If you haven’t seen RocketCLE, they offer virtual CLE seminars viewable at any time for extremely reasonable prices. At $9.99, my iPad for Lawyers seminar is a bargain and if I say so myself, quite good. Should you be on the fence about purchasing the seminar, email me and I will tell you all the reasons you should purchase it.

Larry Port, Rocket Matter’s CEO and co-Founder, describes RocketCLE as a natural extension of the offerings by Rocket Matter through the years. He acknowledges the motivations behind RocketCLE being geared towards small and medium sized law firms, “…we’re beginning to offer small law firms even more quality resources to compete with larger organizations.”

The first five courses currently available on RocketCLE include an originally produced hour video, “Seven Ways To Make Your Law Firm More Effective”, which covers material from Larry Port’s Legal Productivity e-book. All courses are available for accreditation in Florida, while Illinois, California, Texas, and New York applications are pending and many more states honor reciprocal CLE credits.

“For the past few years, we’ve been conducting webinars, writing books, and participating in online discussion about ways to reduce risk of malpractice and boost profitability at law firms,” says Port. “RocketCLE is a natural extension of the resources we’ve been offering our customers.“

Customers using Rocket Matter’s legal practice management software enjoy 50% discounts off all online CLE content.

The following is the press-release issued this morning from Rocket Matter:

BOCA RATON, FL – January 31st, 2011 – Rocket Matter®, the leading web-based legal practice management and time and billing software for small to mid-sized law firms, today announces the launch of RocketCLE, an on-demand continuing legal education online store.

With RocketCLE, users can purchase and view entertaining and high-quality CLE courses over the Internet at anytime of the day. Initial content focuses on legal ethics and Rocket Matter’s core message of improved productivity and law firm efficiency.

“We’re excited to offer another high-quality service to the legal profession,” says Larry Port, the company’s CEO and Co-Founder. “We’ve always focused on providing excellent software, and now with online CLE we’re beginning to offer small law firms even more quality resources to compete with larger organizations.”

The first five courses include an originally produced hour video, “Seven Ways To Make Your Law Firm More Effective”, covering much of the material in the Legal Productivity e-book, published by Port in October 2009. All courses are available for accreditation in Florida, while Illinois, California, Texas, and New York applications are pending and many more states honor reciprocal CLE credits.

“For the past few years, we’ve been conducting webinars, writing books, and participating in online discussion about ways to reduce risk of malpractice and boost profitability at law firms,” says Port. “RocketCLE is a natural extension of the resources we’ve been offering our customers.“

Customers using Rocket Matter’s legal practice management software enjoy 50% discounts off all online CLE content.

About Rocket Matter, LLC
Rocket Matter, LLC (URL: http://www.rocketmatter.com) provides Rocket Matter®, an online legal practice management and time tracking application for small to mid-sized law firms. The benefits of Rocket Matter®, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, include increased security, business continuity, decreased technology infrastructure and maintenance costs, and improved return on investment for information technology expenses. Launched in February 2008, Rocket Matter’s corporate headquarters is in Boca Raton, FL.

This conference is four and a half days with content across 50 areas of focus and over 150 educational sessions. So if you are near Las Vegas in the next four days, you would be remiss to miss this great opportunity to learn about technology in the legal field.

By Front9Technologies, iJuror is a graphical app which first allows the attorney to select the layout of the jury pool by specifying the number of potential jurors in columns and rows. Once done, a jury pool is shown which allows the lawyer to select a potential juror and enter standard data such as Name, employer, hometown and notes. However, where iJuror really shines is in quickly entering other data. At the top of the screen is an area which makes a dropdown scroll-wheel style menu allowing for quick input of age, sex, race, marital status, children, education, whether police are in the family, prior arrests, whether the potential juror was a potential victim and past jury experience.

With a few flicks of the finger, an attorney can record a great amount of information for a civil or criminal trial and make better informed decisions in jury selection. Options are also available to decide whether to utilize strikes on each juror, what opposing counsel chose and those for cause. (Peremptory Us, Dismiss for Cause, Peremptory Them).

As the app was developed with the help of attorneys, it is filled with other useful features, including:

• Simply tap the seats to add juror information
• Quicker than pen & paper
• Share with your colleagues
• Store all of your trials in one location
• Look for patterns over time
• Email the jury information to any email address
• Easily print the email for access anywhere
• Configurable for seating arrangements of up to 60 jurors
• Add notes as the trial goes along
• Name view provides quick access to name and notes right at your finger tips
• Drag and drop to choose jurors
• Drag and drop to choose alternates
• Drag and drop to dismiss jurors

At $9.99 (limited time sale) this app is certainly a bargain. As a trial lawyer, I can tell you how difficult it is to attempt to write down so much information, not to mention how distracting it is while attempting voir dire on your own. Given the small size of the iPad and ease of entering complex data, iJuror allows an attorney to use the iPad on a lectern simply using their finger to enter juror data while maintaining a conversational atmosphere while talking with the jury pool. Our recommendation is to buy it here.

