While it seems like a great idea on paper, the reality is far from appealing. Not only does the connection frequently fail, OnLive Desktop also stands as a solid reminder just how ugly and unworkable Microsoft Office becomes on a tablet interface (not to mention how unworkable Windows 7 is on a tablet interface).

Compare & ContrastMicrosoft Word OnLive Desktop vs. Pages on iPad

]]> http://www.maclitigator.com/2012/01/16/onlive-desktop/feed/ 0 http://www.maclitigator.com/2011/12/07/date-calculator-roundup-wolfram-lawyers-assistant-review/ http://www.maclitigator.com/2011/12/07/date-calculator-roundup-wolfram-lawyers-assistant-review/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:26:02 +0000 pete http://www.maclitigator.com/?p=675 Continue reading →]]> Ahhhh. The interesting tedious task of calculating dates. Delegate to staff and hope they get it right and you don’t blow a statute/deadline? Or, get out a big desk pad calendar and hold your thumb on the starting date counting backwards, then forwards, and forgetting where you started when the phone rings? Here’s a round up of calculators to help make it a bit easier on you or your staff.

On the iPad/iPhone

Court Days Pro ($2.99) is a ‘legal specific’ date calculator that allows you to ‘build’ a set of dates. Dates can be added/subtracted as court days or calendar days and long dependent chains can be built from a single trigger event. If the calculated date falls on a weekend or recognized holiday, the calculation can bump the date forward or backward to the next closest court date. Court Days Pro is handy for creating dates which are usually static and triggered by a single event, such as discovery schedules, time to answer, days until the statute of limitations runs etc. Once calculated, the dates can be exported directly to the built in Calendar app or emailed. You could also check out Court Days (.99¢) made by the same folks, iPhone/iTouch only and fewer features. Both Court Days and Court Days Pro allow adding custom state recognized legal holidays. The reviews for this app on iTunes are somewhat negative. It appears from the negative reviews that people are having difficulty with navigation and input because none of the complaints make much sense if you spend a little time understanding how the app works. Recommend ignoring the iTunes reviews and playing around with the app for a little bit before you give up.

Date Ranger (Free). Date Ranger is really simple on the surface. Two boxes, two dates and you’re off and running. Here’s the neat trick: once you have a date calculated, you can ‘swipe’ that date onto the other box. This makes calculating dependent sequential dates a breeze.

HiCalc HD (Free) offers a variety of handy calculators, including a basic date calculator. It presents the dates in dd/mm/yyyy format which can be a bit confusing. HiCalc also displays the day of the week which will keep you, at least, from calendaring something to occur on the weekend but may result in you calendaring on a legal holiday.

Lastly, DateInterval (free) provides a bare bones, knuckle dragging friendly count days forward from a date or the difference between two dates.

On the Mac

Several free options exist for calculating dates on the Mac. First up is Date Calculator, a somewhat dated (2005?!?!) widget available here. The widget allows addition, subtraction and difference calculations for dates. FreeLawTools offers an online calculator that uses either court or calendar dates for the calculation, and will also exclude legal holidays/weekends from the result by shifting the day forward or backward as you desire. Finally, WolframAlpha. If you don’t already know, WolframAlpha “is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data.” So, of course, it can calculate dates.

Wolfram Lawyer’s Assistant (Reference App)

Speaking of WolframAlpha, they have just released for the iPad Wolfram Lawyer’s Professional Assistant ($4.99). The app offers up a unique set of reference tools for lawyers including, among other things, a Legal Dictionary, a quick reference for Statutes of Limitations for all 50 states, blood alcohol calculator, IP Address Lookup, historical weather, damages/estate planning/real estate calculators and statistical information.

The date calculator can calculate business (i.e. court) or calendar days between two dates or forward from a specified date. But, if you want to count backwards… sorry, despite the fact that this App is provided by the world’s most famous online calculation machine, WolframAlpha, it can’t count backwards. Counting to a huge number of decimal places Pi? Check. Counting backwards on your iPad. Meh, not so much.

