The Mac Lawyer

Apple Is Fortune's Most Admired Company - Again

J. Benjamin Stevens — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:01:13 -0500

It should be no surprise that Apple was voted first in Fortune's annual list of the most admired businesses. It may be surprising that it won by the highest victory margin ever!

This was Apple's third win in a row, and experts say that the reason for the admiration is said to be "fierce" consumer loyalty, and continually innovative products. So apparently it's not just "fanboys" who think a lot of Apple and its amazing products!

Source: "Apple wins Fortune's Most Admired Company for 2010" published at MacNN.

Free Federal Rules of Evidence 2010

J. Benjamin Stevens — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:02:50 -0500

Did you know that you can download a free pdf version of the Federal Rules of Evidence 2010 from the Federal Evidence Review website? This pdf gives you a number of benefits including:

Fully searchable text using the Acrobat Reader Search tool;
Hyperlink (jump links) on the Index page to take you directly to a specific rule;
Links to online versions of the FRE; and
Link to the FRE Advisory Committee Notes online.

You can download your free copy by clicking here. Of course, if you save the link you should be able to get updates as they are made to the document.

Source: "Get your FREE PDF of the Federal Rules of Evidence 2010" by Nerino Petro, published at his Compujurist blog.

Thoughts About How Lawyers Can Use Scrivener

J. Benjamin Stevens — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:08:42 -0500

One question that I am frequently asked is "What's the best word processing program for the Mac?" Niki Black published an article last week giving her thoughts about Scrivener, which is described on its website as a "word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts."

Niki wrote that she finds Scrivener to be an invaluable tool that helps make the process of writing and organizing the information she collects so much simpler and streamlined, and she explained how this might benefit attorneys. For instance, each portion of a legal document could be treated as a “chapter,” which is simply a folder within the document that can have the supportive documentation (exhibits, cases, etc.) alongside and able to be opened with a click. The associated files could be text files, image files, websites, audio files, or even video files, and they can be linked, or associated, with different sections to be referenced more than once.

Of course, as my readers already know, I am a big fan of Pages (which I use in my practice) and I dislike Word (because I try to avoid all things Microsoft). However, it sounds as though Scrivener could be useful in certain types of cases – particularly if an iPad compatible version becomes available. If you're still undecided about which word processing program is best for you, you may want to check out Scrivener.

Source: "Using Scrivener for Legal Writing" by Niki Black, published at Lawyerist.com.

Excellent Resource for iPads and the Lawyers Who Will Use Them

J. Benjamin Stevens — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:04:00 -0500

A superb new blog, Tablet Legal, was launched just under a month ago, and Josh Barrett has already published several excellent articles about iPads and the attorneys who will use them. For instance, consider the following topics:

If you intend to purchase an iPad or want to consider the reasons that you should, then you owe it to yourself to subscribe to this excellent blog. Keep up the excellent work, Josh, I'll be reading...

The Mac Lawyer Speaking in Nashville, TN

J. Benjamin Stevens — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:09:21 -0500

Next Friday, I will be in Nashville, TN speaking at Law Tech 2010, sponsored by the Tennessee Bar Association. Specifically, I will be presenting "Software as a Service (SaaS): Practicing Law in the Clouds", using programs such as DropBox, Evernote, Rocket Matter, etc. I will also be participating in a Mac round table discussion with Finis Price and Steve Weaver. If you are in the area, you can register here for this seminar.

Happy Third Anniversary to MILO

J. Benjamin Stevens — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:59:00 -0500

It seems like just yesterday that Grant Griffiths and I were discussing the fact that there should be a "better" group for attorneys to discuss how to best use Macs in their practices. From that discussion, the Macs In Law Offices (MILO) forum was born and it was founded on February 17, 2007. Today, a mere three years later, MILO has 2,112 members and is widely regarded as the premier online forum for attorneys who want to maximize the use of Macs in their law practices. If you are not yet a member, you can take advantage of this free resource by clicking HERE.

