Realizing the collective intelligence gathered in the room, Kern Lewis (the host of the seminar) reserved a couple of hours at the end of Saturday for everyone to share tips & tricks, and even to ask their stumper questions to see if someone could help out. This was a blast and I’ll list several topics that were discussed:

• Notebook Interactive Viewer from Smart Technologies - Kern Lewis offered this free download (Mac, Windows, & Linux versions) as a way to view content and presentations created in the full version of Smart Technologies’ Notebook Software or the SMART Board interactive whiteboards themselves.
• Timelines on a Mac - One attendee recommended the $40 Bee Docs’ Timeline to create nice drop-down events. Someone else mentioned that Bee Docs is a “little sparse” in its features, so they recommended the $24.95 TimeFlyer 2.1 from A Single Pixel that will let you do vertical timelines when necessary. Both of these applications are specifically for the Mac and appear to compete with TimeMap and TimelineXpress.
• Record Streaming Video from the Web - Kern Lewis suggested using Videobox from TastyApps when you need to record/download streaming video from the Web into QuickTime format. Since Videobox may miss a video or two, someone else suggested a Safari plugin called CosmoPod from Cocoamug Software. CosmoPod “lounges in Safari’s address bar and activates whenever a video is detected on the website you’re on.” I’ve used TubeSock successfully in the past to download YouTube videos.
• Task Management - GTD was a popular method among attendees for keeping track of tasks and to-dos, and one attendee came up to the front and demonstrated how he uses OmniFocus to manage his day.
• Document Assembly - Several folks were curious what others were using for generating standard documents. One person offered LawStream Pro (see the “magic mix“) but continued that it’s a bit difficult to master. Probably the best option available for the Mac is MacSimple Prompter from Wordsite Office Automation.
• Online Practice Management - Last, Ben Stevens got up to introduce the group to Rocket Matter, which is a new and completely online practice management service. Instead of using something like Daylite that gets installed on your machine, Rocket Matter requires no installation because it is accessed through the Web.

This is the last of my posts from the “Using Macs in Trial II” seminar. The presentations were all very interesting and the networking was fantastic. Attendees were constantly swapping stories and Mac tips. The Mac-using legal community is strong and active.

Much thanks to Kern Lewis and the Foreman, Lewis & Hutchison team for hosting the shindig. They did a terrific job and everyone I spoke with planned to return for next year’s conference.

I also want to thank Blake Boyd for letting me guest blog this past week since he was not able to attend.

Guest post by Brett Burney.