Wolfram Lawyer’s Professional Assistant also fails in the Statute of Limitations area. For the Utah Statutes of Limitation periods, it lists a 1 year SOL for “medical malpractice actions based on insertion of a foreign object.” Not. Quite. Right. The Lawyer’s Assistant is also a little rough around the edges in terms of user interface. Finally, the thing throws advertising for other Wolfram apps at you in the bottom corner of the home screen. Considering it is a paid app, advertising (even for your own wares) is a major no-no. Final thoughts: wait for the next revisions or corrections to the current version before purchase unless you really need one of the math calculators.

Looking back at this collection it becomes obvious that the paradigm is shifting toward the iPad/iOS for ‘new’ or ‘innovative’ development. The best date calculator to be found is Court Days Pro, on the iPad. A date calculator widget for Mac OSX hasn’t been updated in six years and Wolfram just cranked out an iPad specific app, but provides nothing on desktop for legal reference. Interesting.

Update: 

Fresh from the mind of David Sparks (MacSparky), Siri can also calculate dates (and probably add them to your Calendar too).

Try this.

Siri …

“What is 30 days plus December 7″

“How many days are between November 1, 2011 and December 7, 2011″

Thanks David… just when I had finally resolved to wait for the iPhone 5.

First: when you now QuickLook a document in Finder, command-tabbing or switching to another application leaves the QuickLook version open on the screen. This is very handy for referencing a document while typing in another application.

Second: a three fingered double tap on top of any word will pull up the dictionary definition of the word, a thesaurus reference for the word, and, a short version of any Wikipedia reference which may exist for the word.

Third: using Preview to sign a PDF document using the built-in camera on your Mac. This last bit is sure to make any lawyer who prefers working paperless squeal with joy. By simply signing a blank white sheet of paper, and then holding that signature up to the camera, you can then insert your signature into the PDF wherever you see fit.

This is a vast improvement over the old static stamp method of inserting a handwritten signature on documents. Additionally, it provides a heightened sense of security since each signature can now be unique and contained handwritten date notation next to the signature. Once the signature is placed in the PDF, flatten that image and make it a permanent part of the PDF, simply select File>Print>PDF>Save as PDF.

The recent update to iOS 5 combined with an Apple TV (ATV) software update confirms the iPad as a serious piece of technology easily accessible to everyday folks, and even lawyers.

You can now, from a chunk of aluminum and glass smaller in size than a legal pad, wirelessly display across the room virtually anything that can be shown on your iPad. Need to show a street scene? Stream Google Earth, wirelessly, straight to a projector, pinch to zoom, swipe to tilt. Need to show detailed anatomy? Fire up Netter’s Atlas and present beautifully detailed anatomical drawings with pinch to zoom. Want a 3D anatomy? Do that too with Visible Body, a really great anatomy app that lacks the fine detail of Netters, but wows with 3D zooming, pan and tilt on all anatomical structures. Need to mark up a PDF or photograph? Yeah, you can do that too, live, in front of the jury. GoodReader, ReaddleDocs and PDF Expert all stream a beautiful mirrored copy of your markups. Need to show a witness interview or video of the scene? Check. Wirelessly.

Want present without simultaneously mirroring your actions to the display? At least three apps recognize the ATV as a separate display and retain the iPad display for the user to manipulate the projected image. TrialPad smartly and critically shows only the particular exhibit, treating the ATV as a secondary display and leaving the iPad screen available for markup and annotation hidden until ready to display. Apple’s Keynote presentation program also uses the ATV as a ‘secondary’ display, again leaving the iPad to function as a presenter only screen where you can view individual slides, highlight the slide on display with a laser pointer, or read your presenter notes. iAnnotate can simultaneously show an exhibit on the projector via ATV, while allowing you to reference your examination outline on the iPad itself. Really, really useful stuff and all from two little tiny pieces of technology that seem so innocuous: a slab of aluminum and glass and a small black cube.  Magical.