Top Ten iPhone Apps for Busy Attorneys

J. Benjamin Stevens — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:32:00 -0500

The apps listed below were included on a recent list of the ten of the best apps for busy lawyers. You can read much more about each of these apps in the full article, but a short summary of each is listed below :

AppBoxPro is a multi-function currency converter, date calculator, translator (text), tip calculator, international holiday calendar, unit converter, battery life meter, and more.
Bento is a powerful but easy to use database for the Mac.
Bump is a new way to exchange contact information instead of using business cards.
Documents to Go Premium allows you to edit, create, and view Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
Dragon Dictation is a free, easy-to-use voice-recognition app
DropBox is a file sharing service that provides on-line file storage, access, and sharing from multiple computers and mobile devices.
Google Mobile App allows you to just speak your search terms.
People is essentially a national “White Pages” database at your fingertips.
ScanR Business Center allows you to create PDFs using your iPhone camera or using a picture on your camera roll.
Skype lets you make either free or very cheap calls on your iPhone using VOIP (voice over internet protocol).

Bonus: Things is a task management app that keeps track of your projects.

Source: "Top Ten iPhone Apps for Busy Lawyers" by Reid Trautz, published at The Busy Lawyer's Guide to Success.

AT&T Lowers Cost of Unlimited Plan for iPhone

J. Benjamin Stevens — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:03:01 -0500

In an attempt to compete with Verizon’s new unlimited plans and perhaps to make it less enticing for users to jump to Verizon when the anticipated move to Verizon is announced, AT&T has lowered the cost of their unlimited voice and data plan to $99.99 (old price was $129.999) effective Monday, January 18. This is great news for lawyers and law firms paying for unlimited voice and data Nationwide plans.

However, as is always the case with AT&T, there is a catch. The change must be made manually either at their website at att.com/wireless or by visiting a store. There is no cost for changing your plan nor does it require a resigning of a contract. Please note however, they will NOT make this change for you automatically, so if you have the unlimited plan like I do and don’t ask to have the price changed AT&T will gladly keep charging you the extra $30.

Source: "iPhone Unlimited Plans $99.99, If You Ask For It" by Finis Price, published at TechnoEsq.com.

Happy Anniversary to Rocket Matter

J. Benjamin Stevens — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:49:08 -0500

The Mac Lawyer would like to wish a happy anniversary to my good friends at Rocket Matter, as it has been two years since their public launch. My firm has been using Rocket Matter from almost the very beginning, and we believe it to be one of the premier online case management systems for attorneys.

As part of their anniversary celebration, Rocket Matter has launched Rocket Matter Professional Services, which can help minimize downtime as firms migrate from their old software to this Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. If you want to know more about Rocket Matter, you can visit their website or visit with them in person at Virtual LegalTech, LegalTech New York, or the ABA Tech Show.

Fear Not - Viruses, Worms, Etc. Still No Threat for Macs

J. Benjamin Stevens — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:01:19 -0500

PC users are still plagued by security threats from many sources – viruses, worms, and other malware. Meanwhile, Mac users continue to rest easy because their computers remain safe and secure.

Macworld recently reported "we have yet to see any widespread malware for Macs; your risk of infection is essentially zero." This information should make even the most paranoid among us more comfortable.

You can read more about this topic in the Macworld article by clicking here.

Source: "Mac Security: What You Can Ignore" by Rich Mogull, published at Macworld.com.

iPad Envy? Save Money with Gadget Spa Day

J. Benjamin Stevens — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:01:10 -0500

This week marked the much awaited announcement of the Apple iPad. Considering that people’s mouths were watering over the non-event of the iPhone 3G S launch last year, the arrival of the tablet is garnering, as many have observed, the type of interest reserved only for other tablets delivered to the masses several millenia ago (though made out of stone).

Money is tight in 2010, so with a sense of sadness and impatience, we must often wait to own our beloved new gadget. Or we dip into college or retirement savings. The Onion hilariously captured our lemming-like excitement over new gadgets in this piece from December ‘09.

But consider this: you can add life to your existing gadget for little money, and have a sense of a new machine. I recommend the Gadget Spa Day, having done this recently with my iPhone. For instance:

Put a new screen protector in place. I prefer a matte finish so my fingerprints and face don’t muck up an otherwise beautiful machine. Learn how to place the screen on correctly and avoid trapping dust and making bubbles. It requires a little dexterity, and perhaps the technique is worthy of its own post. But if you get frustrated, take a deep breath, and say to yourself, “Yes we can!”.
Get a new protective case. Let’s face it. iPhone cases get scratched up easily and look nasty quickly. And that zebra pattern your using? SO 2009. I love the new iFrogz case I purchased, which is mostly hard plastic with a small rubberish section to keep it from sliding off smooth surfaces.
Clean up your apps. When’s the last time you played the bubble wrap or toilet paper game? If you or the kids haven’t used an app in a month, kill it, even if you paid for it. The Rocket Matter iPhone version is the only exception to this rule. Once you’re done, apply all the updates so you don’t have to stare at the annoying red number on the App Store icon.

