It is very important to remember that installing updates can unintentionally interfere with the way your computer/device or individual programs/apps on it operate. It is possible that a program/app may not operate properly or at all, that data could be lost, or that a device will fail to restart after an update is installed. Creating a restore point (a temporary backup of your configuration and data) and/or making a proper backup of all the programs and data on a device before you install updates can help you recover if there are unanticipated problems. Always remember to back things up before …

♫  Nothing, now you live with zero, nothing nada
Now you live with zero
Now you live with zero…♫

Music and lyrics by Keyshia Cole, Vidal Davis, Tyler Williams, Guordan Banks, Jessyca Wilson, Robert Williams, recorded by Keyshia Cole.

This post continues our journey towards achieving ‘inbox zero’.  This time we are delving into more shall we say, ‘drastic’ ways of dealing with the email avalanche.

• Step 1: Admit it.  You are not going to get to those emails that are 2 years old and still sitting in your inbox.  In fact if you are facing brass

I gave a presentation today to the CBA Alberta Branch Research Lawyers South section. The slide deck is available on my LinkedIn profile. Posting the slide deck reminded me that interesting bits of information are available in slide decks posted all over the web.

For a slide deck starting point, check out professional associations and organizations past conferences.  Try company websites and blogs, lawblogs.ca is a good place to start for firms. SlideShare is a social platform specifically for sharing and searching presentation information.

Don’t believe me that legal people share their slides? Check out this recent post from …

Ideally you have one or more types of properly updated anti-malware software running on your computers and networks. And hopefully that software detects and prevents any malware infections from occurring. However, because anti-malware software may not detect an infection, watch for the symptoms that can indicate a computer is infected with malware. These include:

• It takes longer than usual for your computer to start up, it restarts on its own or doesn’t start up at all;
• It takes a long time for one or more programs to launch;
• Your computer and/or programs frequently lock up or crash;
• Programs are starting

  I want to tell her that I love her but the point is prob’ly moot..♫

Lyrics, Music and recorded by Rick Springfield.

West Coast Environmental Law is inviting law students from across Canada to participate in a unique Canadian social media competition!

The “Twitter Moot” will be held on Friday, February 28th, 2014, at 10am PST.  This event, now into its third year, will see teams from Law Schools from all across Canada participate in a mock court hearing over the Twitter social media platform, arguing an appeal to the Supreme Twitter Court of Canada. Students are invited to …

Through opportunities presented by the Canadian Association of Law Libraries and through my firm, I was able to attend the American Association of Law Libraries conference this year.  I learned some things and met a bunch of great folks, including Sarah Mauldin, Director of Library Services at Smith, Gambrell & Russell LLP who inspired this post.

I have talked about “Phone a Friend” in past tips, more than once.  While I haven’t specified reaching out to contacts in other jurisdictions, it is worth a research tip mention.

You can find excellent contacts, and make friends …

While email attachments are frequently used to share documents between lawyers, law firm staff, and clients, they are also one of the most common delivery mechanisms for malware. While most messages that have infected attachments will be stopped if your anti-malware software and/or spam filter are working properly and updated, some will make it through. For this reason, staff and lawyers at every firm should follow should follow these two simple rules:
1. No matter how interesting or enticing they appear to be (e.g., jokes, celebrity gossip or pictures), never open attachments from strangers.
2. No matter how interesting or …

♫  I’ll tell you simply I’m fallin’ for you;
I’ve never felt this way before…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Sara Hickman.

(click image to enlarge)

Continuing our discussion of getting to ‘Inbox Zero’ this second post in the series of posts dealing with email is about SimplyFile – an intelligent add-on to Microsoft Outlook (2007 or 2010).  Of all the ‘tips’ that I put forward doing “60 Tips in 60 Minutes” type presentations, this is the one tip for which I receive the most feedback.  I use it all the time on my PC and I didn’t realize …

Research issues can be very specific – either in the time period for information or in the minutia of the topic. For those questions, the commentary material near to hand may not have your answers. Today’s tip shares some approaches.

• Look at reissues or recently released encyclopedias (the CED, Halsbury’s Laws of Canada)
• Look for legal news articles (Lawyer’s Weekly, Canadian Lawyer, Law Times)
• Look at bar association or law society newsletters (CBA National)
• Look at law blogs (lawblogs.ca)
• Look at law journals and topical journal publications (I use the Index to Canadian Legal Literature first and

Creating a long, unique, complex (letters in upper and lower case, numbers and symbols) and random password for every service you use is the best practice standard when it comes to using secure and strong passwords. If you follow this advice however, your passwords will be an unreadable mix of letters, numbers and characters. While good for security, they will be hard to remember.
As a solution, consider using a “passphrase” to remember complex passwords. A passphrase is a mix of letters, numbers and characters that has a translation that makes it easier for you to remember the correct sequence. …