So, here’s the step by step for doing any of this in a courtroom:

1. An iPad running iOS 5

2. An Apple TV

3. Both devices connected to the same wireless network

4. A projector connected to the Apple TV

The Apple TV uses an HDMI out cable, so your projector will need to be capable of accepting HDMI input (many projectors only accept VGA). Once you have your Apple TV up and running, with the latest software installed, you need to make sure that both the ATV and the iPad are running on the same network. This is the only ‘techy’ part of the whole project and there are three options: First, use whatever wireless network you can find in the vicinity and hope that it is stable and fast enough to support you. Not a very good option, IMHO. Second, and cheapest, pick up an Airport Express and use it to set up a local wireless network. An Airport Express will only set you back about $99 if you pay full retail and can often be found on discount at sites like Other World Computing for as cheap as $59. Third, but not least, set up your MacBook as an ‘ad hoc’ wireless network. Then, connect your iPad and ATV to the MacBook’s ad hoc wireless network.

Once this is all set up, from the home screen double tap the home button or four finger swipe upwards.

Then, swipe the active apps tray in the bottom of the screen to the right.

Now, you should see the AirPlay icon. Tap it and select your ATV and turn mirroring on. Wash, rinse, repeat.

PaperDesk

PaperDesk comes (unlike any of the other apps) in a free ‘lite’ version on the app store, so it may be worth a try to see if it fits your needs. Unfortunately, inking is not very smooth. There is a nice bookmarking feature, and a nice to-do feature including the ability to review all to-dos from multiple notebooks on the home screen. However, the to-do’s do not sync to a particular page in a notebook.

Exporting to PDF requires connecting to iTunes. There is no Evernote integration.

Paperdesk does have the ability to export directly to Google docs. It also includes the ability to use typewritten notes. Typewritten notes, unfortunately, do not wrap around hand written notes and ink almost seems to be a secondary input choice. The keyboard has a nice quick access toolbar for tabs, bullets and math symbols.

Palm protection, the ability to keep your wrist or palm from creating extraneous and unwanted marks on the paper, is weak. The icons and general layout are somewhat goofy and not at all iOS like. There are no discrete settings or preferences. Photos can be imported either from the photo library or the camera.

PaperDesk also includes the ability to record voice notes. However, the keyboard obscures the record button, making it difficult to begin and end recording. Sounds are actually linked to the typewritten words making it quick to jump to any particular point of the recording. For example if you typed out “four score and seven years ago” while recording, and then clicked on the word years, the audio would begin replaying whatever was spoken or recorded at that particular point when the word “years” was typed. This is similar to the functionality contained in other programs such as Soundnote for the iPad, and also replicates, to some extent, the functionality of having a LiveScribe pen. Unfortunately, the recording does not track handwritten notes and tracks only typewritten notes.

GhostWriter Notes.

Ghostwriter ($4.99) notes allows you to take notes either with pen or by typing on your iPad. The interface is much better than that of PaperDesk. There are a number of different papers which can be used and custom papers can be made from anything contained within the iPads photo album. PDFs can also be imported for annotation and markup, a great feature for filling out things such as standardized intake forms. Interface is relatively clean and straightforward, iOS like.

Export options are plentiful, including the ability to export through e-mail, Dropbox, Evernote, directly to a PDF viewer, by printing wirelessly to printers capable of communicating with iOS, as well as sending the note page to the iPad photos album. GhostWriter allows the user to insert blank pages into a notebook, and reorder the pages as you see fit. Each page is given the default description of the current date, but each page can also be renamed to a custom page name. There are, of course, a variety of pens, pencils and highlighters for use within the application. Unlike PaperDesk, there is no audio recording with GhostWriter. GhostWriter employs a zoomed handwriting feature. This allows the user to write with much greater detail than would normally be possible using a stylus or finger on a blank page. However, the ink contained within the zoom box is somewhat pixelated and difficult to read.

