Futurelawyer

Verizon iPhone Versus AT&T iPhone - No Brainer

Verizon iPhone versus AT&T iPhone: The top three differences - Personal Wi-Fi hotspot - CSMonitor.com. Against my advice, some of my readers refuse to switch to Android, and are married to their AT&T iPhones. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that they are thinking about switching to Verizon this month when the Verizon iPhone goes live. As decisions about tech go, this one is a no brainer. If you insist on iPhone, you need to be on Verizon Wireless. Here are the reasons: 1. WiFi Hotspot capability. For $20 a month, you can, on Verizon, share your Internet access with 5 computers in your vicinity. I use this every day, and connect my GTablet to my phone's Internet access every day at lunch, or when I am out and about. This feature by itself is worth the switch, even if you have to pay a termination fee to AT&T. 2. Even though it might seem like an AT&T advantage that you can browse the web and talk at the same time; in the real world, you don't need to do this. I truly can't remember when that feature would have been useful to me. I am either browsing the web or doing email, or talking on the phone. If a call comes in while I am browsing, I take the call, and, when I am done, go right back to browsing. 3. It's the network, stupid. Verizon has a long history of being reliable, always there, and the fewest dropped calls. I truly can't remember the last time my Droid X dropped a call. 4. Finally, Apple has reconfigured the antenna in the Verizon iPhones to avoid the "death grip" problem. Apparently, Apple has put dual antennas in the new phones, and antenna problems are a thing of the past. So, if you absolutely, positively have to have an IPhone, get it from Verizon Wireless. It really IS the network.

RocketCLE - No Planes, Trains Or Automobiles

RocketCLE Continuing Legal Education - FastCLE.com. While I am on the subject of avoiding modern day travel problems, Larry Port, of online case management solution, RocketMatter, is announcing RocketCLE this week, in conjunction with Legal Tech New York. You don't have to drive to a CLE seminar anymore, and there are many companies providing CLE credit and online seminars. I fully expect that Larry will get it right, and you can check it out at the site. If your are a RocketMatter subscriber, you will get a 50% discount on all online programs. The first seminars grow out of Larry's book, published late last year, and look great.

Virtual Legal Tech - You Don't Have To Travel To Be There

Virtual LegalTech� Trade Shows - the most important legal technology events online.. Many of you can't, or won't, travel to New York this week for Legal Tech New York. It is expensive, it is cold (I love the weather here in Florida), and you have to endure modern day air travel, with its delays, expense, security checks and other indignities. Well, you can go to the Legal Tech website, and a lot of what you would see is online. And, if you want to see the presentations, keynotes, and visit the vendor booths, you can set aside March 17th (just delay the St. Patrick's Day celebration until after 5 P.M.), and attend Virtual Legal Tech. You can register at this site for free, and you will be able to attend webinars, chat online with vendors, visit 3D booths, and all sorts of cool stuff. Travel is so passe. 

Dylan Thomas Poetry Break

I have always loved the poetry of Dylan Thomas. In College, I fell in love with his mellifluous style, and his genius with words. This ten minute audio file gives a brief example of the value the spoken voice of the poet can bring to the poem. He died too young, from alcoholism, but his brilliance remains in his poetry and his voice. I have been listening and reading his stuff again, after the post on Social Media data after death, and recalling his most famous poem, "And Death Shall Have No Dominion". He reads it about half way through this ten minute file. Take a Saturday break, and listen to a master. This photo, by the way, was taken in 1953, just before his death. 

Download Dylanthomas

Keep My Opt-Outs, Please

Google's Chrome browser gets do-not-track feature | Webware - CNET. The browser wars continue;now, it is a matter of protecting users from prying eyes and adbots. The major browsers already permit users to keep browsing forays from placing tracks on the user's computer. In Chrome, this is accomplished by clicking the tools icon, and going "incognito". The name is a misnomer, because Google and third party sellers of products can still see who you are, and where you are, and can send targeted ads at you. However, you won't be putting any cookies or site traces on your local machine that the bad guys can use later to find you. Now, by using the Keep My Opt-Outs Extension, users can also keep the sites a user has previously blocked from placing new cookies or ads. In addition, a growing coalition of advertisers are joining Google in honoring the opt-out requests of users. Of course, the problem with this is that these are the good advertisers, and, as long as they aren't putting helicopter ads on top of my browser (you know, the ones that fly around the screen and you can't get rid of), I wouldn't mind their ads. I have always had a love-hate relationship with ads and spam anyway. The money these guys pay keeps most of the Internet free; and, any email that contains an innocuous ad is another email that won't create more stress in my life.

