazing rapidity.  The revised plans do away with the “all you can eat” data module and offer you the choice of 250 MB of data per month for $14.99 or XXGB for $YY.  AT&T’s programs come with cancellable monthly renewable terms, allowing you to cancel the plan or reinstate it whenever you want or need to do so.

The iPad’s larger screen offers a much better Internet experience than the iPhone or the iPod Touch.  It also provides better viewing for movies and pictures.  The iPad has a wide viewing angle, which enhances your viewing experience, but also means that people sitting on your side on an airplane or next to you at a lunch counter can easily read your screen. Available third party privacy screens can restrict the ability of others to see your screen, protect your privacy your clients’ confidentiality.  Consider a privacy screen a necessary accoutrement to the iPad if you desire to use it in a public place and have any semblance of privacy for your content.

Among its many talents, the iPad also functions as an eReader.  I find the iPad’s backlit clarity, high resolution and color technology far more pleasing than e-ink technology employed by the more traditional eReaders, such as the Kindle or the Nook.  Apple’s iBook App lets you buy books from Apple’s iTunes Store, organize them on your iPad, synch them between your iPad and your computer with the assistance of iTunes and read them very comfortably.  The chameleon-like iPad, also does a pretty decent Kindle and Nook imitation as well.  Amazon has made a free Kindle App available and Barnes & Noble has made its own reader app available at no charge.  The installation of these Apps gives you the ability to access the entire Barnes & Noble and Amazon collections of electronic reading materials, acquire them, coordinate them, read them and use them with features substantially the same as the Kindle or the Nook.

Apple says that almost all the Apps in its store will run on the iPad.  While that has proven technically accurate, many Apps require modification to take advantage of the iPad’s screen size and features

If you use Apple’s Calendar and Address Book, your calendar and contacts will look better (and appear larger and easier to read) on the iPad than on the iPod or the iPhone.  Apple also tuned up its Mail program, creating a unified in-box that allows you to see all your unread mail at one time, without having to go back and forth between accounts.   The iOS 4 operating system Apple released with the iPhone 4 also includes a number of additional features that will come to the iPad when Apple makes the iOS4 available for the iPad.  Apple has announced that it will make the iOS4 available for the iPad sometime this fall.

You can find out more about the iPad at (www.apple.com/ipad). You can buy the iPad online at (http://store.apple.com/us) or arrange to pick one up at your local Apple Store.

What’s Missing?

The ability to expand the iPad’s memory through the addition of memory cards would make it much easier to use the iPad as a picture album, a movie viewer, a music player, an eReader, and a storage device for a variety of other information. It would, for example, allow you to get a media card to store books or movies that you don’t need on a daily basis but want to have with you when you travel.  As Apple has not allowed the use of memory cards in the iPod or the iPhone, the odds favor Apple’s not making this feature available in the iPad.  Perhaps, future iterations of the iPad will increase the offered memory to 128 or even 256 GB when the price of such memory comes down.

A built-in webcam for use in videoconferencing would also have made the iPad much more useful.  I anticipate seeing Apple add this to a future iteration of the iPad, much as it has now done with the newest generation of its iPod Touch.

Conclusion.

The iPad is useful as an e-mail device, or as an Internet appliance, or as an eReader, or as a . . . pick a function, any function. While not as useful as a laptop, the iPad will enable me to travel to many meetings without a laptop. Its weight and size make it an easy fit for a briefcase or a large purse. I will likely carry it with me most of the time as it will do for me most of what I expect my laptop and my Kindle to do.

As a tool in a law office, I consider the iPad helpful (but pricey).  Nevertheless, I could not call it as essential.  It does offer conveniences, largely due to its size, weight and flexibility.  As a personal Internet appliance, however, it excels and will change the way many of us interact with the Internet at home and particularly on the road.  I have found sufficient uses for the iPad at work that I can justify the acquisition and I am certainly glad that I have one.

Copyright, 2010 by Jeffrey Allen.  All rights reserved.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

In the next several months the ABA will upgrade its entire website. In conjunction with that upgrade we anticipate adding product reviews and information about special officers from vendors and continue to expand and improve the Smart Soloing Center.

The Smart Soloing Center went live in conjunction with the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco last month. The GPSolo Division has appointed Jeff Allen to chair the Division’s Smart Soloing Center Content Committee. If you know of articles, links, or other information of use to solo, small firm, and general practice attorneys that we have not added to the site or if you have a product that you have used and found helpful and would like to review that product for the Center, please communicate that information to Jeff Allen at:  Jeffrey Allen, Graves & Allen, 436 14th Street, Suite 1400, Oakland, California 94612; Phone: 510-839-8777; Fax: 510-839-5192; email: jallenlawtek@aol.com.