Penultimate.

Penultimate ($1.99) is perhaps the most iOS like of any of the applications. It is brutal in its simplicity which, depending on your view, is either the highest selling point or the biggest drawback. Penultimate has outstanding pen to paper feel, with the ink flowing smoothly across the page. It incorporates very, very good palm protection. Photos can be imported from either the iPad’s photo album or directly from the camera. Paper is limited to 3 styles, although additional styles are available for both free and via in-app purchase.

The main drawbacks to Penultimate are limited export opportunities. Entire notebooks or individual pages can only be exported as PDF files or as native Penultimate files and only through e-mail. Individual pages can be saved into the iPad photo album or printed via iOS capable printers. Overall, Penultimate is a beautiful app, accurately recreating the simplicity and presentation of a pen and paper notebook.

Note Taker HD.

Note Taker HD ($4.99) is perhaps the deepest of all these applications. The best of these features include the ability to select, cut and paste handwritten text, the ability to tag, flag and mark favorites for individual notes. Also, Note Taker HD can directly import PDFs and then mark them up. As with GhostWriter, this can be very handy for creating forms you want to fill out. Of course, to some extent, this inevitably results in duplicate data entry, the bane of the computing world. Note Taker HD also incorporates a zoom feature for creating handwritten notes. Again, this allows a great deal of detail and precision when writing in the Zoom box that is reflected on the full page.

The handwriting this passable, but not quite as smooth as Penultimate. Additionally, Note Taker HD lacks the ability to directly connect to Evernote. Finally, note taker HD is a somewhat complex piece of software is a trade-off for the depth of features. Although the layout is nice and presentable, it can be a bit offputting and somewhat counterintuitive at times as it diverges from standard IOS interface.

Noteshelf.

Noteshelf ($4.99) has truly amazing handwriting/pen and ink response. It also incorporates a zoom feature which allows, again, precision handwriting. The ink on the page is comparable to Penultimate. Noteshelf allows for palm protection to avoid inadvertent inking on the paper. The interface and layout is very iOS like, very intuitive, and customizable for lefty versus righty. There is a direct Evernote export. As well as Dropbox, iTunes, e-mail, iPad photo album, and print to iOS capable printers. Export format can be set to go as either individual images for each note page (which is the best way to export to Evernote as the handwriting will be recognized and then searchable) or as multipage PDFs. Page navigation is very nice and intuitive with a thumbnail drop-down for each page. Individual pages can be rearranged and reordered and individual pages can be moved/copied between different notebooks. Downsides to Noteshelf include the inability to import PDFs for annotating. Also, custom papers are, as with Ghostwriter and Penultimate, a separate in-app purchase for additional money. Photos can be imported directly from either the camera or the iPad’s photo album.

The big winner.

It’s a close call between Noteshelf and Note Taker HD. Note Taker HD has some superb features and is well worth considering if you need to fill out for right on top of an markup individual PDFs. However, if you want great inking ability, excellent export options, and ease-of-use note shelf is the way to go. If, on the other hand, you want to recreate as closely as possible plain ole’ pen and paper, go with Penultimate.

This is not an all inclusive list of note taking apps which use ink, just a review of those most frequently mentioned. Noterize sorta gets you there, and is free, but the inking isn’t that great although the app does do audio recording. Notes Plus is a nice effort, allows mixed typing and handwriting, as well as recording audio. But, the ink feel is a bit jerky, the export options and paper are both very limited as well.

A word about styluses (styli?).

