This blog is now located at http://gregstips.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://gregstips.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

This was one of the cooler gadgets on display at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Lenovo has a notebook (the IdeaPad U1) that runs Windows 7. The screen can detach and the computer turns in to a tablet that then independently runs a Linux-based operating system. When re-attached, the devices sync up. CNET recognized the product in its Best Of awards from CES.

Okay, I'll admit that I comb the iTunes app store for cheap apps for my iPhone. I'm an addict. There, I said it. And an addict needs his regular fix. So I was deeply disappointed to learn that the iPhone has a limit of 11 screens with 16 apps per screen. OR SO I THOUGHT!

A clever web developer named Daynah has figured a way to force the iPhone to let free some more real estate for your apps without doing anything more than moving around some of your icons. It was a little tricky - some reboots were necessary, specific apps had to be moved to specific locations, etc. But I can attest that it works as I have just created a 12th page on my iPhone.

Rick Boida's Business Hacks blog (which I recommend highly) has a link to an iPhone app that makes it easy to take handwritten notes on an iPhone instead of having to type.

I found this helpful and simple tip in Rick Broida's column in PC World Magazine. If you've ever had Windows automatically download updates and reboot, thus causing you to lose unsaved work (I have), then you'll recognize the benefit of this information. Here's what you do -

1. In Vista, click Start and type Windows Update and then hit Enter. In XP, you have to go to Control Panel and go to Automatic Update from the options menu.

2. In Vista, click Change Settings. Skip to the next step for XP.

3. In Vista, there is a drop down option that you click that says "Download updates but let me choose whether to install them." In XP, it is similar, but refers to letting you choose when to install updates.

4. Click OK and you're done.

This iPhone app caught my interest because I travel frequently and I'm often having to find a place to work that is quiet, has wi-fi, power outlets, etc. And that's not always easy. Right now, this is only available to iPhone 3GS users and only in London, but they're expanding to the US soon and hopefully it will catch on.

A very interesting development. From Google:

As many of us recall from our civics lessons in school, the United States is a common law country. That means when judges issue opinions in legal cases, they often establish precedents that will guide the rulings of other judges in similar cases and jurisdictions. Over time, these legal opinions build, refine and clarify the laws that govern our land. For average citizens, however, it can be difficult to find or even read these landmark opinions. We think that's a problem: Laws that you don't know about, you can't follow — or make effective arguments to change.

Starting today, we're enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you are interested in. For example, go to Google Scholar, click on the "Legal opinions and journals" radio button, and try the query separate but equal. Your search results will include links to cases familiar to many of us in the U.S. such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, which explore the acceptablity of "separate but equal" facilities for citizens at two different points in the history of the U.S. But your results will also include opinions from cases that you might be less familiar with, but which have played an important role.

We think this addition to Google Scholar will empower the average citizen by helping everyone learn more about the laws that govern us all. To understand how an opinion has influenced other decisions, you can explore citing and related cases using the Cited by and Related articles links on search result pages. As you read an opinion, you can follow citations to the opinions to which it refers. You can also see how individual cases have been quoted or discussed in other opinions and in articles from law journals. Browse these by clicking on the "How Cited" link next to the case title. See, for example, the frequent citations for Roe v. Wade, for Miranda v. Arizona (the source of the famous Miranda warning) or for Terry v. Ohio (a case which helped to establish acceptable grounds for an investigative stop by a police officer).

As we worked to build this feature, we were struck by how readable and accessible these opinions are. Court opinions don't just describe a decision but also present the reasons that support the decision. In doing so, they explain the intricacies of law in the context of real-life situations. And they often do it in language that is surprisingly straightforward, even for those of us outside the legal profession. In many cases, judges have gone quite a bit out of their way to make complex legal issues easy to follow. For example, in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court justices present a fascinating and easy-to-follow debate on the legality of internment of natural born citizens based on their ancestry. And in United States v. Ramirez-Lopez, Judge Kozinski, in his dissent, illustrates the key issue of the case using an imagined good-news/bad-news dialogue between the defendant and his attorney.

November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
February 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
April 2010