Computer Spa Day

When you’re working on your actual systems, you can give them a performance boost just by turning off the amount of programs that run on startup. You’ll boot faster and run faster. Just be careful you don’t turn off anything important, like printer drivers or something. But c’mon, do you really need Quicktime and Java scanning for updates? Do Skype and Scansnap Manager really need to launch when your system does?

Windows users can go to Start–>Run…, then type “msconfig” and type on the “Startup” tab. Don’t turn off anything important. When in doubt, leave it.
Mac users can go to System Preferences -> Accounts, highlight an account, click Login Items, then remove the items you don’t want on the list.

Another way to revamp on Spa Day? Clean up your destkop. Remove icon clutter safely by reading this post. Get some cool new wallpaper. There are plenty of free sites, including Desktopography, Simple Desktops, or Interface Lift.

It’s like a fresh coat of paint for your trusted machine. You don’t have to waste time migrating data, you don’t get stuck with version one of the latest gadget, and you save a little dough as well.

Would love to hear your Gadget Spa Day tips! Leave a comment so we can hear your rejuvenation tips and tricks.

Source: "iPad Envy? Save Money with Gadget Spa Day" by Larry Port, published at Rocket Matter's blog.

iPad = iWow

J. Benjamin Stevens — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:03:16 -0500

I missed Steve Jobs' keynote address yesterday announcing the iPad, but I have watched Apple's video about the it (admittedly several times) in the last 24 hours. Wow. I was anxiously waiting to see what Steve had up the sleeve of his black turtleneck with regard to a table computer, but the iPad far surpasses my expectations. I mean, I was expecting to pay $1,500 or more, but the prices start at $499? How could you not get one?

I am prone to justifying seemingly needless expenditures on new Apple hardware, but with that being said, I can think of so many legitimate situations in which attorneys can use the iPad, and I expect it to be a huge sucess, perhaps even more so than the iPhone. I don't have time to go into all its many features, but you can read them for yourself here, or take six minutes and watch the video. I showed it to my nine year old son last night, and his mouth was open in awe the whole time. Like father, like son.

Mac Daddy: Solutions to Put to Work in Your Law Practice

J. Benjamin Stevens — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:01:47 -0500

There are a number of ready-to-go applications for lawyers and law firms adopting the Macintosh platform. Here’s a snapshot of some favorite ones you can put to use in your daily practice.

If there is one consistent thing about law firms, and the lawyers in them, it is that they resist change. Whether it is a solo practice or a large national firm, that resistance seems to be ingrained in most lawyers’ psyches. Yet, surprisingly, we are now seeing greater numbers of lawyers and firms abandoning this stagnation when it comes to their computing platforms, as more and more lawyers adopt Apple Macs into their practices. This change seems to be going viral, and thus lawyers are more frequently asking what Mac programs they can put to use in their practices on a daily basis.

The following covers some of my favorites. Note that, since most converts to Macs are often embedded in a Windows law firm environment, I include, where possible, applications that allow transportability of information between the “two worlds.”

Daylite and Bento

Every law practice requires a good case management solution, and two affordable options stand out for the Mac. For the solo to small firm office, Bento, which requires a small amount of work to set up, does a great job of providing a networked custom client and case database. Created by FileMaker, Bento is truly just a personal database application. It allows the inclusion of media files such as video depositions or deposition transcripts and encryption for the entire database. While not as powerful as FileMaker, it also is not as expensive at only $49 retail.

More specific to the law practice is MarketCircle's Daylite. Daylite offers full integration with e-mail, a fully functioning iPhone app, networkable rules-based calendaring and delegation of tasks. Daylite has even provided a sample work flow with tips on how to customize Daylite to a personal injury, divorce, estate planning and general litigation practice. A great many lawyers already use this program in their practices, and it seems Daylite offers excellent customer support and is always looking to polish its amazing product.