What Happens to Your Digital Life When You Die?

What Happens to Your Digital Life When You Die? . Dylan Thomas said: "Death shall have no dominion". While he was engaging in some wishful thinking, and since we are all going there, I was thinking about death when I posted about the ownership of digital data after death: Who Owns Your Digital Data When You Die? While I look at this from a probate lawyer's perspective, Ken Strutin, in this article for New York Law Journal, gives a detailed discussion of the legal issues that arise from the death of the owner of digital data, both from an ownership and a litigation viewpoint. Great reading, and you will want to revise your Will after you read it.

Earth To Aliens - Come In Please

Physicists call for alien messaging protocol - Networking - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au. Via Slashdot, I found this article about scientists working on alien communication. As if we didn't have enough problems on Earth, the scientists are now spending time creating a new protocol for communicating with the aliens that we all know are out there waiting to hear from us. Hey, we know that they want to copy our strategies for peacefully living with each other, and our ability to see to it that all of the people on the earth have a safe living environment, with enough to eat and a place to sleep, right? They are especially envious of our treatment of those among us who are less fortunate. So, first we had the Internet Messaging Protocols, which enabled our computers to talk to each other, and then we had Hypertext Transmission Protocol (HTTP) so that we could read what the computers said to us. Now, we will have an Alien Messaging Transmission Protocol (AMTP), so that the aliens will understand us when we share our secrets for living sanely and safely on our planet. I have a modest proposal; let's take all of the money spent on this, and use it to feed and house the homeless on our own planet. Let's learn to communicate with each other first, before we try to communicate with whatever is out there.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

AppleInsider | Survey shows potential for 25 million Verizon iPhones in 2011. Like you, I have been hearing all the doom and gloom predictions about the end of the world. It is either coming in 2011, or 2012. So, we don't have to worry about our smart phone contracts, right? Just sign up for a new two year deal. It is likely you won't see the end of it anyway, right? If you really want to have nightmares, think about 25 million iPhone 4 users invading our Verizon Wireless network. I am imagining hordes of locusts carrying iPhones, eating all the band width that I have been using for my Droid X, and my Droid Incredible. Hey, I am all for giving iPhone users access to a superior network; but, I think they all ought to have to take a loyalty oath before we let them in. They have been trashing Droid and Verizon for several years now. All of a sudden they think Verizon has the best network? What kind of a gig will Luke get now? AT&T is going to make him pick up all of his flash cards.

Don't Tweet Me, Bro!

This is How to Silence Enemies, Apple Fanboys or Justin Bieber on Twitter%u2014For Good. Twitter can be a tremendous resource. Most of the people I follow have some interesting things to say about things I am interested in. Naturally, there is a strong bias to lawyers and vendors tweeting about law related topics. There are also news outlets, and others who keep me up to date on things I am interested in. However, the retweet craze causes some tweeters to get a little crazy. For instance, I really don't care if you love Justin Bieber. Who is he, anyway? So, since I am a user of Google Chrome, I was happy to hear about this neat little extension, Proxlet. Once you install it in your browser, and then tell Twitter that you are allowing it to access your feed, it adds a little Proxlet button to the options under a Tweet. If you never want another Justin Bieber tweet for the rest of recorded time, just click. So, you don't have to unfollow the FutureLawyer. If you are tired of hearing about Android, just Proxlet my tweets. Yet another Internet term to become familiar with. Great. Relax, Kevin (twitter.com/kevinokeefe). You can continue to tweet about the Packers and Vince Lombardi, and I will get your tweets. Vince Lombardi is one of my heroes. Tweet on.

LibreOffice - The Best Free Office Suite You Never Heard Of

LibreOffice Productivity Suite Download � LibreOffice. Microsoft Word is expensive, whether a license is purchased alone, or in a suite. However, there are plenty of free or inexpensive alternatives out there. I use WordPerfect, in its current incarnation, WordPerfect X5. It reads and writes Word documents just fine, and I get to keep all of my decades old WordPerfect goodness. OpenOffice is a great free alternative, which reads and writes Word documents as well. However, after Oracle acquired Sun in 2009, a third of the OpenOffice developers decided that they didn't want to be part of the empire, and they formed the Document Foundation. You can read about its members and its plans here. In the meantime, they have put out a free version of OpenOffice, that is lean and mean, and will continue to get better. Try it out, and see if you still need to give Microsoft more of your hard earned money.