Mac Law Students » Techniques

Delete Old Junk from Time Machine

Timothy Lee, Jr — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:18:39 +0000

Like many, I use Time Machine to regularly backup my entire machine (and Dropbox for my most often used and important files). The great thing about Time Machine is that you install a hard drive, turn it on, select which folders you don’t want backed up, and you’re done. The next time you need to remember Time Machine is when you need to restore a deleted file, or if you’ve purchased a new computer and want to transfer your stuff.

But what happens when you’ve filled up your Time Machine hard drive? While Time Machine automatically deletes the oldest backups to make room for the most recent, if you’re like me, you already know that certain of your backed up files will never be needed again (like raw video from an undergrad project taking up 48 gigs on Time Machine). Deleting individual files is easy.

Enter Time Machine:

Once the nifty interface loads, make your way to the project you want to delete.

Select the file, right click and select Delete All Backups of “your file”.

You’ll be asked if you’re sure.

In case you accidentally clicked yes accidentally, you need to enter your password to confirm.

At any time before you type your password and press enter, you can ESC out.

However, once you type your password and press Enter, that file or folder is gone FOREVER (dramatic, huh?)!

The delete process bypasses the trash, so be careful. There might be a way to undo this process but I hope I never need to find out.

Appellate Brief Time: Dot Leaders in MS Word for Mac

Timothy Lee, Jr — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:35:02 +0000

At some point in your law school career you’ll likely have to write an appellate brief. For me, that time is now. While your instinct is probably to just hit the period key until your page numbers on the table of contents appear lined up, if your writing professor is anything like the ones around here, that’ll get you a loss of 2 points. With the 1st year curve generally tight, every point matters! So here’s how to create dot leaders in Microsoft Word:

Go to Format -> Tabs

Type 6″ (or other appropriate measurement) in the Tab stop position box

Under Alignment click Right

Under Leader click 2

Make sure you click Set at the bottom left and verify that 6″ is now in the box.

Click OK

Google Wave for Law School

Timothy Lee, Jr — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:29:47 +0000

The recent release of Google Buzz has quieted much of the talk about Google’s other big release, Google Wave. However, as a law student who has been using Wave for the past several months, Wave is still very much worth talking about. If you’re not familiar with Wave yet, check out this great guide created by Ben Parr of Mashable. It should answer most questions you have. [Ed. note: Also see my long-winded analysis of Google Wave's potential impact]

Wave is a great collaboration tool that lends itself to the needs of law students. It allows realtime chat, document editing, map sharing, links, video chat, and even live sudoku matches. During finals last semester, a few section-mates and I started a Wave for each class to work through problems and talk through theories together.

The biggest current drawback, other than being in buggy beta, is the lack of notification when someone contributes to a Wave. However, there’s a third party fix. Hiroshi has created the Google Wave Notifier for Mac. It’s free and a snap to install.

If you’re using Wave, especially at school, I’d love to hear your feedback!

Duplex Printing

Timothy Lee, Jr — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:15:32 +0000

With all the printing I do in law school (almost a thousand pages last term), duplexing can be a great way to reduce the number of trees you cut down and at the same time, lighten your book bag. Since Snow Leopard came out, Mac-using students at schools using ePrint for campus wide printing may have noticed their ability to print double-sided has vanished.

Here at Duke we were told that it was due to Snow Leopard’s 64-bit upgrade. This is only partially true. When using Leopard, the printer was able to tell your Mac that it had a duplexer and turn it on by default. With Snow Leopard, this no longer happens automatically, but the option still exists. You can easily get back to saving trees with a couple of simple steps:

Open System Utilities then Print and Fax:

Next select your network printer. For me it’s Duke OIT.

Open the Print Queue then select Printer Setup

Click on the Driver pane and check to see if you have a duplex option.

Safari in 32-bit Mode

Timothy Lee, Jr — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:15:34 +0000

Since upgrading to Snow Leopard, you may have noticed that some of your apps don’t quite run like they used to. The browser plugins 1Password and Glims were affected, but have since been repaired. If you find yourself running into an application that worked pre-Snow Leopard, but now either doesn’t work or is having some hiccups, try running the program in 32bit mode. Here’s how to do it for Safari:

Ctrl-click on Safari then select Get Info.

Once the Safari information page pops up, you have the option of clicking on run in 32bit.

Check the box, restart Safari and see if your plugin works better. If not, just change the setting back. While this won’t work with most programs, it might be enough to get the feature that was disabled back up and running on your favorite app.