TrialSmart and DepoSmart

Perhaps one of the true necessities for any litigator is the ability to display exhibits or depositions to a jury. Windows users who are familiar with Sanction or Verdical will find that two programs – TrialSmart and DepoSmart, both from Clarity Legal Software – offer the same functions as their Windows counterparts for displaying nonlinear presentations. DepoSmart covers annotations and links within depositions, preparing them for display in TrialSmart. Together, these two programs can tag portions of depositions with issue tags for later reference, synchronize video with transcripts and create links from a deposition to an exhibit. Furthermore, networkability is much easier than it is with their PC brethren, with full access and movement of database files a breeze.

Where both of these Mac programs truly shine is in their ease of use when compared to their Windows counterparts and their price tags. Whereas Sanction and Verdical require a multiday training session costing thousands of dollars, TrialSmart and DepoSmart can be learned in a few short hours intuitively or through online training videos. Plus, as every Mac-using lawyer will attest to, Mac software is usually cheaper and Clarity Legal's software is no different. TrialSmart costs $249 and DepoSmart costs $349, with upgrades less than $70 per program. Such affordability in software, mainly unheard of in the Windows environment, is directly attributable to the ease of programming within Mac OS X.

Evernote

While not solely a Mac application, Evernote is a must-have information storage tool. Available for Macs as well as Windows, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices, Evernote is the digital attorney's dream application. It seeks to gather all of the miscellaneous bits of information we see every day via Web pages, digital photographs, scanned documents and any other information you see on your computer. Evernote makes it accessible in one centralized location from any computer or mobile device with Internet access. For example, Westlaw users can create a Web clipping of an open case being researched and store that page in Evernote with one click. Users also are given the option of assigning keywords for the clipping or simply naming the file. Evernote then stores that page for later review, making it searchable by the keyword, or tag, you placed on the clipping or even by any text in the clipping viewable from your smartphone, any computer with Evernote installed or through its Web site.

What truly makes Evernote a must-have, though, is its optical character recognition applicable to photos. I recently had a meeting with another attorney where we brainstormed an outline for our upcoming trial and Evernote allowed me to take a photo of the whiteboard using my iPhone, upload that image to my Evernote account, and make it accessible to all of my computers with Evernote installed. However, Evernote does not stop there—it then recognized the words in the photograph of the whiteboard and made the image searchable (even with my chicken scratch for handwriting). Evernote offers free storage of up to 40MB on its site, with an upgrade to 500MB and stronger SSL encryption of data transfers for $5 per month.

Endicia

An Internet postage application, Endicia can reduce postage and shipping costs for the technologically savvy law firm within months. Using the standard Endicia service for $9.95 per month, you can buy postage through the application online, ship packages and standard mail, print labels with custom graphics, and connect to the optional scale and DYMO label printer for large envelopes and packages. The application automatically updates changes in postage rates, negating the cost of having postage meters updated when leasing equipment.

For the $249 bundle, users get 12 months of the standard Endicia account, a 10 lb. USB-connected postage scale and a DYMO printer. The application connects directly to these devices, allowing users to weigh packages and print postage and a label in minutes all from their desk. For any lawyer starting a firm or looking to cut back on costs in the current economic times, Endicia is a sure winner.

OpenOffice

Most Mac-using lawyers seek to limit their reliance on Windows and other Microsoft products, a break that is usually possible except, unfortunately, in one arena: word processing. Microsoft's stranglehold on the office word processing market is still felt in every law firm, especially with WordPerfect disappearing into obscurity. However, there is hope for Mac users yet—it comes in the form of OpenOffice, which is a free productivity suite created by Sun Microsystems and truly a respectable alternative to Microsoft Office.

OpenOffice outperforms Apple's Pages application in the legal market owing to its similarity to the standard MS Word interface and the ability to open and save documents in almost any file format, including WordPerfect. With 100 million downloads, OpenOffice is no longer the hacker's word processor seeking freedom from the Microsoft monopoly, and its reliability and stable platform have resulted in an application that is more dependable than Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.

But OpenOffice's tricks aren't only in word processing. It is a whole productivity suite that also has a spreadsheet application, presentation software and database app. In effect, it is everything Microsoft Office offers to users—but it offers it for free. It is compatible with PowerPoint, Access databases and Excel spreadsheets as well as many of the other standard spreadsheet formats. For those concerned about OpenOffice's credibility due to the open-source nature of the application, here’s something that should be an affirmation of the program's credibility: Microsoft's recent job posting at Microsoft Careers for a “compete lead” against OpenOffice specifically to "win share against Linux and OpenOffice.org by designing and driving marketing programs, changing perceptions, engaging with Open Source communities and organizations, and drive internal readiness on how to compete with Commercial Linux."

