Mac Law Students

Delete Old Junk from Time Machine

Timothy Lee, Jr — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:18:39 PST

Like many, I use Time Machine to regularly backup my entire machine (and Dropbox for my most often used and important files). The great thing about Time Machine is that you install a hard drive, turn it on, select which folders you don’t want backed up, and you’re done. The next time you need to remember Time Machine is when you need to restore a deleted file, or if you’ve purchased a new computer and want to transfer your stuff.

But what happens when you’ve filled up your Time Machine hard drive? While Time Machine automatically deletes the oldest backups to make room for the most recent, if you’re like me, you already know that certain of your backed up files will never be needed again (like raw video from an undergrad project taking up 48 gigs on Time Machine). Deleting individual files is easy.

Enter Time Machine:

Once the nifty interface loads, make your way to the project you want to delete.

Select the file, right click and select Delete All Backups of “your file”.

You’ll be asked if you’re sure.

In case you accidentally clicked yes accidentally, you need to enter your password to confirm.

At any time before you type your password and press enter, you can ESC out.

However, once you type your password and press Enter, that file or folder is gone FOREVER (dramatic, huh?)!

The delete process bypasses the trash, so be careful. There might be a way to undo this process but I hope I never need to find out.

Macs at the University of Oregon School of Law (Fall 2010)

Erik Schmidt — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:48:59 PST

Dennis Bishop, the Director of Information & Technology at the University of Oregon School of Law, has in the past been good enough to send me a breakdown of laptop use at his school. Now he has updated numbers for Fall 2010. Macs are doing rather well:

Student Platforms (all)
MacOS = 371 (67%)
Windows = 166 (32%)
Unknown = 5 (1%)

Faculty/Staff Platforms (all)
MacOS = 70 (77%)
Windows = 21 (23%)

Bigger, Better Mac Law Students Store

Erik Schmidt — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:58:25 PST

I’ve updated the Amazon store for Mac Law Students with a much wider selection of Mac hardware and software as well as iPods and accessories. You can also find books about prepping for law school, doing well on exams, and so on.

If you’re already going to buy from Amazon, you can use the Mac Law Students store and support MLS. The affiliate kickback isn’t all that impressive, but it does help offset the costs of running the site.

Appellate Brief Time: Dot Leaders in MS Word for Mac

Timothy Lee, Jr — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:35:02 PST

At some point in your law school career you’ll likely have to write an appellate brief. For me, that time is now. While your instinct is probably to just hit the period key until your page numbers on the table of contents appear lined up, if your writing professor is anything like the ones around here, that’ll get you a loss of 2 points. With the 1st year curve generally tight, every point matters! So here’s how to create dot leaders in Microsoft Word:

Go to Format -> Tabs

Type 6″ (or other appropriate measurement) in the Tab stop position box

Under Alignment click Right

Under Leader click 2

Make sure you click Set at the bottom left and verify that 6″ is now in the box.

Click OK

Yojimbo or Notational Velocity?

Erik Schmidt — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:14:28 PST

Bare Bones Software’s Yojimbo ($39 / $29 for students) is an excellent tool for filing and finding all the little snippets of information that must be remembered but would clog up my hard drive if stored as separate documents. Passwords, quotes, computer configuration details, product serial numbers, the text from really important emails, blog post ideas – these are the chunks of text that reside in my Yojimbo database. My Yojimbo database currently includes over 900 notes.

While Yojimbo has served me well over the years, I recently started experimenting with Notational Velocity, a clever little app written by Zachary Schneirov. In a nutshell, Notational Velocity does less than Yojimbo, but it does it at lightspeed. While Yojimbo can store text, images, and PDFs, Notational Velocity sticks to text. But in NV, the search and text entry interfaces are combined.

Creating in Notational Velocity

Searching in Notational Velocity

It’s not easily explained with images; it’s better to see it in action yourself.

Notational Velocity synchs flawlessly with Simplenote (free), a stripped-down but effective note-taking app for the iPhone OS. Because Simplenote can also be accessed via web browser, the combination of Notational Velocity and Simplenote provides an always-synched, always-available solution.

While Webjimbo ($30) extends Yojimbo’s reach to iPhone OS and the Web, I haven’t tried it. While I have a handful of images and PDFs in my Yojimbo database, probably 99% of my entries are just text. Synchronizing big files takes time, and the pointed simplicity of NV’s text-only approach means that I never have to wait for a sync.

I haven’t switched completely to Notational Velocity, but its speed and clarity make it a pleasure to use.