JRS Write
A Noteworthy Item
This article originally appeared on the Solo in Solo website (read it here), winning a LitigationWorld Pick of the Week award. In medieval Europe, a monk could spend years making a handwritten copy of a single manuscript, replete with elaborate artistic work. Gutenberg put an end to that as a viable publishing mechanism. Similarly, microfilm,…
Thankful for Things “Macful”
This month’s newsletter theme is things that we’re thankful for. Having just returned from Affinity’s CaseAware® Bootcamp, I’ve got a list of a list of five tools that I’m thankful I had at hand: Hopefully this article gives you some insight into what I find useful when traveling. And perhaps also some Christmas gift ideas.…
Upgrade Season
As part of Apple’s September 9th media event, the company announced the release dates for iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 El Capitan. iOS was released on September 16th, and is a free upgrade for all supported iPhones and iPads. On September 30th, Apple released OS X 10.11, El Capitan. It too is a free…
Making Mail Better
Elsewhere in this month’s newsletter, Jenn discusses how Outlook alone is insufficient as a practice management solution. This leads her to a discussion of PracticeMaster, an excellent Windows-based product. On the Mac side, as your probably familiar, our practice management options are mostly web-based – Clio( ActionStep, and Rocket Matter, being some of the best-known…
Paperless Mac
As you may know, the favorite desktop scanner series at Affinity is the ScanSnap series from Fujitsu. This series of scanners is generally excellent. I have a predecessor of the ScanSnap iX500 on my desk at the office and at home. I recently setup a family member with the ScanSnap S1300i, which she thoroughly enjoys.…
Traveling with Apple
Psychological studies show that vacation has tremendous health benefits. Broadly speaking, Americans are a vacation deprived people. Having entered the summer months, now is an excellent time to makeup your vacation deficit. Being firmly into vacation season, I think it’s a good opportunity to review a couple of travel tips for using your Apple products…
Macs in a Windows World
One class of questions that I hear frequently from Mac users in firms is how they can be better, more capable citizens on their firm’s Windows networks and resources. This question is the topic of an upcoming webinar I am doing on June 16th at 1:00pm EDT; click here to register. I thought I’d give…
Spring Cleaning Your Mac
Now that May, and warm weather for those of us in northern states, is upon us, our thoughts naturally turn towards rebirth. In addition to household spring cleaning – i.e., packing up the winter clothes, cleaning off the patio furniture, planting your flowerbeds and gardens – your technology would similarly benefit from a spring cleaning.…
Mac Office Update for 2016
In the past, we Mac users were accustomed to getting short shrift from Microsoft. While iOS is changing that — if you haven’t looked at the breadth of MS apps for iOS, it’s really impressive – Office for Mac remains the runt of the litter. The last time we got a new release was 2010,…
A Look at Outlook on iOS
January 29th marked an interesting and somewhat surprising day in iOS history. It was the first day that you could get all of the “core” components of Microsoft Office on your iOS device. For twenty years before the 29th, Microsoft Office was only available for Windows and Mac. With Outlook’s arrival, iOS and Android have…
Mac Bloggers to Appreciate
February is Client Appreciation Month at Affinity Consulting. Elsewhere in the newsletter you’ll see links to webinars we’re hosting throughout the month on a variety of topics, including a follow-up Mac Tips and Tricks webinar on February 19th. For those who attended the January 19th webinar, this will include new material. Click here to register.…
Resolve to be More Efficient with Your Mac
Regardless of whether Santa brought you a brand-new Mac or if you’re working with one you’ve had for a while, there are always new tricks and tools that you can learn to save you time and make you more efficient. Below is a way to make you a more productive Mac and iDevice user. Macros…
Affinity Buzz Blurb
Services For those of you who do not know, Affinity offers several Apple Mac and iOS-specific services to lawyers. First, we help folks using a Mac at work, in otherwise PC-centric firms, to connect to firm resources either directly through their Macs (where possible), or via a remote desktop connection or VPN. We are also…
Tech Gifts for Your Apple Lovers
December’s newsletter is perhaps the easiest and most fun for me to write because it gives me the opportunity to rattle off some great tech toys and gifts. First up, an update on a recommendation from last year. For men who wanted a wallet case for their iPhone, I recommended a product from Speck, who…
Productivity Improvements in iOS 8 and Yosemite
For the past several years, Apple has made its annual Mac OS X updates available as free or nearly free downloads from its Mac App Store. This year is no different and the version released earlier this month, 10.10 Yosemite, contains a boatload of enhancements for those who live in the Apple ecosystem. The primary…
Act Now to Secure Your iOS Device
On Friday, February 21st, Apple released a seemingly innocuous update to their iOS operating system, update 7.0.6. You should be forgiven for not thinking much of this. Most 0.0.x updates fix minor bugs addressing specific user situations. For example, 7.0.5 was not even released to iOS users outside of China since the fixes and updates…
Unique, Functional Apple Gifts
We Mac users got our Christmas presents early this year: iPhones in September and iPads in November. The only Mac users waiting for new big-ticket items are those itching to buy Mac Pros sometime in December. And while we techies generally prefer to buy our own smartphones, tablets, and computers, that shouldn’t stop us from…
Avoiding Some Scary Internet Problems
As Mac users, we’re accustomed to ignoring most of the scary IT stories that surface in the Windows’ world. Fundamental weaknesses like viruses, root kits, and even device driver conflicts are scarce to non-existent on the Mac. Thank god. But, that doesn’t mean that we’re immune to all computer-related hauntings. Let’s tackle a couple of…
Fresh Apple Season is Upon Us
One of the best things about using Apple products is that, as a consumer-centric company, they understand the value of making a marketing splash heading into the Christmas season. At June’s Worldwide Developers Conference, we were teased we many new products for fall. Now it’s nearly time for those products to reach our hands. What’s…