Author Archives

    Bryan Sims

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    Freedom 2000 GPS and TomTom Navigator 6: A Great Combination

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    For quite a while I have wanted a GPS. This desire comes not from the fact that I tend to get lost, but instead from the fact that I think they are really cool. One drawback was that I really didn’t want to have to keep track of another device and have to decide whether to take it with me everyday or leave it at home. Despite the coolness factor, it seemed like a bit of a hassle.

    For my birthday, however, I recently received the most hassle free GPS I can imagine. It isFreedom 2000 GPS the Freedom Keychain GPS 2000. This device is only the GPS receiver. To use it, you must connect it to your Treo via Bluetooth. Also, the device comes with no maps. You have to decide on your own what maps you wish to use.

    What makes the Freedom absolutely hassle free is the fact that it is tiny (it weighs .77 oz). In fact, it is smaller than the key fob for my wife’s car. It charges via a mini USB port (all devices should have to do this) and it comes with a car charger. The battery life is 9 hours and my use of it shows that this is likely the case.

    TomTom Navigator 6To be able to get around, I need more than the GPS, however, I also need the software that goes with with it. The map data is not cheap. However it is available from a variety of companies, most of which produce versions compatible with a Treo. In my case, I first tried DeLorme’s Street Atlas USA. After trying it for a few days, I didn’t like the interface that it had with my Treo. Thus, I returned it, and bought TomTom Navigator 6.

    I love this software. It was easy to install and it works flawlessly on my Treo. Also, it integrated easily with the Freedom GPS and I have had no connection problems between the two devices at all.

    The aspect about this solution that I love the most is that I have a full GPS solution, yet the only additional thing that I am carrying with me is a key fob. How great is that.

    I bought my copy of Navigator 6 from Amazon and saved a few bucks over the price direct from TomTom.

    I plan on doing a more in depth review of the Navigator software later. In the meantime, you can find a great review on the Freedom GPS at Treonauts. You can find a review of the earlier version of the Freedom at treocentral.

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    An Interesting Grammar Story

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    I admit that I am a grammar geek. Thus, I was quite interested to see this story in the New York Times about the use of a semicolon on a public service placard. The story was ok, but the best part comes at the end of the story.

    This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

    Correction: February 19, 2008
    An article in some editions on Monday about a New York City Transit employee’s deft use of the semicolon in a public service placard was less deft in its punctuation of the title of a book by Lynne Truss, who called the placard a “lovely example” of proper punctuation. The title of the book is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” — not “Eats Shoots & Leaves.” (The subtitle of Ms. Truss’s book is “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.”)

    I love the irony.

     

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    Friday Fun: Snarky Comments on the TSA’s New Blog

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    Recently TSA has started a blog. On balance I think this is a good thing. Anything that allows TSA to communicate more directly can only benefit all of us. Plus, it looks like the blog and its comments have lead directly to TSA taking action to limit inconsistent application of its rules.

    Nevertheless, the blog provides a great opportunity to poke a little fun at TSA. In this vein, I am particularly fond of a post from Steve Johnson, the Chicago Tribune’s Internet Critic. In his post, Steve provides the Rules of the TSA Blog. These include things such as:

    1. Commenters must arrive at the blog 45 minutes before attempting to post a comment.

    3. Comments that are longer than three paragraphs are subject to confiscation. For more on the handling of comments, see our post, “Why 1-Quart Zip-Loc Bags are Much More Secure than 1-Gallon Zip-Loc Bags.”

    9. The rule about no lithium batteries in checked bags is not TSA’s rule. To complain about that, please visit the FAA’s blog. Oh, that’s right. The FAA doesn’t have a blog. Which agency do you like better now?

    My favorite zinger, though, deals with the TSA’s blog title, Evolution of Security:

    4. The use of the term “evolution” in the blog’s title does not constitute endorsement by the TSA or this administration of the concept of evolution, generally. TSA believes it may well be possible that airport security is the result of Intelligent Design.

    Check out Steve’s entire post to see what else he has to say about the TSA’s new blog.

