Photos uploaded to Facebook don’t always appear how you want them when they are displayed on your Timeline. Photos, and especially wide photos, will be cropped so they fit in a square box on the Timeline. This may cut off a part of the photo that you want displayed.
Don’t fret – there is an easy way to fix. Place your mouse over the update containing the photo you want to adjust. Click on the “Edit” icon (the pencil) in the top right corner of the update. You will see a “Reposition Photo” option. Click on this, then slide your photo up, down, left or right. Press save when you get the photo in the position you want. Bingo – people will see what you want them to see.
You can do the same thing with your Cover photo. Place your mouse over it, click on the Change Cover button and select Reposition.

If you routinely print two or more kinds of documents, each requiring its own printer settings, you’ve probably found it frustrating to have to re-enter or change printer properties every time you change documents.
There is actually a very simple trick to
avoid having to do this. Simply install the same printer two or more times, but with different names and settings. This way, you simply select the “printer” that has the appropriate print settings you want each time you print.
To install a printer with new print settings in Windows, go to Start, Settings, Printers, and click the Add Printer icon. Install the printer as you would normally. When you come to the screen where you name your printer, name it something that differentiates it from your default printer. The name should also remind you of what the special printer settings are. For example, ”HP4landscape” for a printer that prints in landscape format.
When you finish the installation, right-click on the new printer and select Properties. Enter the special print settings you want to have for the new printer, and then click OK.
Now, when you want to print using the new print settings, you can just select appropriate printer name from your program’s Print dialog box.

I am a Blackberry person, and I’m holding out (with great patriotic hope) for a new BB10 Blackberry with a real keyboard (apparently there is a model with a real keyboard). I like the real keys on my Blackberry Torch. I have tried onscreen keyboards and find they are frustrating. I find them to be non-responsive and I hit often seem to hit the wrong key.

All that said (and to avoid a flurry of unfriendly comments from the platoons of iPhone and Android users, and the occasional Windows phone users that are out there),I recognize there are different strokes for different folks. Some of my best friends love their iPhones and other devices with onscreen keyboards. And some of them are even ex-Blackberry users that swear they can type as fast or faster on their touchscreens as they could on their trusty old Blackberry keyboard.
If you are a Blackberry convert (by choice or not) or are otherwise struggling to make your touchscreen keyboard work, you need to read the How Can I Improve My Mobile Typing Skills post on LifeHacker by Adam Dachis. He has some great pointers on how to improve your touchscreen typing technique, some apps that give you better onscreen keyboards, and tips on how you can use text expansion to increase your typing speed.
Happy typing everyone, even those with touchscreen keyboards!

Email is a primary means of communication for most lawyers. It is a fantastic tool. You can easily and almost instantly communicate across the globe with your client and other people involved in a legal matter. You can send different types of attachments. And if you have a smartphone, you can send and reply to emails from just about anywhere on the face of the planet (assuming you have wireless or internet access).
But email can be dangerous – and one of the most dangerous features is blind carbon copy or BCC. I will assume everyone knows what BCC is and how it works.
Now, there is no doubt, there can be very legitimate reasons for sending a message using BCC. From time to time you will want to inform someone that a particular message was sent, but not include them in the main email conversation or to let people getting the message know that someone else got it as well. This is the very essence of what BCC is and does. However, a problem arises when the person getting the BCC message sends a reply-all message not realizing they got the original email on a BCC-basis. Oops! Cover blown! Everyone now knows someone else got the message. In the very least this is probably embarrassing to the sender, it probably means there will be an unhappy client and it could lead to a malpractice claim.
So how do you avoid using BCC and still “BCC” someone on a message? Easy – just go into your Sent folder and forward the relevant message. From an etiquette point of view, nice to include add an “FYI” or add a short explanation for the person getting the message. Forwarding the sent message will keep the BCC person informed, and if they send a reply, will ensure it will only come back to you.
Thus, as a general rule, lawyers should avoid using BCC. However, there are always a few exceptions to general rules. You should use use BCC if you need to make sure people receiving the message don’t see the email addresses of others that received it. For example, when you send an email newsletter to firm clients. In this case, include a firm address in the To: field, and client names in the BCC field.
And I saw another good where BCC is a must last week. A lawyer had his AOL email account hacked (via typical phishing message tricked him into disclosing his login name and password). He used the email account for his practice and it was full of sensitive and confidential client information. With the help of AOL he was successful in recovering control of the account. However, he sent a message to everyone in his contact list telling them his account had been compromised. This was a good thing to do, but unfortunately, the names of all his clients were disclosed as he put their email addresses in the To: field. It would have been much better to use BCC which would have hidden all the clients’ names from each other.
There you have it: don’t use BCC, unless you need to keep the identity of people receiving the message confidential.

No doubt you have all made – or at least thought about making – a few New Year’s resolutions. Hopefully one of them is to make a backup of your data. You do have a backup – don’t you???
Now I won’t ask for a show of hands, but I know at least a few of you don’t backup of your data, or perhaps you have an older backup. If you are one of these people, make plans to backup your data now! It is critical to remember that for love, time or money, you can’t easily or cheaply recreate lost data. And a crashed hard drive usually means that this important and precious data is gone forever. Regardless of whether it is client files or other critical law firm documents, or on the personal side, family pictures or information, you don’t want this happening to you.
If you are backup newbie, read 7 Backup Strategies for Your Data, Multimedia, and System Files for some perspective on the different types of data you have and how often different types of data should be backed up.
This Lifehacker article, How to Back Up Your Computer, has great instructions for using the built-in backup utilities Windows and Mac OS X. How to Backup Your Data from PCWorld mentions some of the most widely used online backup tools.
And don’t forget all the data you have on your smartphone! This How to Backup any Smartphone article from Gizmodo will help you with this important task.
Make plans to get your backup done or updated ASAP. Figure out what you want to backup and how you are going to do it. Give yourself a deadline and make an appointment in your calendar to get it done. It will make you breathe easier and sleep more soundly. Happy New Year!

