Esquire | Mac » Windows

New Job: Only Mac In The Shop

EsquireMac — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:39:40 +0000

Last month, I started a new job at a new firm. I spent nearly three years at my old firm, and most of what I have written on this blog to date has been related to my experiences there.

If you read my Personal Update last fall, you know that last year I moved back to the town where I grew up – Hagerstown, Maryland. Long story short: The 3.5 hours of driving every day got old and a position at a well respected Hagerstown firm opened up due to one of its (now former) partners being appointed judge.

The new firm runs on a Windows 2003 Exchange Server, and my early-2008 MacBook Pro is the only Mac in the shop. As it turns out, the transition from the Mac-centric firm I helped create to a Windows-entrenched firm was not as difficult as one might expect. I will go into more detail in future posts about specific issues, but, in general, I have been able to access every essential part of the system with my Mac.

File Sharing

The first essential hurdle I faced was being able to access the Firm’s files. This was as simple as plugging into the ethernet connection, connecting via SMB to the local IP address of the server and logging in to the Exchange Account the admins set up for me. This allows me to mount any drive on the server. That works well when I’m in the office.

When I’m not in the office, I set up a VPN connection to remotely login to the Exchange server. When connected via VPN, everything behaves the same as if I’m locally plugged into the ethernet connection.

Although this solution technically “works,” it is far less elegant than the solution I previously had set up with Dropbox.

Email & Calendar

Even though Snow Leopard now technically supports Exchange, it only supports Exchange 2007 or later. Exchange 2007 uses slightly different protocols than Exchange 2003, and is not backwards compatible in that way. Fortunately, however, since Leopard, OS X has had a faux support for Exchange. Exchange 2003 does support the IMAP protocol for the inbox, and when combined with the Outlook Web Access, Mail.app can mimic the Exchange functionality. It works essentially the same with Mail.app as Gmail or Google Apps Mail.

As far as the calendar is concerned, I have not found a satisfactory way to integrate my calendar with the Outlook/Exchange calendars. I know there are some ways to force it all to work together, but the solutions currently available are worse than the problem they solve. I will go into more detail on this issue in a later post. Presently, I created a new Google calendar and gave my staff access to it. They just log in to a Google calendar account I created for them, and they can view and edit my calendar from there.

Oh, and after that little Palm Pre experiment went awry, and in light of my new job, my wife and I decided to take the plunge and get iPhones. We each go the 3GS, and have been loving life ever since. As you may have guessed, the iPhone plays well with my new firm email. I simply have to connect via VPN – which is easy even if a bit of a pain, but, it gets the job done when it needs to get done. The calendar is through Google with the rest of my calendars, so I have 24/7 access to all my work email and calendars on my laptop or on my iPhone.

Anyway, as I settle in and become integrated into life in a Windows firm, I will continue to share my experiences. I have promised myself not to come in to this firm on a crusade to convert everybody to Macs. That said, that’s how I entered the last firm, and we all know that eneded up with a hostile takeover. They are all running Macs now, and would never turn back!

Norton May Be Worse Than Any Virus You Could Get

EsquireMac — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:44:46 +0000

My mother (who runs her own business) recently made the switch from PC to Mac. I helped her set up and get familiar with her new MacBook Pro. I installed Windows XP via VM Ware Fusion, and installed AVG antivirus because it is less bloated and it is free – two values Norton can’t wrap its head around.

Anyway, I guess I didn’t explain to her that her Windows installation was already protected by AVG. What did she do? She installed (and paid for!) Norton Antivirus. ACK! Next thing you know, her Windows installation would not boot – not even in safe mode. Thankfully, I set her up with a Time Machine backup. I directed her to restore the latest version of the Windows file that she is sure booted, and then, to uninstall Norton.

As I recall, Norton was the program that harassed her so badly that she decided to switch to Mac. I remember my experience with using a PC and having Norton. It was terrible. I finally came to the conclusion that I had to uninstall it, regardless of what perils I might be subjecting myself to. I was sure that Norton screwed with my computer’s performance far more than any virus would. Besides, when the free stuff is just as effective and doesn’t bloat down your machine nearly as badly, why pay for the bad stuff?