Writing on the iPad with your finger will quickly become unbearable and unworkable. If you want to take handwritten notes, you will need a stylus. The Pogo ($10.98 Amazon) is workable, but has a spongy tip on it. The Kuel H10 ($12.99 Amazon) has an excellent tip which is nice and as precise as can be with a capacitive touchscreen such as the iPad has. Unfortunately, the Kuel 10 is also a stubby little bugger. I resorted to modeling mine by pulling the rubber grip off a regular pen and also extending the length by sticking an extension on the Kuel 10. Update: Received a Jot stylus from Adonit ($19.99) last night… by far and away the best stylus out there due to the length. Because it has a ‘hard’ tip, as opposed to the rubber and sponge of others, it does tend to make a tapping sound on the glass as you write. But, the Jot is a full-length, well balanced device. You ‘can’ make your own free Jot disc-style stylus if you have the time and DIY attitude (web page link, YouTube link). Why would you want to make your own? Because these things (stylii) get lost, because you want to use an old-well balanced pen you have lying around, because you’re cheap, because you’re a tech-head pioneer and slide rulers, pocket protectors and thick rimmed glasses have all gone out of style.

One particularly impressive piece of technology available to staff: a “presentation” device. This device consisted of a series of rackmounted slide projectors which could be operated so as to give the effect of “transitions” between slides.

This amazing slide projector had cutting edge features such as a 1300 lm lamp; forward and reverse control of slides; an RS-232 serial connector; random slide access via remote control or computer; a built-in dissolve feature (0 to 10 seconds); and it weighed in at a feathery light 26 pounds. All this for a paltry $1,560 (lens not included). Surprisingly, the manufacturer did not include the most important feature in the press release materials: an amazing capacity to consistently overheat and crap out 5 min. into a 20 min. presentation.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Recently, in the middle of trial, about to begin a cross exam of a witness, the TrialPad app, when reconnected to the cable at the podium, refused to display anything other than mirror mode.

The revolutionary software, this secret weapon, this huge advantage over my worthy but technologically handicapped adversary, was now not only worthless, but also a potential scuttling of my whole boat. Technology rigorously follows Murphy’s law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Belt and Suspenders

In addition to having spare batteries for the remote, a spare bulb for the projector, a spare laptop/iPad in case it craps out, and your presentation on a spare USB drive you must have, more than any of these, a plan ‘B.’

Plan ‘B.’ The cross exam depended on a few key documents and prior testimony. Time to go old school. At every trial, the important exhibits (there should usually only be five and absolutely no more than ten of these) should be blown up and placed on foam board. Now, here’s the trick: get those blow ups laminated. This allows you to draw, write and highlight directly on the blow up with dry erase markers which can then be later erased. Next, always have a hardcopy of your exam outlines contained in your trial notebook. Last, always have hardcopies of the depositions. With these items in hand, you never need to worry that technology will fail you. You only need to question whether the time and money involved in technology are worth the the effort.

Note: The fatal bug in TrialPad appeared in a previous version and has since been corrected.

Our firm tried three cases in the last five weeks. MacLitigator has been too busy over the past two or so months to post anything. The last case finished with a jury verdict coming in after 9:30 p.m. yesterday evening. But, news that TrialPad 2.0 was in the App Store made me pop open the iPad for a look.

The short review. Wow.

Summary: TrialPad 2.0 offers the best parts of a full blown laptop/desktop trial presentation system in a simple-to-use package at a fraction of the cost.

The Long Review

For anybody doing any amount of trial work, and yes that means even if you only have one trial, TrialPad is a must have application. TrialPad provides an amazing array of powerful presentation features in the small and unobtrusive package that is the iPad. Notably, MacLitigator was previously critical of the limited feature set and high price of $89. While $89 is still in the high end territory for the App Store/iOS ecosystem, the 2.0 version is easily justified.

What can TrialPad do with a displayed document? It can: highlight or annotate with multiple colored pens; display a red, blue or green ‘laser point’ which follows your finger on the projected image; display two documents side by side; create on the fly call outs; zoom with the pinch and zoom ease of the iPad; redact on the fly; and, rotate an improperly displayed image or image set.

Finally, TrialPad can save a marked up image or document to be used and/or admitted as evidence. So, a witness can mark up a document and, hitting the ‘Fire’ button, will save a copy of the document/image to a special folder. The marked up version can then be used as needed later on with other witnesses or admission can be sought. TrialPad includes support for AirPrint which also means that a hardcopy could be printed right there in court if an AirPrint compatible printer is available.

