Movie enthusiasts may recognize that the title of Today’s Tip is a quote from my personal Disney favourite: Mulan. I much prefer this modern interpretation of the Admonitions Scroll. Reflect before you act is excellent advice for many things, including legal research.

Cathie Best at her Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research agrees that “Plan and organize your research” is the first step in the legal research process. How can your reflect before you act on your legal research question?

Start your research memo by writing the facts as you understand them and then skip to …

Photos are a major part of the profile pages on all the major social media sites. There are profile photos (usually your picture) and header or cover photos (the big photo that usually appears across the top of your profile or homepage).
As these photos play a big part in making a good impression with people, you want them to look good. But making this happen can be frustrating. Sometimes the photo you post will be scaled to fit in the allotted box with the result that the contents look blurry or distorted, and sometimes parts of a picture are …

Often, I write with too many commas.  A comma is a beautiful thing, in fact, all punctuation is necessary for readers to understand a piece of text. Just ask the  Associated Press who sent this punctuation-less tweet:

Then there was a clarification:

Today’s Tip: Think about your legal research responses.  Are you missing a comma?…

David Bilinsky and I are going to take our own advice about work-life balance, and will thus be taking a short summer break from our Practice Tips posts.

We will return in mid-August with our usual musings each Thursday.

Wishing all our readers a safe and happy summer.

– Garry J. Wise, Toronto (@wiselaw on Twitter)

…

First let me say that I really like reading on screen for business purposes.  Second, let me contradict that by complaining about my aged eyes and how I keep pulling my monitors closer to my face. Third, let me tell you how much I enjoy reading novels in print when that is a viable alternative (not traveling, my public library has a print copy without waiting for an inter-library loan). Fourthly, let me give a hat tip to John DiGilio who noted a post on Lawyerist.com that inspired Today’s Tip.

Scientific American looked at some studies comparing paper vs. screen …

I know your smartphone and iPad already have their device access passwords enabled (meaning anyone picking up your device can’t access the information on it without punching in a password). And if they don’t – sit down right now and turn the access password on. Otherwise the information on the device is accessible to anyone that happens to find it. If you are a lawyer and you have client information on the device, this is a critical step for protecting the confidentiality of client information.
But what happens if someone finds your device? Will they be able to figure out …

Do you have wireless dead zones in your office or home where your signal weakens or even drops? Well, good news is on the way.  You can breathe immediate new life into your Wi-Fi coverage with a wireless range extender.

They come in various shapes and forms. Some plug into your electrical outlets and use your internal electrical wiring to carry signal, while others simply plug-in to your wall outlet, and connect wirelessly in a snap to your router.

We have had a difficult corner where our wireless signal has nearly always been compromised. The product I chose to solve …

Some of the high use items linked from our firm’s intranet are calculators.  I am not talking about the e-quivalent of a device that helps find the square root of 9*, but rather tools that help calculate things for context.

We have tipped you previously on calculating present value and currency calculators but we haven’t talked about date calculators.

Time and Date AS is a Norwegian LLC that gives people free time and date related information and services via timeanddate.com.  This site offers multiple points of assistance including a date calculator that lets you add or subtract days, weeks,  …

It takes just one accidental drop to kill an iPad or smartphone.

And unfortunately, if the glass cracks, they are difficult or even impossible to repair. To prevent this from happening you want to protect your device with a good case. But there are cases and there are cases. Pretty but flimsy plastic cases will do little to protect your device if you drop it. You need to invest in a good case.
I really like OtterBox cases. Otterbox makes cases for iPhones and iPads, as well as Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC, Nokia and even BlackBerry …

♫ So go on, indulge yourself,
that’s right, kick off your shoes, put your feet up,
lean back and just enjoy the melodies.
After all, music soothes even the savage beasts.  ♫

Lyrics and Music by Dexter Holland, recorded by Offspring.

There is a time to work …and there is a time to kick back and take it easy.

We happen to be in that magical time between Canada Day and Independence Day for our cousins down south.

So our post this week is – seize the moment and take the time …to relax…to detune…to enjoy the company …