As a side note, my mother is only using Windows because she needs to use Quick Books to process credit cards. Unfortunately, Quick Books Pro 2007 for the Mac does not have the ability to process credit cards. Quick Books Pro 2008 for the Mac is due to ship in Q3, 2008 and promises many new features. The ability to process credit cards, though, has neither been confirmed nor denied for the 2008 release.

Also, Microsoft’s own Anti-Spyware was for a time deleting Norton Anti-Virus…

Bates Stamp PDFs on a Mac

EsquireMac — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:19:27 +0000

I’ve been in search of a freeware method for adding bates numbers to PDF files on the Mac. Well, there’s no such thing, as of this writing. I’ve searched high and low to find a free method for bates stamping PDF documents on a Mac, and, quite frankly, I’ve struck out.

Fortunately, I run Windows XP via VM Ware Fusion and I found what I believe to be the only freeware solution out there for bates stamping PDF documents: Windows or Mac. (For those of you who aren’t lawyers or otherwise don’t know what bates stamping is, it basically means page numbering.)

That freeware solution is A-PDF Number from A-PDF: Affordable PDF Tools. You can download it free from the link provided.

As I have disclaimed in my About page, I use Windows when I have to – and sometimes I have to. Technically, I don’t have to, but why pay for something when you can do it for free. Call me cheap, but I refuse to pay $400-$500 for Adobe Professional when the only thing I need it for is putting page numbers on PDFs. Certainly, there are Mac programs that will allow you to do this simple task, but, in my opinion, they are vastly over-priced. Here is a breakdown of the programs I’ve found for the Mac that will do the job.

PDF Studio: ($60) – PDF Studio’s website claims that you can add “page numbers and more,” but I couldn’t find out how. Certainly you can manually do that, but I’m in search of an automated solution. This is especially important when you have hundreds or thousands of documents to control.

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro ($449) – I’m told Acrobat 8 Pro has a very usable page numbering feature. I assume the new Acrobat 9 Pro has at least the same functionality. I have not tried it out. Personally, I hate Adobe’s Reader. It’s bloated and slow and doesn’t really give me any useful functionality. I can only imagine that Adobe’s professional PDF machine is more bloated. Plus, $450 is too much to pay for the only thing I need from it: page numbering (although, although the OCR that comes with Acrobat could come in handy, too… more on that in a later post). I’m not alone in my hatred for Adobe Reader: see here and here.

PDF Stamp ($20) – This program does allow you to add page numbers, but they end up right at the very edge of the page, which means that they get cut off when printing. Also, this program is supposedly from Blitztools, but their website makes no mention of it. There is a program called PDF Stamp for Windows from verypdf.com, so perhaps Blitztools surrendered the name? Anyway, I’m assuming the application has been abandoned by its developers. You can still find it here from download.com. You can download a 30 day trial, but I’m not sure how you’d buy a license when the trial has expired – I’ve looked.

PDF Pen ($50) Allows you to insert page numbers into PDFs but, so far as I can tell, (1) it only allows you to stick the page number at the bottom left corner, (2) the page numbers have to start at one, and (3) you cannot automatically prefix the page numbers. This would not be very useful for bates stamping large numbers of files in numerous batches.

PDF Pen Pro ($95) So far as I can tell, PDF Pen Pro does not improve upon the page numbering functionality of PDF Pen.

As you can see, the options for bates stamping PDFs on a Mac are limited. You can have a $450 application that does a good job – but it costs $450, or you can spend less on any of several applications that don’t do this job very well.

That’s why I think, so far, A-PDF is the best solution. I already spent the $80 on VM Ware Fusion, and I had a copy of Windows XP that I bought from my law school’s book store for $5 or $10.

As you can see from the picture below, you simply choose the document you would like to bates stamp, choose the page number to start, choose to prefix each page number with whatever you wish and click the Process button, and you’re done.

And, here is the result. Simple, easy, free.

There are other great PDF tools for the Mac, both free and paid, but, so far as I can tell, none of them allow for page numbering in any sort of automated fashion. That said, some of the applications mentioned in this post may be well suited for other tasks, but those are not the subject of this post.