The folks at RIM (actually their PR people) provided me with a Blackberry 9700 (AKA Bold 2) working on the T-Mobile network for review purposes.  I have worked with it for the last month or two and like it very much.  It has a smaller footprint and thinner profile than the original Bold (9000)(which I have on an ATT account).  It has the same basic appearance, only smaller and more svelte, more like the Curve in size, but with a more substantial feeling. The 9700′s vital statistics are:    Height: 4.29 inches; Width: 2.36 inches; Depth: 0.56 inches; Weight: 4.3 ounces.   RIM claims the following battery information for the 9700: Standby time: GSM–up to 21 days/504 hours, UMTS–up to 17 days/408 hours;  Talk time: GSM–up to 6 hours, UMTS–up to 6 hours; Music playback time: up to 38 hours.  I continue to find myself impressed by the fact that the Blackberry devices do seem to hold their charge longer and get more use out of it than any other device I have experienced.

The smaller size also meant a smaller keyboard, which like the original Bold takes up about half of the front of the device, leaving the other half for the screen.  The smaller keyboard took some getting used to, but after a while, I accommodated to it and found it quite satisfactory.  If I had not bounced back and forth between the 9700 and the 9000, I probably would have accommodated to it more quickly, but, I preferred the larger keyboard.  As the 9700 is both smaller and lighter, I prefer carrying (and pocketing) that device and have gotten over the keyboard issue, deciding that the tradeoff made sense.

The 9700 also comes with a small trackpad instead of the traditional Blackberry trackball.  I strongly prefer the trackpad over the trackball.  The interface works smoothly and efficiently and it never sticks as the trackball sometimes does.  In fairness, I have never had the trackball stick on a newer device, only when the device has some wear on it.  The structure of the trackpad makes it less likely that a user will experience problems with the trackpad than the trackball.

The 9700 comes with the Blackberry OS 5.  While the OS5 offers some upgrades to its predecessors, it does not present substantial differences.  The Blackberry OS lags behind the Apple iOS4 and the Android operating systemS in terms of user interface and features.  Blackberry has now released a new OS (OS6), but it does not yet offer it on the 9700.  I have not seen the new OS in action yet, but should have a look at it soon.  It remains to see how far the new OS will move the Blackberry along the path to catching up with or surpassing the other operating systems available.

The Blackberry remains strong at what it does best, handling eMail;  but other systems have largely caught up to the Blackberry in eMail handling and also offer the push technology that made the Blackberry OS preeminent for such a long time period.  I like the clarity of the 9700′s display;  but it remains one of the smallest smart phone displays I have used in some time.  I prefer the larger display RIM employed with its Storm device.   The tradeoff here is the physical keyboard on the 9700 with the smaller display or the virtual keyboard with the Storm and the larger display.

When the original Bold came out, I thought it was the best of the Blackberry line.  By comparison to the 9700 the 9000 seems bulky and clunky, although it still works fine (save and except for the occasional catch in the trackball’s operation.  As both models remain current, I would choose the 9700 over the 9000.  If you have wide fingers and worry about the smaller keyboard on the 9700, don’t.  Both keyboards come with ridges that work well with fingernails, solving that problem.  The smaller size of the 9700′s keys will take some getting used to, but you won’t miss carrying the 9000 in your pocket!

As a telephone, the 9700 works fine.  I prefer using it with a Bluetooth earphone and have found it works fine with the several models I tried.  The reception will always be a function of your location and the service provider, but I have not found any significant difference in reception between the 9700 and other phones using  the same carrier.

The 9700 has both a 3G mode (the first Blackberry to work on 3G) and WiFi.  Both forms of connectivity worked well and I had no problem connecting it to my home or my office wireless networks.  The 3G brings the Blackberry into more modern times and provides a nice upkick in speed and responsiveness.  The 3.2 megapixel camera, while not overly exciting does the job nicely and gives you the ability to take grab shots when you do not have a better camera available.  It gives you a nice alternative to carrying a camera with you everywhere you go;  but if you want good pictures, you will do better with a dedicated camera than any smartphone including the 9700.

The 9700 comes with a built in GPS capability as well as Blackberry Maps.  The GPS appears to work adequately.