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    Have You Ever Forgotten to Send Someone a Gift on a Special Occasion?

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    I have a terrible time coming up with gifts to send to people. The main reason for this is that I might think of a gift for someone for Christmas or their birthday, but I will think of it months before the occasion. By the time the date rolls around I have forgotten what I wanted to send. I am also in the bad habit of not remembering other people’s birthdays or anniversaries until the day of the event.

    Fortunately, Amazon.com has come to my rescue with their new feature Amazon Gift Central.  Amazon’s gift organizer gives you a great place to keep track of both gifts that you have given to people as well as gifts that you would like to give to people in the future.

    Setting up the organizer was a piece of cake. I simply went to the site and clicked on add recipients. Amazon then looked at the people to whom I had already shipped items from Amazon and offered them as the first choices as possible recipients. I could then add additional recipients and, if I wished, I could add all or part of their birthday. This is so Amazon can remind you to buy something to send to them.

    Once you have this set up, if you are browsing through Amazon and you see something you would like to give as a present, you simply click on the drop down arrow beside wishlist and chose which recipient’s list to add it to.

    I live far away from all but my immediate family. Thus, any gifts I send, I would have to ship anyway. Because of this, I have used Amazon for years to send gifts to friends and relatives. Also, I have found shopping at Amazon much more convenient, and generally cheaper, than shopping at brick and mortar stores. Thus, this a great option for me.

    Even if you do not shop at Amazon, however, this organizer could still be a great thing for you. As the post at 43 Folders explains,

    Now, the cool part of all this — even if you don’t use Amazon very much — is that Amazon.com is friggin huge. Which means that they (or their “Marketplace” partners) carry a ridiculously high percentage of the purchasable, shippable items available in the consumer universe. So, if you start using the Gift Organizer today — even for stuff you have no intention of buying from Amazon — your life is going to be much easier the next time a gift-giving occasion rolls around; you’ve capitalized on several months of passive, half-assed attention to actually do something useful.

    Thus, relieve the stress of gift giving from your life and set up your Amazon gift organizer today.

    Disclaimer: I know that there may be privacy issues related to this, especially if you are entering your recipient’s full birthdays. Whether this convenience is worth the privacy risk is up to you. In my case, I am sure that Amazon already knows more about me than I do.

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    Practicing Law Efficiently Means Using the Right Tools

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    I was in court today and I witnessed another attorney call his office to speak to his assistant. He instructed his assistant to contact another attorney in the office who had authored an initial draft of a brief. The assistant was to get two things from the other attorney that were referenced in the draft: (1) a portion of a transcript, and (2) a document.

    What I found amusing was that in the amount of time that the attorney spent on the telephone telling his assistant what he wanted, I could have probably found the sameCaseMap information in one of my files. This is because I keep all of my files paperless and I use the CaseMap suite of programs to manage my documents, facts, and transcripts.

    Finding information in a transcript is as easy as looking for the relevant words. Similarly, finding a document is as easy as searching for any number of fields including the author, recipient, date, or relevant information.

    I am not saying that you have to use the same programs that I use. There are a variety of programs available to help you manage your documents, transcripts, and other case information. The programs include programs such as Lexis-Nexis Front Office, Summation, Concordance, iConect, JFS Litigator’s Notebook, and LiveNote.

    The important point is that you should be using some program to keep your information organized and available to you at a moment’s notice.

    Not only with this make you more efficient, it also means that you won’t be using time of your assistant and other attorneys to track down information.

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    Friday Fun: A Doubleheader

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    I have two fun things I want to point out today. One is “scary-fun” and the other is “cute-fun,” but it’s probably only that if you have small children.

    First, the scary-fun.

    From Wellington Grey comes a  great little slide show demonstrating some of the more inane aspects of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The subtitle to the slide show is “An Example of Anglogue Circumvention and Idiocy.”

    Anyway, check it out to see a clever analogy that demonstrates some of the idiocy of the DMCA.

