On the Mac, you can email a PDF of almost any webpage, photo, or other document, by selecting the print command and picking “Mail PDF” from the dropdown menu at the bottom of the dialog box that pops up. This automatically opens Apple Mail, regardless of what you’ve set as the default mail client on your Mac. What if you want to mail the PDF using a third party mail client?
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If you embed screen recordings (i.e., screencasts) into a Keynote or PowerPoint presentation, rule #1 is that your audience has to be able to see your screencast for it to be effective. If you are recording from a device with a Retina display, you might find that application windows sometimes become unreadable when later displayed with lower-resolution projectors. Images and text just become too small. While you can fix this by adjusting your monitor’s resolution either in settings or with third party apps1, my preferred solution is to use a Mac app called BetterSnapTool.
One of the tools included with all Mac versions of DEVONthink is the Sorter. The DEVONthink Sorter is an optional tool that hangs out at the side of your screen. You can drag files to it, and send them off to preconfigured locations within DEVONthink. I liked the functionality of the Sorter, but didn’t like it always hanging out at the edge of my screen, so I came up with an alternative that resides in my Mac’s menu bar.
I recently enjoyed using Gmail shortcuts in MailMate, and wanted to bring those same shortcuts to the default Mail app on macOS.1 GMailinator, the only Mail plugin I could find to do so, hasn’t been updated in four years, so I didn’t bother installing it. Instead, I started looking for another way, and I think I’ve found it.
I’ve mentioned this already on Twitter, but realized I’ve never discussed it here – back in October, I put Han Solo on trial, and I have the video to prove it. I acted as the prosecutor and Edward Paskey, Esquire acted as defense counsel in a mock trial before the Honorable Joseph C. Adams, President Judge of the York County Court of Common Pleas. The name of the case was The Galactic Empire v. Han Solo, and it was presented before approximately 60 “jurors” who were on hand to get a CLE credit.
The point of the “trial” was to demonstrate the use of the iPad and other technology in the courtroom. After making our closing arguments, Attorney Paskey and I deconstructed how we used technology in our respective cases, including the use of timelines, medical exhibits and models, exhibit annotations, maps, transcript call outs, and more. The main tools we used were TrialPad and Keynote.
Judge Adams recorded the trial, and edited it into a final product that is quite slick:
I don’t practice criminal law, which is probably obvious from the video. In preparation, I also worked backwards – I started with the technology and videos I wanted to demonstrate, and tried to craft a somewhat coherent argument around them. While this isn’t how you would want to handle a real case, I think the “trial” went off well for its intended purpose.
I’ve uploaded a digital version of the information we gave to attendees at the trial/seminar.
I want to give a special thank you to Mark Metzger, from whom we stole the idea. He did something similar at the MacTrack Legal Conference (then called MILOfest) in Orlando in 2015.1 Mark was also kind enough to send me many of the Star Wars assets we used in the trial.
- If you use a Mac, this conference is a must-attend. ↩