If you need to get a new phone, want a Blackberry and use a provider that offers the 9700, you can confidently get one and anticipate the type of reliability that has become a standard for RIM in its Blackberry devices.  I have no problem recommending it.  BUT, if you use or want to use ATT as the provider for your Blackberry, you may want to check out the Torch.  I just got one for review today and it looks very good.  I will review it shortly here.  The Torch (which comes with Blackberry OS6 preloaded) only works on ATT, so if you do not use or do not want to use ATT, you can’t get one except by paying the full price for it and then having it unlocked so that you can put another provider’s SIM card into it.

Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Allen.

http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/ereport/2010/vol9/num2/tech_ereport_jun10.pdf

The following lists the content of this issue:

Features
●   Adding New Tools to Your Marketing Toolbox » Using social media and more to generate business.
● Error-Proof Your Law Firm With the Agile Daily Standup » Transforming your law practice by asking and answering three simple questions.
●    Converged Telephone Systems Allow Small Firms to Act Big » How advanced phone system features can enhance reachability, add office
efficiencies, and help smaller firms measure up against larger competitors.
Columns
●   MacNotes » News on iPhones, OS 4.0, iPads, and more.
●   TechNotes » Geeks for Lawyers: Hiring a Technology Support Provider
●    Sites for Sore Eyes » Law Practice SaaS sites.
● ProductNotes »
StarTech SATDOCK22R USB 2.0 to SATA Standalone Hard Drive Duplicator Dock.

Past Issues
●Technology eReport Newsletter | ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division
http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/ereport/2010/vol9/num2/index.html (2 of 3)6/9/2010
Primary sponsor of the GPSolo Division.
●   DivisionNotes »
About GPSolo
●   Learn the Benefits of GPSolo Membership »
❍  Award-Winning Periodicals ❍ Special Member Discounts ❍  Practice Area Committees ❍  Continuing Legal Education ❍    Networking Opportunities
❍   Leadership Opportunities ❍  Not a Member Yet? Join Now »
●   Visit GPSolo’s Homepage » The one-stop website for solos, small firmers, and general practitioners —
featuring news and articles about the profession as it affects you!

The following lists the content of this issue:

Features
● New Technology Puts Jury Research at Your Fingertips »
Online jury research can provide a powerful, sophisticated, quick and costefficient
tool for attorneys to get the answers they need to the pressing questions
they have about their cases.
● Moving Your Practice Into the Cloud »
What considerations should be taken into account prior to opening a law office in
“the cloud.”
● Cold and Dead, From My Hands »
Love means never having to use new gadgets.
Columns
● MacNotes »
Come on over to iPad.
● TechNotes »
Is Canson Papershow ready for the Big League?
● ProductNotes »
ScanSnap S1300, QuickBooks 2010 for the Mac, and BigHand voice software.
● DivisionNotes »
A CLE event and Spring Meeting.
http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/ereport/2010/vol9/num1/index.html (1 of 3)3/24/2010 1:46:55 PM
Technology eReport Newsletter | ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division
Primary sponsor of the
GPSolo Division.
About GPSolo
● Learn the Benefits of GPSolo Membership »
❍ Award-Winning Periodicals
❍ Special Member Discounts
❍ Practice Area Committees
❍ Continuing Legal Education
❍ Networking Opportunities
❍ Leadership Opportunities
❍ Not a Member Yet? Join Now »
● Visit GPSolo’s Homepage »
The one-stop website for solos, small firmers, and general practitioners —
featuring news and articles about the profession as it affects you.

Enjoy.

For the next several years the Mac world met in San Francisco every winter.  Apple attended.  So did a large array of vendors of products that ran on or worked with Apple’s hardware and a few who just showed up for the party and the exposure.

Last year Apple said it had no further need for MacWorld and would not attend in the future.  The Mac people bravely went on and met in San Francisco earlier this month.  I went to the convention (as I have done for years).  It was sad.  Yes many Mac users attended.  Yes they saw a reasonable collection of Mac software and accessories.  No, Apple did not attend.  And MacWorld this year did not compare favorably to the previous MacWorld conferences.  It reminded me of the first year back in Boston without Apple.  Still it was MacWorld, but it was less than it had been.

It appears that MacWorld has entered the Twilight Zone and that it may hang on for another year or two, but that the prognosis does not favor long life for the conference.  It appears to have run its course.  I, for one, will miss it when it goes.

