Apple Briefs

Last week, Macworld posted a series of articles on various features in Leopard. Some of the hidden OS X features require terminal commands to active. I didn’t check, but I bet that many of them can be enabled with Mac Pilot.

• Finder and Quick Look
• Dock and Stacks
• Spaces, Exposé and Dashboard
• System Preferences
• Odds and Ends

Kevin over at a mac lawyer’s notebook has posted his first screencast. The screencast is about how to use Daylite, and includes lots of explanatory text as well. Daylite is a perfect application for screencast tutorials. As I have written about before, Daylite can at first appear quite limited. Daylite’s real power shows through once you uncover the many useful ways to combine its basic features. If you haven’t already seen it (and have 27 spare minutes), head on over to a mac lawyer’s notebook to check out the Daylite screencase.

I have posted an article called Why Use a Mac in Your Law Firm. I know that many of my readers are already Mac users. If that describes you, you may still learn a thing or two about your computer. If you’re not already a Mac user, then come in, get comfortable, and be prepared to be blown away.

The article doesn’t allow comments. I would love to hear your thoughts, though. So please leave any comments, suggestions, or criticisms for the article in the comments here.

Law firms are increasingly making use of compact discs (CDs). Many CDs are only used internally at a law firm. Often, though, a CD is sent outside the law firm – to a client, opposing counsel, or a third party. Law firms that use standard, branded CDs are missing out on a great marketing opportunity. Printing your law firm’s logo and a description on a CD (or DVD) label makes a great impression.

It has never been easier to print to a CD label. In my wife’s practice, we use DiscCover to design the labels. Another good option is DiscLabel. DiscLabel seems to have a few more features, but DiscCover does everything I need it to do.

In the past, I used Avery adhesive label sheets. I always had two worries with the adhesive labels. First, getting them centered was a struggle (and nothing looks worse than an off-center label). Second, the adhesive labels are quite thick and make the CD much thicker than a normal disc. I was always concerned that the label would gum up the CD drive. Maybe it wasn’t a realistic concern, but the thickness of the label was too much for me to ignore. Those worries are gone now that we print directly onto the discs. Our printer is an HP Photosmart D5360 Photo Printer. I haven’t used many HP printers recently because I don’t like installing all the software that HP forces you to install to get their drivers. Mac OS X Leopard, though, comes with a driver for the D5360, so no install is needed. Special CDs are needed when you use a CD printer like the D5360.

Having a custom label costs a little more than using generic CDs, but the end results are stunning. Clients are very impressed when they receive a copy of their files on CD with the law firm logo and the client’s name printed neatly on the label. Even opposing counsel and third-parties will take notice. Little things like this make you look more professional and raise the prestige of your law firm.