TechnoLawyer

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a new laptop (see article below), a browser extension that blocks tracking cookies, a billing software migration utility, document assembly software, and an iPad and Android tabelt app for corporate compliance filings. Don't miss the next issue.

Your Documents Have Never Looked This Good

A recent article of ours noted that most lawyers use a computer to practice law. A subscriber quipped that lawyers should instead use their brain. A clever riposte, but let's face it — lawyers spend a lot of time staring at documents on their computer screen. Tired eyes are an occupational hazard, especially since computer and laptop displays lack the sharpness of paper not to mention the tablets and smartphones of a certain company named after a fruit. This company now has its sights set on revolutionizing laptop screens with your eyes as the beneficiaries.

MacBook Pro … in One Sentence
Launched this week, Apple's MacBook Pro is a 15-inch notebook with a "retina display."

The Killer Feature
The MacBook Pro's retina display uses IPS technology, and offers a resolution of 2880 x 1800 pixels at 220 pixels per inch (ppi), the highest available on a laptop. By way of comparison, Apple also updated its non-retina 15-inch MacBook Pro, which has a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels at 110 ppi. (And in case you're wondering, the new iPad's retina display sports a 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution at 264 ppi.)

Apple claims that the retina display is sharper than a printed page, and that the pixels are too small to see with the naked eye at a typical working distance. It's all about pixel density. The MacBook Pro's 5.1 million tiny pixels resolve at a smaller scale than larger pixels in standard displays. The larger a screen, the more challenging it becomes to increase pixel density, which explains why Apple's first retina display was on the iPhone 4 in 2010.

Increased pixel density has another advantage in addition to clarity — more screen real estate. You can adjust the resolution with a five-position slider that moves between "Larger Text" and "More Space." Thanks to the number of pixels, opting for more space so that you can, for example, place two documents side by side, ratchets down the quality from retina to merely normal. By contrast, a standard laptop display would become blurry.

One disadvantage of all these pixels is that the new MacBook Pro will "pixel double" existing software until developers issue updates (Apple has updated its applications).

The display has some other notable features. It's glossy (not matte), but thanks to the lack of a glass front, it has a 29% higher contrast ratio and 75% less glare than the standard MacBook Pro, as well as a 178-degree viewing angle.

Other Notable Features
The new MacBook Pro can travel. It's 0.71 inches thick, and weighs 4.46 pounds. The battery provides seven hours of use and up to 30 days of standby time.

Other features include 256, 512, or 768 GB of storage on a solid state drive, 8 or 16 GB of memory, a 2.3, 2.6, or 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, an Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics card, an SDXC card slot, two Thunderbolt and two USB 3 ports, an HDMI port, a 720p HD webcam, dual microphones, stereo speakers, and an "asymmetrical fan" to minimize noise. The MacBook Pro also includes Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi, but not Gigabit Ethernet or FireWire (you can purchase an adapter if needed).

What Else Should You Know?
Pricing starts at $2,199 for the 2.3 GHz model, and $2,799 for the 2.6 Ghz model. If you max out all the specifications on the latter model, it'll cost you $3,749. The MacBook Pro runs Apple's OS X Lion, and qualifies for a free upgrade to Mountain Lion when it ships. Learn more about MacBook Pro.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers an outliner for iPad (see article below), a metadata removal and management utility, a mobile device management system, a legal research app for Android smartphones, and a customer relationship and practice management system for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Don't miss the next issue.

A Post-PC Outliner

Lawyers take a lot of notes, whether in a courtroom, conference room, or on a call. Wresting these freeform realtime notes, often interwoven with your reactions and ideas, into a coherent and accurate letter, memo, or other document can prove as daunting and time-consuming as keeping track of Lindsay Lohan's court appearances. Organizing your thoughts calls for an outliner. While word processors have such functionality, they've never measured up to dedicated outliners. Also, it's 2012. Given that you often take notes when you're not in your office, the iPad may prove more conducive to outlining than your PC.

OmniOutliner for iPad … in One Sentence
OmniGroup's OmniOutliner for iPad is an outlining app.