Apple recently re-configured its iMac line of computers.  Most of the reconfigurations represented good upgrades to the existing models, but nothing to cause you to run out and buy a new one if you already had a fairly current model.  In addition to reconfiguring its existing models, Apple added a substantially different unit to the line.  For the first time, Apple included a quad-core model at its top end.  The quad-core comes in a base mode that includes  27-inch display, 4GB of RAM, a 2.66GHz quad-core i5Nehalem intel processor, a 1TB hard drive, an 8x double-layer superdrive and ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB OF RAM.  The base model comes with built-in Bluetooth,  10/100/1000Base-T Gigabit Ethernet, Apple Airport Extreme (802.11a/b/g) WiFi, built-in amplifiers and stereo speakers, an iSight webcam, a microphone, Apple’s Bluetooth wireless keyboard and its impressive new Bluetooth Magic Mouse.  The computer also comes with 4 USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port and a built-in SD card slot.  The newly configured model includes a mini DisplayPort output port that supports DVI, VGA and dual-link DVI adaptors.  It supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to a 30-inch external display (2560 x 1600 pixels).

Apple allows for you to upgrade the base model by moving to a 2.8GHz  i7 quad-core Nehalem processor for an additional $200.  You can upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 8GB for another $200 (4x2GB boards).  For $600, you can get the 8GB in 2x4GB boards, leaving two slots open for future expansion.  If you want all the RAM you can get, you can bump it to 16GB for $1400.  In my opinion, don’t hesitate to take the 8GB for an extra $200 option.  Chances are if you do the upgrade for $600, you will not use the two slots you freed up for the extra $400.

If you want, you can upgrade the the 1TB drive to 2TB for an extra $250.  If you store, or plan to store, a lot of media on your computer, that may prove to be a good choice for you.  Otherwise, 1TB should suffice for most users.   I have a very extensive audio library on my computer and, together with an increasing amount of video it takes less than 200GB of space.  I have had a 1TB drive for the better part of the last year and still have 368GB of available space.

The base model sells for $1999.  While that may sound expensive considering what has happened to prices in the computer market, I consider it a very good value due to the power, capabilities and performance of the computer.

The ideal model for my use included the 2.8 GHz processor, 8GB of Ram ($200) and the 1TB hard disk.  The total cost came to $2399 plus tax (shipping costs nothing).

The computer comes with the usual collection of Apple software, the current OS (Snow Leopard) (OS X v10.6), iTUnes, TIme Machine, Spaces, Mail, Safari, Address Book, Spotlight, Photobooth, Front Row, iCal, QuickTime, DV Player, Dashboard and the iLife suite (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and GarageBand).

I really like the new 27″ screen.  The three inch increase over my 24″ diagonal display provides a significant amount of extra work and viewing space.  The display provide an exceptionally clear, bright and sharp image, as good or better as any I have seen on a computer.

The combination of the quad-core processor and Snow Leopard OS enables the computer to handle 64 bit as well as 32 bit programs.  I have had no issue with software that ran on a dual-core iMac and Snow Leopard not running on the quad-core iMac with Snow Leopard.  The quad-core boots noticeably faster and runs noticeably quicker than its dual-core cousins.

Having 8GB of on board RAM helps the computer run better and faster using Mac OS X native software.  It also helps considerably with the performance of a windows virtual machine running under Parallels 5.0 (the new version of Parallels).  I have tried it with both Vista and XP professional.  I have not yet upgraded any of my virtual machines to Windows 7.  Having the extra RAM allows me to upgrade the RAM for the virtual machine (you can go up to 3GB without a hitch) and still have sufficient RAM for the Mac to run well concurrently.

I had no problem with any of my existing peripherals or with interaction of my quad-core Mac to my network (which consists primarily of dual-core iMacs  and Xerox Phaser networked printers with intermittant connection by a MacBook or MacBook Air.

The bottom line:  I REALLY like the new quad-core iMac.  I am glad that I upgraded my desktop unit to the quad-core.  I will likely do the same to my home-office desktop sometime next year.

Note:  Image courtesy of Apple, Inc..  Apple, Inc. provided no consideration respecting this commentary.

http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/ereport/2009/vol8/num4/.

This issue has the following contents:

FEATURES

Is Your Website OK Today? » Attracting clients and making favorable impressions.

SaaS Security: Can You Trust Your Data in the Cloud? » How to pick the right SaaS provider, come rain or shine.

Setting Up a Web-Based Virtual Law Office » Practical and ethical considerations to address when moving online.

COLUMNS

MacNotes » Snow Leopard: snow job, or great new OS?

SurvivingEmail » Email sig files, social networks, and getting seen.

Sites for Sore Eyes » Where to go to learn about Windows 7.

TechNotes » Is Skype all hype, or is it a helpful tool?

ProductNotes » Casio EX-FC100 camera, Novatel MiFi 2200 USB modem, Google Wave, and PBworks.

DivisionNotes » Midyear Meeting events and an upcoming teleconference.