1. Reboot your Mac and simultaneous hold down the command-option-p-r keys. If you do this properly your Mac’s screen will flash and it will cycle a reboot. Keep holding down the keys until your Mac chimes twice. What you’re doing is resetting a chunk of memory that stores settings for all kinds of settings (see below for specific details). Clearing up these settings often resolve wacky problems like screen artifacts, sticky keys on your keyboard, and a lot more.

2. Now restart in Single User Mode by holding down the command-s key (thanks Eduardo!) while your Mac is booting. If you’ve done this successfully, a bunch of Unix code will spew across your screen. Don’t worry! You’re just looking at the underbelly of the beautiful Mac OS. Wait until the text stops scrolling by and you will see a flashing cursor at the bottom of your screen. All you need to do is type:

/sbin/fsck -fy

and hit the return key. fsck is pretty much like the Disk Utility app except that it runs outside the operating system. Like Disk Utility, if it encounters any problems with your files, it will automatically repair them.

Tip: if you run fsck and it says everything is OK but it reports the disk was modified, then run fsck again to ensure there are no problems.

If fsck reports that the problems it encountered couldn’t be resolved, I recommend taking your Mac to the Genius Bar or other authorized Apple repair center. If you’re adventurous, then you should consider purchase some industrial-strength disk utilities like TechTool Pro, DiskWarrior, and/or ProSoft Drive Genius. My help desk uses these tools to repair hard drives so that we can recover data. We then “nuke and pave” the drive by formatting it and reinstalling the OS from scratch.

References

Resetting Parameter RAM: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

Single User Mode: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417

Resolving startup issues: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417

Tech Tool Pro: http://www.micromat.com/

DiskWarrior: http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

ProSoft Drive Genius: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php

“Echo lets you put pen to pad to draw on your computer (Mac or PC) via USB port, records audio, and can even sync that audio with your note-taking. The 60-plus selection of Livescribe apps range from the American Heritage Desk Dictionary to a poker game, and a new feature called Launch Line lets you launch an app by underlining an associated word and tapping the line. You can also create custom notebooks, just as you would an iTunes playlist.”

and the really good stuff…

“Livescribe also announced a few enhancements coming this fall, including Connect—software that lets you send notes and audio from your smartpen to email addresses, websites, and other applications—Paper Tablet collaboration software, and Pencast Player, which lets you access your pencasts on iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.”

Here’s a quick ad/demo if you’ve never seen Livescribe products in action.

The Echo smartpen from Livescribe

Read the full article and press release here.

While I don’t have any tips on how to write a good casenote (I’m trying to figure that one out myself) I did run across something that might get you an extra point or two (or at least prevent you from losing points). The whole thing about a casenote competition is that it’s supposed to be anonymous. That way editors of law reviews can read all 200+ submissions and curve them on the dreaded 1L curve without anyone accusing them of playing favorites. To keep things anonymous, you’ll be told to double check to make sure you haven’t typed your name anywhere in the document. So you’ve checked and double checked. Done, right? Nope! You still have to strip out metadata.

Metadata is that weird behind the scenes info that each document keeps automatically. It includes things like your name, date, what word processor you used, and so on.

The last thing you want is to lose a point or two because an editor glances at the metadata and sees your name glaring at them. How do you erase this info? I did a little bit of searching and found this gem from Boston University: It’s an easy to follow three step process to erase the basic metadata from a PDF.

When you’re done, it should look like this!

Enjoy!

Note: Because the method uses Automator, it requires you be running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later.

Whether you like to book brief, paper brief or not brief, sometimes it’s nice to be able to reference casebriefs online. I started out using Google and entering case names. The challenge: too many irrelevant results. So I decided to use Google custom search to create a search site that would only index sites that provide casebriefs. While you won’t find every brief, hopefully you’ll find most!

Enjoy, and good luck on finals!

If you know of other sites that should be added, leave them in the comments and we’ll add them ASAP.

Either way, you need to start with all your basic pages titled. (e.g., Cover page, Question Presented, TOC, etc.)

1. Go to the bottom of your Cover Page, placing your cursor behind the last word of the page.

2. Select Insert -> Break -> Section Break (next page)

This will jump you to the top of the second physical page of the document.

3. At the top of the second physical page select Insert –> Page Numbers…

4. Select Alignment Center

Check Show number on the first page

Then Select Format

5. Select the appropriate Number Format

Select Start at: and choose the first page (either i or 1 depending on where you are)

Press OK.

6. Scroll down to your TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

7. Place your cursor at the end of the last word of the TOA § (see step 1)

8. Select Insert –> Break –> Section Break (next page) (see step 2)

9. At the top of the blank page, select Insert –> Page Numbers… (see step 3)

10. Verify the same settings as in step 4.

Then select Format

11. Change Number format back to Arabic numerals and make sure Page Numbering is set to Start at: 1

12. Verify that you have roman numerals starting from your Question Presented and Arabic numerals starting from your Statement of the Case.