    The next item comes from the Cafe Press store of Redhead Esq. Clearly playing off the great children’s book Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Redhead Esq offers a selection of items, from bibs to tote bags, telling the story of ten little monkeys who call a lawyer instead of a doctor:

    10 little monkeys jumpin’ on the bed

    One fell off and bumped his head

    Mama called the lawyer and the lawyer said

    Have the monkeys sign a release and indemnification agreement holding you harmless from any injury or damage which may occur should they continue to jump on the bed.

    Now that is a bedtime story.

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    Could Someone Please Tell the Daley Center that it is the 21st Century?

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    Daley CenterYesterday I had a court appearance at the Daley Center at 9:30 and then a noon meeting in the Loop. A perfect chance for me to go to court and then run upstairs to the law library on the 29th Floor of the Daley Center.

    I love going up there. The views are absolutely wonderful. There are windows galore and, because of the number of windows, the library is well lit. Also there are lots of chairs and tables to work at.  It is a great place to work, as long as you are stuck with the 19th Century concept of researching only by books and taking notes only by hand.

    The law library is missing two things that every library should have. First, it has no wi fi access. Peter Olson asked this same question almost two years ago. I agree with him that it makes no sense that the law library has no wi fi access.

    Second, and this may even be worse, it has no electrical outlets. Thus, even if I were content to do all of my research via books (which the library has lots of), I am limited to taking notes on a legal pad, or on my computer only until the battery runs out. Is it too difficult to wire a few tables with electricity so people can practice law efficiently? Is this just too much to ask for from Cook County?

    Instead of doing research in a comfortable setting with a beautiful view, I ended up in a Starbucks looking at the street. It certainly was not the best view. However, it did have wi fi and an electrical outlet.

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    Thanks Rick!

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    I was working with some documents in Adobe Acrobat and I realized that I needed to reduce the page sizes on some document and I was not sure how to best do it. Fortunately, Rick Borstein had the answer I needed. I hopped over to Rick’s Blog Acrobat for Legal Professionals and after a quick search of his blog, I had a solution to my problem.

    This solution emphasizes one of the great features of Rick’s blog. He posts about solutions to real world problems that attorneys might encounter during their workday.  If you are trying to solve a problem in Acrobat, I recommend that you start first with Rick’s blog, before you start searching for solutions elsewhere.

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    Another Story Emphasizing the Need for Off Site Backups

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    I saw this interesting story about a Florida woman (Marie Lupe Cooley) who thought that she was about to lose her job. She had concluded this because she “saw a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for a position that looked suspiciously like her current job — and with her boss’s phone number listed”

    So, police say, she went to the architectural office where she works late Sunday night and erased 7 years’ worth of drawings and blueprints, estimated to be worth $2.5 million.

    “She decided to mess up everything for everybody,” Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ken Jefferson told reporters. “She just sabotaged the entire business, thinking she was going to get axed.”

    The twist to the news story, of course, was:

    As for the job, Cooley originally wasn’t in danger of losing it. The ad was for Hutchins’ wife’s company.

    However,

     The firm told FOXNews.com that Cooley no longer is employed there.

    I guess that is one way to ensure that you do lose your job.

    Anyway, the moral to the story does not involve the allegedly felonious acts of the employee, instead, they apply to the employer. Your employees have access to all of your data. How able would you be to function if one of you disgruntled employees destroyed all of your data?

    Given that almost everything is store electronically today,  I would guess that it would take quite some time to get your office back to normal. Also, it is likely that, in some ways you would never recover from the damage.

    The quote in the story I found most interesting was:

    Hutchins told one TV station he’d managed to recover all the files using an expensive data-recovery service.

    Here the employer had to employ a data recovery service to try to salvage his information. If, however, he had employed a proper off site backup strategy, he likely would not have had to incur the cost of “an expensive data-recovery service.” Instead, he simply could have restored his information from his off site back up.

    Obviously, there are only so many things we can do to ensure that our offices do not get hit by some sort of disaster, be it fire, flood, or disgruntled employee. However, there are simple steps we can take to make sure that, in the event of such a calamity, we can easily restore our data and get back to work.

    If you are not sure what a good backup plan looks like, or how to implement one, you cannot find better suggestions and directions than this post from Ross Kodner