Quicksilver

Finally, a must-have for any lawyer's Mac is Quicksilver, a small application designed with the main goal of saving time. Quicksilver allows users to hit two keys, preassigned by the user, which brings up a small window on the user’s screen. You then type in the name of a program you would like to run and the application opens. So, for example, if you're in OpenOffice working on a document and want to open Mail, you would press Command - . (that’s a period) and type “Mail” and Mail opens up when you press Enter. Quicksilver also integrates with your bookmarks and address book, allowing you to type a person’s name and open an e-mail to that person with only a few keystrokes.

While this may seem like a small thing that only results in a few seconds of saved time, the ability to open applications and send e-mails without taking your hands off of the keyboard can, over the course of a single day, add up to a great deal of saved time.

Finis Price maintains a personal injury practice in Louisville, KY, and is also Co-Founder of TechnoEsq Presentations. He teaches trial technology at Chase School of Law and Solo Practice University and is co-host of MILO Chat Weekly, a weekly podcast by the Macs in Law Offices group. He blogs at TechnoEsq.com.

Source: "Mac Daddy: Solutions to Put to Work in Your Law Practice" by Finis Price, published at Law Practice Today.

MILO Chat Podcast, Vol.14

J. Benjamin Stevens — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:01:19 -0500

The latest episode of MILO Chat Weekly, Episode 14 – “I’m old. I’m tired. What can I say?”, has been released. On this episode, Victor Medina, Grant Griffiths, and Finis Price discuss dissect the upcoming Apple announcement and give our opinions on the tablet. Due to a scheduling conflict, I was not able to make this recording, but my co-hosts did their normal fantastic job in my absence.

Subscribe to this podcast using iTunes by clicking HERE.

Download the podcast directly by right-clicking and saving HERE.

Comments? Send them to milochat@miloweekly.com

GSA Business Reports Firm Merger

J. Benjamin Stevens — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:28:08 -0500

Spartanburg attorneys David Turnipseed, Doug Brannon, Brac Turnipseed and Ben Stevens have combined their practices to create Turnipseed, Brannon & Stevens.

“This new partnership provides a tremendous added value for all our clients,” said David Turnipseed, whose office at 128 Magnolia St. now serves as the new headquarters. “By joining forces, we will be able to provide additional levels of service while continuing our primary mission of protecting Spartanburg families’ rights during difficult times.”

Turnipseed, Brannon & Stevens is a full-service family law, criminal law and personal injury firm.

With more than 60 years of experience, the attorneys’ knowledge and integrated legal philosophies complement and enhance one other, the firm said. Stevens brings a technological interest to the mix, known nationally as “the Mac lawyer.” Brannon is a criminal defense attorney with a strong civic commitment to the Spartanburg community.

Source: "Spartanburg Attorneys Join Forces" published in GSA Business.

Guest Post :: Life in "The Cloud" (Conclusion)

J. Benjamin Stevens — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:01:09 -0500

Ultimately, you, the user, will have to determine if this “working in the cloud” is for you. Legitimate and less-legitimate concerns about the safety of your data and the security of your confidential information will be a topic for debate in another article. Consider, though, how much of your confidential life is already online—banks, insurance information, credit cards—and realize that security is generally as good as your passwords are. The tools for breaking free of the desktop--safely, securely, inexpensively, and collaboratively—are all there. The question is, do we want to use them.

Paul Meyerson has been a Macintosh consultant in the NYC area for more years than he wants to admit. His new company, www.macsupport.com, aims to take care of any and all Macintosh issues for the home or small business users. Using a combination of telephone support and remote control software, Macsupport.com is able to deal with a variety of home users’ issues quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively.

Guest Post :: Life in "The Cloud" (Evernote)

J. Benjamin Stevens — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:01:50 -0500

Finally, for all the data flotsam and jetsam we accumulate, there’s an application to make your online life searchable. Evernote gives you a central database to keep accounts, passwords, bookmarks, notes, recipes or whatever you want. It stores them securely and keeps it all easily accessible in numerous ways. Evernote is an application you install on whatever platform you’re on (Mac, PC, iPhone, or access it via the web) and, using a free account, synchronize it all together.

