Comedians at Law is a group of former-attorneys who now perform comedy around the nation. They also have a podcast in which half of the show is typically devoted to an irreverent look at the legal news of the week and the other half is an interview — sometimes with other lawyer comedians, other times with lawyers who are involved in something interesting. I'm honored to be a guest on this week's show, which you can listen to here, or you can subscribe to in iTunes. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- TrialPad is an iPad app that you can use present documents at trial or in meetings. The developer, Ian O'Flaherty, published a free e-book to help you use TrialPad, and Ian tells me that the book was just updated to include video tutorials. As a result, the book is now over 200MB and must be downloaded over WiFi, but the tutorials will walk you through the steps for getting the most out of this app. Click here for TrialPad Quick Start Guide (free):
- South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens reviews STM cases for the iPad and iPad mini.
- Two months ago, I noted that Michigan plaintiff attorneys Stephen Goethel and Chad Engelhardt of Goethel Engelhardt, PLLC wrote an extensive article for the State Bar of Michigan Negligence Quarterly about using an iPad in the practice of law. At the time, I only had a link to a PDF version of the article, but the Atkinson Baker court reporting firm obtained permission to repost it on the web. If you missed it last time, check it out.
- I recently reviewed the dockBoss air, a gadget from CableJive that adds Bluetooth to speakers with 30-pin connectors. Last night, I saw an announcement that if you use offer code 5OFF35 you can currently get $5 off any CableJive order of $35 or more. The dockBoss air only costs $34.95, but if the company sells anything else that you want that costs at least a nickel, you might find this to be a good offer.
- One of my favorites iPhone apps is Fantastical (my review), an excellent replacement for the built-in Calendar on the iPhone. This week, the app was updated to version 1.1, and my favorite improvement is the ability to tap-and-hold the date bar at the top to jump to any other date, meaning I can now use Fantastical to quickly jump to a date 10 years ago to see what I was doing then. I find this feature very useful when I'm working on an appeal and I need to determine when something happened pre-trial. I previously used Calvetica for this function, but I prefer the simple way that it is implemented in Fantastical. Click here for Fantastical for iPhone ($1.99):
- Lex Friedman of Macworld wrote a great article about using Siri to get things done. I use many of these tips almost every day.
- A few years ago, I discussed the origin of the "i" in iPhone. Of course, that "i" also appears in iPad, and Mark Gurman of 9to5 Mac describes a presentation by Ken Segall, the guy who used to handle Apple's advertising account, about other names that were considered for the iPad. By the way, Segall is also half of the team responsible for Scoopertino, a site I wrote about in 2010 that remains funny today.
- One of the first public calls from an iPhone was a prank call, by none other than Steve Jobs. When Jobs debuted the iPhone on January 9, 2007, he called a nearby Starbucks to order 4,000 lattes to go. Austin Carr of Fast Company tracked down the woman who took that call, who still works at the same Starbucks. It's a cute story and worth a quick read.
- I often see people using cracked iPhones. This week, I learned that there might be a good reason I'm seeing them here in New Orleans. According to a report from Gazelle, a large website that purchases used gadgets, New Orleans is the second klutziest city in the country based on broken cell phones, as reported by WWL, the local CBS affiliate in New Orleans. Indeed, I see that four of the top 10 cities are places in which my law firm (Adams and Reese) has an office: #1 Tallahassee, #2 New Orleans, #7 Memphis, and #8 Baton Rouge. As I think about it, perhaps it is a good business move to have law firm offices in places where people often make mistakes.
- Jason Snell of Macworld writes about reading comic books on an iPad. Until recently, the last comic book that I purchased was probably a Richie Rich comic when I was 10 years old. But a few months ago, I was inspired by something else that Snell wrote to check out the Comixology app on the iPad, and it is actually quite impressive. I then started reading Saga, a (not for kids!) comic book that you can purchase through the app on the iPad. It is billed as a cross between Star Wars and Game of Thrones, and it is a great, well-drawn publication that showed me that a comic can be just as good of a medium for telling a story as a movie, TV show or book. If you think that this might interest you, download the free Comixology app and then purchase the first "season" of Saga (the first six issues) in a single 169 collection called Saga Vol. 1 for $9.99. Click here for Comixology (free):
- And finally, two nights ago, TidBITS author Joe Kissell noticed that there are lots of iPad app icons that contain a letter, and also noticed that there are 26 spots for apps on a screen. Putting two and two together, he created the following image and posted it on Twitter ... the iPad alphabet. Don't miss this TidBITS story with the backstory and the fantastic response. Bravo!