TrialPad offers the ability to display on a projector or other screen any a huge number of file formats including everything from the ubiquitous PDF, to video files (and the ability to edit clips inside the app), to even Pages and Keynote plain .txt files (think raw court reporter transcripts). Of course, for best results, sticking with more common place file types, such as PDF, jpg etc., will work best for unaltered formatting when displayed.

The only thing missing at this point, and the killer feature that would take this app over the top of all other trial presentation software, is the ability to leverage Apple’s AirPlay so that the wires could be dumped. It really sucks dragging a VGA or HDMI cable around the podium or stringing it to counsel’s table. On a side note, TrialPad 1.5′s screen/display had a nasty habit of hanging when rapidly removing and replacing the video adapter, as in when you leave the podium and return to the table. At this point, the issue ‘seems’ to be cleared up in TrialPad 2.0.

If you’ve read this far…. thanks. Also, Lit Software and Ian provided me with an early demo license to TrialPad which included an update. MacLitigator feels obligated to ‘pass that license on’ and not keep it for personal use both for journalistic integrity and other reasons. So, keep an eye out here as there will soon be a give away to one lucky reader for a free TrialPad license. Also, the next few posts will detail ALL the tech used at trial, from hardware to ‘alternative’ trial presentation apps. Stay tuned.

July 10, 2011: Update Reader Stan Mortensen has highlighted some fairly serious bugs in TrialPad 2.0. I have not been able to replicate these bugs. As with any software or hardware, extensive testing and working with it prior to going into an actual trial is a must. You can see Stan’s video by following the YouTube link in the comments.

July 14, 2011: Update MacLitigator attempted to verify the identity of ‘Stan Mortensen.’ Despite repeated email requests, Mr. Mortensen did not provide a physical address or phone number or any other information which might verify his identity as being apart and separate from a competing product available on the iPad. Unfortunately, at least some of his bug reporting is accurate.

Features

File Management: Exhibit A, supports file transfer via iTunes, Dropbox Wifi, Email and FTP. Whole folders or single files can be imported. Supported file formats are claimed as PDF, image files and video (.mov). In testing, large image files lagged a little bit during display, though not so much as to cause difficulty. Video files downloaded via Dropbox refused to play and were listed as an unsupported file format. More work needed there.

Files can be sorted by folder, A-Z, or by Filetype. Once a file is in, a tap and hold offers the options of Renaming, Moving, or Deleting. A toolbar along the bottom allows a quick jump to other files, folders, imports and even any photos saved in the iPad’s photo app.

Displaying/Projecting: Exhibit A uses the external vga adapter for projecting documents. The refresh on an external display is near instantaneous, depending on the file size and level of detail/color in the file. Layout for presentation is straightforward with annotation tools on the left, a slider for quickly navigating to a specific page on the right and “Rotate” “Undo” “Redo” “Clear” “Save” and “Show” buttons across the top right. The tool bars can be hidden and do not display on the projected image.

Annotation tools are very well thought out. The felt marker offers a variety of colors and widths, there is an eraser tool, a standard yellow highlighter with adjustable widths and, a nice touch, a laser pointer which displays a temporary red dot where the user’s finger traces on the image. TrialPad, the only other competitor at present, offers only a single color pen with a static width.

After marking up a document, tapping the “Save” button saves a copy of the document to the Import folder on the home screen.

A final nice touch is the inclusion of a whiteboard with all of the annotation tools available for drawing freehand while displaying (or drawing it up and then displaying). The whiteboard drawing can also be saved as a file to the imports folder.

Conclusion

The developers made a mistake of an early release which was very buggy. Any experienced attorney would not have relied upon the 1st version. The latest updates, however, cure all of the early problems. The only bug observed during testing was the inability to display video files in the .mov format. Exhibit A is also competitively priced at $9.99. TrialPad remains an astounding $89 while offer fewer features.