This episode… we talk about the new iPhone, the iPad and our guest Randy Juip’s conversion of his law firm to Mac

In this episode “iPad, New iPhone and Randy Juip” your hosts Ben Stevens, Finis Price, and our guest, Randy Juip, not only discuss Randy’s conversion of his office to Mac’s, but the upcoming iPhone as well as the iPad.

Comments? Send them to milochat@miloweekly.com

Subscribe to this podcast using iTunes!

Embedded player here:

Download the podcast directly by right-clicking and saving this link

It looks like the lid has been blown on the new iPhone HD (it own’t be called the 4G because that’s the name of the successor network to 3G which won’t be released until late 2010-2011). I saw these photos on Saturday and quite honestly didn’t take them as real given the phone was “found” in a bar with a case to make it look like an iPhone 3GS. What changed my mind? Well, first Gizmodo got hold of it and then they took it apart to find Apple components which fit precisely inside with no extra room. This would therefore make it highly unlikely it is a knock-off when there are so many Apple components inside. Of course, this may not be the final design of the new iPhone, but I have to say I like it. The curved back of the iPhone 3GS always irked me and this new design fits more in line with the iPad and iMac line of products. I’ve posted the entire article below and included some screenshots and a video of the device to save for posterity since the Cease and Desist letter from Apple is surely being drafted as I type.

While Apple may tinker with the final packaging and design of the final phone, it’s clear that the features in this lost-and-found next-generation iPhone are drastically new and drastically different from what came before. Here’s the detailed list of our findings:

What’s new

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic
What’s changed

• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery

Why we think it’s definitely real

We’re as skeptical—if not more—than all of you. We get false tips all the time. But after playing with it for about a week—the overall quality feels exactly like a finished final Apple phone—and disassembling this unit, there is so much evidence stacked in its favor, that there’s very little possibility that it’s a fake. In fact, the possibility is almost none. Imagine someone having to use Apple components to design a functioning phone, from scratch, and then disseminating it to people around the world. Pretty much impossible. Here are the reasons, one by one.

It has been reported lost

Apple-connected John Gruber—from Daring Fireball—says that Apple has indeed lost a prototype iPhone and they want it back:

So I called around, and I now believe this is an actual unit from Apple — a unit Apple is very interested in getting back.

Obviously someone found it, and here it is.

The screen

While we couldn’t get it past the connect to iTunes screen for the reasons listed earlier, the USB cable on that screen was so high quality that it was impossible to discern individual pixels. We can’t tell you the exact resolution of this next-generation iPhone, but it’s much higher than the current iPhone 3GS.

The operating system

According to the person who found it, this iPhone was running iPhone OS 4.0 before the iPhone 4.0 announcement. The person was able to play with it and see the iPhone 4.0 features. Then, Apple remotely killed the phone before we got access to it. We were unable to restore because each firmware is device specific—3GS firmware only loads on 3GS devices—and the there are no firmwares available for this unreleased phone. Which is another clue to its authenticity.

It is recognized as an iPhone

This iPhone behaves exactly like an iPhone does when connected to a computer, with the proper boot sequence and “connect to iTunes” restore functionality. Xcode and iTunes both see this as an iPhone. Mac OS X’s System Profiler also reports this as an iPhone in restore mode, which is a natural consequence of remotely wiping the phone, but report different product identifiers (both CPID and CPRV) than either the 3G or the 3GS.

It uses micro-sim

The fact that it uses a micro-sim is a clear indicator that this is a next-generation iPhone. No other cellphone uses this standard at this point in the US.

The camouflage case

The case it came inside was a fully developed plastic case to house this phone to disguise it like a 3GS. This wasn’t just a normal case; it had all the proper new holes cut out for the new switches and ports and camera holes and camera flash. But it looks like something from Belkin or Case-Mate. It’s a perfect disguise.

The fact that it’s in the wild right now

Logic can also narrow down why this phone is this year’s iPhone, rather than next year’s model or one from the previous year’s, just because it was found in the wild right now. It makes no sense for Apple to be testing 2011′s model right now, in super finished form—they wouldn’t be nearly finished with it. The phone also can’t be last year’s test model, because last year’s model (based on the iPhone 3GS teardowns) components were way different. No micro-sim, much bigger logic board, no flash, no front camera, smaller battery and an inferior camera. That only leaves the 2010 model.

