“Finally, dictation software you might actually find useful. Nuance the makers of dragon dictation, released an iPhone application today. Unlike Mac speech,there’s no training required and the dictation software work works remarkably well. In fact, this entire blog entry was dictated using DragonDictate for the iPhone . Dragons the iPhone is free for the taking from the app store.”
The above was dictated using Dragon and is presented unaltered from the original. You’ll notice the error with the period at the second to last sentence and the last sentence itself should read “Dragon for the the iPhone is …”
The error from the period arises because the app can only handle a limited amount of dictation before it stops dictating, then you must start dictating again. Still, a pretty useful little app to have around. It lets you cut n past from app into SMS, email etc which can make it very handy for responding to emails and SMS without needing to type. For longer dictation projects, probably not all that useful.
Within the last week, both Fujitsu and Vonage finally got their acts together and released updates. Vonage’s Companion (allows you to use your Vonage line from your computer) stopped working altogether under Snow Leopard and Fujitsu’s ScanSnap Manager crashed when scanning to file.
A downloadable and free piece of software will help you determine whether or not Snow Leopard cripples your favorite piece of software or, more accurately, whether the developer of your favorite piece of software totally ignored the inevitable and has left you high n’ dry… I’m looking at you Fujitsu Scansnap (limited functionality under Snow Leopard) and Vonage Companion (completely borked).
PersonalBrain offers some really nice features which may be of interest to lawyers. Years ago I tried to use this software in lieu of Casemap, while still working in the Windows environment. Originally called ‘The Brain’ it had a lot of flash, but was thin on substance. Since that time, upgrades and improvements have come a long way…. tagging, attachments etc. Here’s a screencast showing PersonalBrain in action with some legal research originally collected and kept in the now defunct Journler. Apologies for the crappy YouTube resolution. FWIW, click on the ‘fullscreen’ & ‘HD’ buttons, bottom right, for best viewing.
Three things not mentioned in the screencast. First, the software is cross-platform and can be used on both Windows and Mac provided you have licenses for both. Second, because the software is cross-platform and because it has been around for quite some time, it is likely that it will continue to be around for some time. Finally, the software has a great export feature which allows you to export the entire ‘Brain’ as a self-sufficient webpage. I haven’t tried this out yet, but the possibilities of being able to share a brain with an expert and/or client are tantalizing.
Longtime favorite, but recently warned-against-use in your practice, Journler has finally bit the dust. So, for the time being, MacJournal stands as your best bet to perform case analysis/Casemap replacement on the Mac. A previous post details the how-to for MacJournal and notes that you can import your Journler entries into MacJournal.
Many people reported problems getting Journler to work in Snow Leopard/10.6 and the developer just officially terminated all future development for Journler, ruling out future compatibility updates.
MILO is the Google Groups forum “Macs In Law Offices.” Recently, there have been three really great posts by users on that forum.
You can tether an iPhone to your Mac for internet access over the 3G network without hacking or jailbreaking. MILO user Christian Frank pointed everyone to www.benm.at. But, there are better instructions at mydigitallife.
MILO user Grace Suarez revealed a superb Firefox plug in called CiteGenie. If you’ve ever struggled with getting a properly quoted and cited copy/paste from Westlaw or Lexis into your document, this plugin eliminates hassle, allowing you to focus on the legal and analytical aspect of your work. CiteGenie truly represents the goal of getting computers to do the grunt work so you can focus on higher reasoning skills.
You cannot tether an iPhone with the new 3.1 software update, as hinted at by MILO user Rob Ruffner and confirmed by comments in the mydigitallife how-to.
MILO is a great place to learn and ask questions, a superb resource for any Mac using lawyer.
Somebody (Apple? AT&T? a conspiracy?) may have killed the Google Voice iPhone Apps, but there is a new widget out that allows you to dial using Google Voice from your Dashboard, GV Connect. A huge plus to dialing using your GV number is that people will use it to call you back when looking at their caller I.D. However, dialing from that number is cumbersome, requiring you to log in to your google account, go to the GV web page, and then dial out. GV Connect does all this, right from your dashboard, lets you choose which of your registered phones the call will connect with and, perhaps most importantly, integrates with your OS X address book. Oh, and you can also SMS directly from the widget. While this doesn’t take the bitter out of your mouth at the loss of an iPhone app for GV, it’s at least a little sugar to make it more bearable.
