Criminal Defense Law With An Apple

I think the dock should contain your key programs. The ones you use everyday. I love Bee Docs Timeline and App Zapper, but those programs are not part of my daily routine. I keep the dock down to the necessities. Here is what you will find in my dock.

First we have the Apple trilogy. That is Address Book, Mail and iCal. I am always saddened that I haven’t found a practice management system that would reduce this down to one Outlook-esque icon in my dock. A few programs have hacked the three together with mixed results. Having tried Entourage and a number of others, nothing has captured my heart. But I digress.

Next we need a browser. I have Safari. I still find myself having to check in on Firefox. It is the browser for interesting add-ons and customization. I am using Apple’s Safari with no complaints.  The latest release of Safari 4 did not offer any groundbreaking advances in my web browsing experience. But it wasn’t as though I was longing for a better browsing experience either.  I do look forward to seeing Google’s Chrome on the Mac.

Of course there is security. No, not for viruses or trojans. After all, “I’m a Mac.” I just need a safe place to keep my passwords. And having the same password for every account is just foolish. Enter 1Password. A super-accessory to my browser that also has some nifty auto-complete tools.

The Word Processor is a sore point for me. I have been on the fence with Pages. I get frustrated with Pages and go back to MS Word. As of today, the newest version of Pages is in my dock. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Next we have Scan Snap Manager. It sits right next to Adobe Acrobat. These two programs keep my desk free of clutter (and a less-paper office). I have Adobe forms for all my intake, communications and other court event records. And of course anything coming into the office is taken to the Scan Snap and goes to PDF land. Throw in a handy script from the MILO list-serve, that handles OCR, and I am grooving in Spotlight style.

Now we need a place to keep all those documents. Many of my fellow travelers just use folders. They are nice, if you get a solid naming structure organized. But they don’t truly capture my former paper-filled-three-ring-binder life. I continue to use Circus Ponies Notebook. Although the company name does not conjure up serious criminal defense work, a number of lawyers rely on this program as a way to organize and manage the documents for a case. As some of the long-time readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of Circus Ponies Notebook.

Recent evictions from the dock include:

Skype. Skype was dropping calls to the point of silliness. It would be faster to build a fire and send smoke signals. My testing with Google voice has been promising but it is a different animal.

Quickbooks. Everyone says the Mac version is lacking. I never had the PC version of QB, so I do not know what I might be missing. Plus, I do not handle the books anymore. Good reason not to look at that icon. I am having my Office Manager try out MYOB, at my accountants prompting, but we have not committed.

Sugar Sync. I stood by this program for synicng across computers. After three months of no problems, I was impressed. However, even the slightest hiccup in file retention is unacceptable (same goes for you MobileMe). I plan to write a further review. For now, consider this my withdrawal of endorsement.

See. Not that complicated. Just the basics. Speaking of basics, I guess a closer inspection reveals that the core programs we use to run our practice came with the Mac. With the exception of 1Password, Notebook (both clocking in under 50 bucks for a single user license), and Acrobat (it comes with the Scan Snap). Yet another example of the value built directly in the purchase of an Apple computer.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.