The guts, the definitive proof

And finally, when we opened it up, we saw multiple components that were clearly labeled APPLE. And, because the components were fit extremely well and extremely conformed inside the case (obvious that it was designed FOR this case), it was evident that it was not just a 3G or a 3GS transplanted into another body. That probably wouldn’t even be possible, with the size constraints of the thinner device and larger battery.

The New Industrial Design

At first sight, this new iPhone’s industrial design seems so different from the previous two generations that it could be discarded as just a provisional case. Even while the finish is so perfect that it feels right out of the factory, some of the design language elements that are common to all Apple products are not there. Gone is the flushed screen glass against the metal rim. Gone is the single volume button, replaced by two separate ones. Gone is the seamless rim, and gone are the tapered, curved surfaces.

Despite that, however, this design is not a departure. Not when you frame it with the rest of the Apple product line. It’s all the contrary: This new iPhone gets back to the simplicity of the iMac and the iPad. In fact, you can argue that the current iPhone 3GS—with its shiny chrome rim and excessively curved back—is out of place compared to the hard edges and Dieter-Ramish utilitarianism of the iMac and the iPad. Next to the iPad, for example, the new iPhone makes sense. It has the same feeling, the same functional simplicity.

But why the black plastic back, instead of going with an unibody aluminum design? Why the two audio volume buttons? Why the seams? And why doesn’t the back have any curvature at all?

Why the plastic back?

The plastic back is the most obvious of the design choices. The iPad, with its all aluminum back, has seen its Wi-Fi reception radius reduced. The 3G version comes with a large patch on the top, probably big enough to provide with good reception. But the new tiny iPhone doesn’t have the luxury of space: It needs to provide with as much signal as possible using a very small surface. I’m sure Jon Ive is dying to get rid of the plastic back, and go iPad-style all the way, but the wireless reception is the most important thing in a cellphone. A necessary aesthetical-functional trade-off.

Why separate volume buttons?

This new iPhone uses separate buttons for the volume instead of the single button that you can find in the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. It’s one of the factors that may indicate that this is a provisional case, until you think about one of the most requested features for Apple’s phone: A physical button for the camera. The new iPhone has a bigger sensor and a flash, which means that the camera function keeps gaining more weight. It’s only logical to think that Apple may have implemented this two-button approach to provide with a physical shutter button. It makes sense.

Why the seams?

The seams are perhaps the most surprising aspect of the new design. They don’t seem to respond to any aesthetic criteria and, in terms of function, we can’t adventure any explanation. But they don’t look bad. In fact, the whole effect seems good, like something you will find in a Braun product from the 70s.

It’s doubtful that the seams are arbitrary, however. Either they will disappear from the final product, or they have a function we can’t foresee at this time.

Why no tapering or curves?

As you will see in a future article, the new iPhone is so miniaturized and packed that there’s no room for the tapered, curved surfaces. Everything is as tight as it could get, with no space for anything but electronics.

The hardware specs

The phone measures 4.50 by 2.31 by 0.37 inches. It weighs 140 grams. The 3GS weighs 137 grams on a postal scale (and 135 on Apple’s official measurements). So, in comparison, it’s 3 grams heavier. The battery is 5.25 WHr at 3.7V, compared to the 3GS battery, which is 4.51 WHr at 3.7V. On the back of the phone, it said it was XX GB, but since we were unable to get the phone to a running state, we couldn’t see exactly how large it was.

How it feels

Freaking amazing. As a person who never really liked the round mound of a back in the 3GS, the sleeker, flatter, squarer design is super welcome. It feels sturdier than the 3GS, and much less plasticky. The metal buttons give it a heftier feel—less of a toy—than all previous generations. The closest analog to it would be the original iPhone, which is more square and heavy than its newer brothers.

It feels completely natural up to your face, and the fact that both the front and the back are glossy makes no difference on how well you can hold it without the phone slipping. And because it’s thinner, it feels even nicer in your pants.

What all this means

Apple has updated the exterior drastically different from the 3G and 3GS. That design is old, it felt out of place compared to the rest of their products and needed desperately to be killed. Now you have a thinner body, a much more pleasant form factor with no wasted space and lots of hard lines. But the design isn’t the most important part that’s changed.

They’ve delivered many of the features people have been waiting for—that damn front camera!—while at the same time upgrading everything else. Flash, better back camera, better battery life and another microphone for better voice clarity. People who bought the 3G two years ago and are now in the perfect position to upgrade and get a dramatically different, and better, phone. If confirmed this summer, and if it performs as we expect, this next-generation iPhone looks like a winner.

Much additional reporting and design analysis by Jesus Diaz. Rosa Golijan also contributed.