Of the three Cloud applications I’ve discussed here, this is the one I use all day, every day. Although there is a free version (ad sponsored), the inexpensive pay account ($45/year) is a must if you intend to use this to its fullest extent. Evernote wants to consider itself your searchable filing cabinet, and its tools do exactly that. Tag notes with tags that you make up on the fly and then sort the whole system via those tags, or search for any text you might have in a note.

Many online applications have the ability to store notes and search them, there are two things that set Evernote apart: Integration into a browser and the ability to take pictures of anything and OCR it automatically. The picture part, although it’s very cool, I don’t use much. You use your iSight or iPhone camera to photograph nearly anything and save it to Evernote. When the item gets to Evernote’s servers they perform some impressive OCR voodoo to make those photos searchable. If there’s text, a general search of all your normal text documents will also find the photos with the text somewhere in them. For example, a picture of a map that had the words “New York” on it would show if you chose to search for the term “New York.”

The second exceptional feature of Evernote puts a small Elephant-shaped button right into your browser bar. Come across a page you want to have available to you later? Click this button and the entire page—pictures, text, whatever (not flash or other embedded things) as well as most of the formatting will pop right into a new Evernote note, along with the Title of the page and the link to the original. Unlike simply bookmarking a page in a browser, doing it this way makes that page completely searchable. Bookmarks are one thing, but this is far beyond.

Guest Post :: Life in "The Cloud" (Google Documents)

J. Benjamin Stevens — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:01:04 -0500

If viewing the changes after a document is saved is not fast enough for you, how about an application where people can share a document and see the changes AS THEY HAPPEN? This, among many other things, is a killer feature of Google Documents. Some of the features of this indispensible tool are:

Totally free.
Work on the same document at the same time in real-time collaboration.
Replicate all of the expensive Microsoft Office applications for free with Google versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Save the documents locally if you need to (as either Word, HTML, PDF, or many other formats with no conversion necessary), or leave them in the cloud.
Give access to any document to anyone you choose, and decide whether they can read/write or delete each document.
Use a built-in revision history to keep track of multiple versions of the same documents.

Trust me, you haven’t worked on a spreadsheet until you’ve seen the cursor moving around on its own as you’re editing other cells and colleagues are editing their own info at the same time. It’s almost creepy (but in a good way!)

Guest Post :: Life in "The Cloud" (DropBox)

J. Benjamin Stevens — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:01:41 -0500

Dropbox, completely free for 2 GB of space, a pay service if you need more space ($10/month for 50 GB), appears just like any other folder on your local computer. However, the folder is actually a live, shared folder on the dropbox servers. With the help of an integrated menu bar application, you can give read only or read/write access to anything that’s in the box, be it folders or individual files. You can access your own dropbox through the web, iPhone, desktop or laptop, via Mac or PC. Others can access it in the same way if you’ve given them access.

Think of it as file sharing without having to set up the server. Working on a collaborative project? Share out that folder with people and give granular access to files and folders in the project. The folder automatically checks to see what’s been updated locally and updates the folder accordingly. Need to get someone changes to a document or a series of documents? Don’t email them—just work out of the drop box and everyone will see your changes immediately after you save the file.

Guest Post :: Life in "The Cloud" (Introduction)

J. Benjamin Stevens — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:43:28 -0500

The typical model of how people store and access documents is changing as “cloud computing” makes its way to the Mac environment. Basically, cloud computing means that software is stored not on the user’s desktop, but on a server or many servers somewhere on the Internet (hence, “cloud.”)

Alternately referred to as SaaS (“Software as a Service”), the basic concept is the same—you don’t buy your software, you subscribe to it. In many cases, this is a paid service. In some cases, most notably through Google, it’s free. In all cases of Cloud Computing, though, it’s using the tools we’ve taken for granted on the desktop and moved them onto the Internet.

Economically, this makes good sense. Why spend big chunks of money on databases or word processors when the same software is available online for a nominal monthly fee (or, for free!)? Perhaps more importantly, why deal with the headaches that come with locally stored applications, including installation and upgrades when you could just open your browser and do about 98% of what you normally do?

However, with all of these good reasons for using cloud computing, I’d like to discuss a different one: Functionality that is ONLY available in a “cloud.” Three applications specifically exemplify this: Dropbox, Evernote and Google Docs, and each will be addressed in a series of posts over the next week. Stay tuned...