The Killer Feature
OmniOutliner for iPad claims to make data entry efficient so that you can organize complex information with (relative) ease. For example, you'll find several app-specific tools on the iPad's keyboard that enable you to quickly add a new row, indent and outdent rows to create hierarchies and parent-children groups, apply typographic styles en masse, and undo.

You can annotate your entries with notes and add hyperlinks. You can move entire groups or individual rows to new locations using your finger or a stylus.

Other Notable Features
OmniOutliner also enables you to create columns with fields for checkboxes, formatted numbers, dates, pop-up lists, and more. You can manipulate columns similarly to rows — drag them to rearrange, and tap a button to show or hide them. You can sort rows by column, and scroll through columns while topic headings remain visible at the top.

OmniOutliner for iPad includes various document and style templates as well as a rich text editor to create and save your own styles. You can add images and PDF documents to your outlines. Export options include formats such as OmniOutliner (Mac), OPML, HTML, and text. You can import documents via iTunes, email, or WebDAV.

What Else Should You Know?
OmniOutliner for iPad costs $19.99. It supports the retina display in the new iPad and works on all iPads released to date. Learn more about OmniOutliner for iPad.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers ediscovery processing and review software (see article below), a digital recorder, an office suite for iPad compatible with Microsoft Office, an iPad task management app, and a secure online message service. Don't miss the next issue.

A Single Software Universe for Your Discovery Tasks

Like the TV show Fringe, ediscovery seems to take place in (at least) two parallel universes. Ediscovery service providers and internal litigation support teams use one or more products to cull duplicate and irrelevant documents from raw electronic discovery material. Then they load the remaining documents into an entirely different product for review by litigation teams. This split software universe results in more complexity — multiple vendors, dual learning curves, file format incompatibilities, and data lost, misplaced, or mislabeled when moving among programs. Not to mention the likelihood of higher costs, which you may find increasingly difficult to pass along to penny pinching clients. A new version of an ediscovery product aims to bring these two universes together.

NeedleFinder 4.3 … in One Sentence
Equivalent DATA's NeedleFinder 4.3 is a cloud-based integrated "end to end" system for ediscovery processing and document review.

The Killer Feature
NeedleFinder moves discovery material through a two-step process of initial culling and preparation (commonly referred to as "processing") followed by review. In other words, it eliminates the need to create a load file because all the discovery data remains in the same system.

When you've culled the documents down to a review set, a single click on the "Send Documents to Review" button moves them to the Review module of the system. You also use NeedleFinder to produce documents for opposing counsel and set aside privileged documents. NeedleFinder accommodates native files, or you can use common image formats such as PDF and TIFF.

Other Notable Features
The father of the iPod Jon Rubinstein dissed the idea of integrating an iPod into what became the iPhone before leaving Apple in 2006, saying "Is there a toaster that also knows how to brew coffee?" History has proved him wrong about integrated products. NeedleFinder seeks to offer the same functionality as single-function competitors.

For example, the new version of NeedleFinder offers a more robust Analysis module for initial processing. The search and culling tools use information extracted from document metadata to expedite the process of eliminating irrelevant and setting aside privileged documents. NeedleFinder includes a tool that enables you to view all document custodians' direct or indirect email threads. You can include or remove duplicate documents, attachments, and email threads.

NeedleFinder's Review module includes the expected panoply of tools. You can apply Bates stamps and issue tags, redact, and filter documents by custodian, date range, file type, search terms, tags, document status, and more. You can save searches for upcoming depositions and other routine tasks.

In additional to these core functions, the Review module also includes features that facilitate team document review such as creating document review batches, setting priorities, and assigning documents to individual reviewers or groups. You can also set documents as public or private, and designate functionality at the reviewer level, as well as monitor reviewer productivity, including documents per hour, hours logged, and documents reviewed.

What Else Should You Know?
If your client also has paper documents, Equivalent DATA can scan them for you and place them into your NeedleFinder account, which takes the one-stop-shopping concept even further. NeedleFinder works in all modern web browsers. The company offers pay-as-you-go pricing. Learn more about NeedleFinder 4.3.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.