GREAT work by Gizmodo in tracking this story down and getting a hold of this prototype iPhoneHD. They have really outdone themselves this time.

This episode… Apple iPad Special – Part 2

Hosted by: Victor Medina, Finis Price, and Ben Stevens. We discuss the iPad right after orders were allowed.

Comments?  Send them to milochat@miloweekly.com

Subscribe to this podcast using iTunes! 

Embedded player here:

Download the podcast directly by right-clicking and saving this link

However, the fact that you can’t use the Internet while you’re on the phone is the biggest drawback for the Droid and kills it in the debate from the beginning.  Any attorney used to using a web-based case management program, accessing their Windows server across the Internet, or just accessing the Net for any other reason while on the phone would be seriously hindered by the Droid. Everyone seems to say the Droid can do so much more than the iPhone, but as I say in the article, “There are more than 70,000 apps the iPhone has that the Droid doesn’t. That amounts to 70,000 more ways you can use your iPhone.” [emphasis added].

This isn’t even getting into the usability issues with the Droid when compared to the iPhone. The strongest argument for the iPhone is because of Apple’s controls over the device – the user experience. Almost all apps on the iPhone behave the same, can be found in seconds and are intuitive.  Compare this with the Droid where I literally took two minutes trying to find the calendar app.  Nothing explains this as well as my point in the article:

…my 4-year-old nephew knows how to use my iPhone to pull up Thomas the Tank Engine movies on YouTube just by watching me search for them. When deciding on a phone—or anything a lawyer is going to be using throughout the day—the most important factor is how hard it is to use the device. The iPhone is the epitome of intuitiveness.

Case in point: I have a colleague who is, to be polite, less than technologically inclined. He has been a Verizon user for almost 10 years and didn’t want to switch, so he bought a Droid. At lunch a few weeks later, some number-crunching came up and I asked him to use his Droid’s calculator. After a few seconds he sheepishly told me he didn’t know where the calculator was. Turns out he didn’t know where the majority of his apps were; they were simply too difficult to find. I handed him my iPhone and within a few seconds he had my calculator open and was done. He was also able to immediately find and open any application I asked him to—something he was unable to do on his 2-month-old Droid.

This example is not an exaggeration and I would tell you the attorney’s name for verification if it weren’t for my not wanting to embarrass him, but he truly is the epitome of what is wrong with the Droid.  If I can’t unlock it and get to what I want in a few seconds, it is worthless when compared to the iPhone.

Be sure to read the full article and if you see me at the ABA Techshow, feel free to hit me over the head with your Droid if you disagree with me.

Attorneys, especially technology driven attorneys, we have a lot of gadgets, cell phones, computers and the like plugged in to charge. However, most of us are only starting to realize that when we’re not charging those devices and leave the power cord plugged in the power cord is still drawing power.

This is also called ‘vampire power’ because it’s invisible in terms of what you’re actually getting from this electricity.  We are now hearing of adapters you can place on equipment to stymie this lost power and money and AT&T has come to the rescue for any device charged with a USB cord (most likely your cellphone).

The new AT&T Zero Charger uses absolutely no power when it is not charging a device. This is great because almost every single charger I use is constantly plugged into an outlet waiting for me to use it and also wasting a lot of money through my electric bill. I’m not an eco-freak by any means, but this saves me money, so it’s good in my book.  AT&T has yet to release when it will be available but you can sign up here to be notified via email.

A study released this week from Crowd Science found that 39 percent of BlackBerry owning respondents said they “definitely or probably would” switch to an iPhone if they had to buy a new handset “tomorrow.” Another 29 percent said they were unsure, while 31 percent are unlikely to buy Apple’s handset.

The survey carried even more good news for Apple, as 92 percent of iPhone users said they are satisfied with their purchase and would likely make their next smartphone another iPhone.

Users of the Google Android mobile operating system were also satisfied, with 87 percent saying they would buy another Android handset. In addition, 34 percent of BlackBerry owners would strongly consider buying an Android phone if they were to make an immediate purchase.

The study also found that 97 percent of iPhone users would recommend the product to their friends, and 52 percent of BlackBerry owners and 51 percent of other smartphone users would recommend the iPhone to others.

The study was of 1,140 respondents recruited via the Crowd Science Sample Beta program from Web sites serving more than 20 million unique visitors. Totaling 44 percent, most respondents were users of a traditional cellphone rather than a smartphone. iPhone users represented 17 percent of those polled, BlackBerry users amounted to 15 percent, Nokia 10 percent, Windows Mobile 4 percent, Android 3 percent and Palm 2 percent.

Trust me, if you’re going to buy a smartphone and want apps now instead of the promise of apps in the future, buy an iPhone.