Another widget added to the collection, replacing the previous time zone clock set up, is iSlayer’s Organized. This hand widget gives you clocks, calendar, todo and a place to jot down your notes.
MacSparky posted a slick little trick on how to use TextExpander to insert just the link (no http:\www.blahblah.com) in the signature line. Another nice trick with TextExpander is to use it to insert a signature, literally, into Pages, Word or Open Office documents.
Create Signature
Scan your signature and open in Adobe or Preview. Next, use OS X’s built in screen clipping (shift-command-4) key stroke to clip the signature. Open clipped signature in Preview. Once open in preview, click and hold the little arrow on the select toolbar icon. Choose ‘Instant Alpha.’
Then, click and drag away the white portions around the signature. This step is necessary so that you aren’t pasting a white block/rectangle into your documents. By erasing the back ground, the text or signature line in the document will still show through the signature. Save the signature as a PNG file with the ‘alpha’ box checked.
Create a Snippet
Open TextExpander and create a new snippet with Content: Formatted Text, Pictures from the dropdown.
Click on the plus arrow and choose insert “Picture.” Choose the file you saved for the signature.
Now, whenever you type your shortcut, your signature will be dropped into the document.
Spotlight quickly finds folders, launches applications, jumps to contacts in address book all with a command-space keystroke and the first few letters of what you want to find/access. But, Spotlight can go deeper too – filtering folders down to anything you desire based not only on search, but also metadata and through the use of boolean expressions.
Spotlight as a Filter
Spotlight can be accessed from both the command-space keystroke to search the whole hard driver, or through the search box on individual finder windows by hitting command-f (note: if done from a finder window, you must select folder from gray tool bar popup). Either way, once searching, you can search for more than just text in a filename or inside a document.
In this example, the folder shows all files contained within the folder. In the next screen shot, the same folder has been filtered down to contain just those documents with the label ‘red.’ Finally, using the Spotlight search box, all files have been filtered down files created between 3/1/07 and 8/1/09 AND containing the word “discovery.”
Spotlight as Search Hound
A little language kung fu in your typical command-space search can also yield some great results. For example, if you are looking for just a contact in address book: (1) hit command-space; (2) type “kind:contact smith” without quotes will bring up a list of all your address book contacts named smith. cursor down to the desired entry, hit return and address book opens.
Similarly, even tasks and events in iCal can be located. Command-space followed by “kind:event deposition” without quotes will call up all iCal events containing the word definition. Now, think about that for a moment. If you get in the habit of using a formal naming convention for events and tasks, you can instantaneously pull up a complete list of all events and tasks for a particular client-matter. Discipline yourself and staff to use Client – Event or Client – Task in the title for events and tasks and you can find them down the road through Spotlight and, of course, through your iCal search function as well.
You can download a complete list of Spotlight search operators from Mac OS X Hints. The Mac OS X Hints post contains an excerpt from David Pogue’s book, The Missing OS X manual which can give you an even more detailed look into how to make this work for you.
there’s no training required and the dictation software work works remarkably well. In fact, this entire blog entry was dictated using DragonDictate for the iPhone . Dragons the iPhone is free for the taking from the app store.”
great posts by users on that forum.
. A huge plus to dialing using your GV number is that people will use it to call you back when looking at their caller I.D. However, dialing from that number is cumbersome, requiring you to log in to your google account, go to the GV web page, and then dial out. GV Connect does all this, right from your dashboard, lets you choose which of your registered phones the call will connect with and, perhaps most importantly, integrates with your OS X address book. Oh, and you can also SMS directly from the widget. While this doesn’t take the bitter out of your mouth at the loss of an iPhone app for GV, it’s at least a little sugar to make it more bearable.