I travel a lot. When I ‘m on a tight schedule and need to know all my options, getting all available flights by time and a cost across multiple airlines in one place is invaluable. For business and personal travel, Kayak and TripAdvisor are two of my favourite travel resources for doing multiple-airline flight searches. You pick your dates of travel and desired departure and/or arrival times, and these sites give you a searchable and sortable list of available flights from most of the major airlines. I find Kayak and TripAdvisor tend to give very similar results, although sometimes one will give you flights options the other doesn’t. I always confirm flight options and fares on the actual airline sites – on occasion other options are presented, and sometimes they are cheaper.

This summer I went to Europe with my family. This involved checking all sorts of flights online and through a travel agent. The travel agent was helpful for answering my many questions about travel to Europe. And while TripAdvisor and Kayak didn’t give me some of the cheaper charter options the travel agent offered me, I found that these two sites gave virtually identical flight times and cost information for scheduled commercial flights options he offered to me.

Hotel reviews are the other great source of information from TripAdvisor and Kayak. While I usually don’t have to pick a hotel when I am attending or speaking at a conference, for personal travel there are always hotel choices to be made. Online reviews from real hotel guests can be helpful, but navigating large numbers of reviews can be tricky, especially when they are inconsistent. A few really nasty reviews can leave a strong impression, but not always the most accurate one. My rule of thumb is to look at the overall consensus – what did the majority of the reviewers say? Where most people happy enough to stay there again or would they look for another place next time? Looking at the overall consensus has tended to give me hotel stays that I have been happy with. And for some more great tips on navigating hotel reviews on TripAdvisor and similar sites, see Using TripAdvisor? Some Advice, an article that appeared on the A New York Times’ Frugal Traveler Blog.

How many times a week do you go to Windows Explorer or OS Finder to find a file? Probably more times than you care to count or remember.
Windows users, next time you want to go to Windows Explorer, save yourself a ton of time with the Windows key + e shortcut – it allows you to open Explorer with a quick press of two keys. Press the Windows key first and a split second later hit the e key.
And an aside for those that aren’t familiar with the Windows key: on many keyboards it is to the left of the space bar and it has the Windows logo on it. Some specialized keyboards may have it in other locations as well. This is what it looks like:

OS users, next time you want to go to Finder, press Command and then hit Tab multiple times until Finder is selected, then press N (while still holding the Command key down) to open Finder. Command+Tab is similar to Alt+Tab in Windows, both allow you to cycle through all the open apps on a computer.
Not quite as simple or quick on the Mac in this case, but a keyboard shortcut can often get you to where you want to more quickly as it takes longer to take your hand off the keyboard and reach for the mouse or trackpad.
Remember these keyboard shortcuts next time you need to find a file.

Have you ever been tagged in a picture or post on Facebook? If you have a Facebook account, the answer to this question is likely yes. And don’t feel comforted if you aren’t on Facebook: Anyone can be tagged in a photo, even someone who doesn’t have a Facebook account.
Given the nature of Facebook, a tagged photo or status update can easily reach a very large number of people. Being tagged in a way that portrays you in a positive or neutral way is likely not a problem for most people. However, being tagged in an unflattering photo or post will at least be embarrassing, and at worst, it could seriously damage your reputation or relationships.
If you are on Facebook – and even if you are not – you should understand tagging and know how to untag yourself if you are tagged in an unflattering photo or post.
What is tagging and how does it work?
A tag is a special kind of Facebook link. You can tag people, photos, places and pages in anything you post on Facebook. And it’s a two-way street − anyone can tag you in photos and other information they post on Facebook. Anyone clicking on a tag has a direct link to the tagged person’s timeline.
Creating a tag is easy. When viewing a photo click on Tag photo, place the crosshairs over a person’s face, click once and type a name. Facebook will give you name suggestions from your friends list. In a status update or comment the names of friends will automatically turn into tag links. You can also create a tag by including the @ symbol in front of any names you mention. People often do this in status updates to say who they are with.
When you tag someone in a photo, people will see “Tagged by [Your Name]” when they hover over the name of the person you tagged.
Who can see tags? Lots and lots of people. When someone is tagged in a photo or post it is likely visible on the timelines of the following people:

• The audience selected for the post by the person posting the content (by using the audience selector drop-down next to the Post button) and can include their friends, friends of friends, or if they select custom, selected individuals or groups;
• The person tagged;
• Friends of the person tagged; and
• Anyone else tagged in the post and the friends of that person.

And it doesn’t end there. Anyone who can see a photo or post an update can also tag it, like it, or comment on it.
Removing a tag you don’t like
Even well-meaning friends might tag you in unflattering photos or mention you in comments you’d rather not see shared with a large audience. If you’re not happy with a post you’re tagged in, you should take steps to remove the tag or the post. To do this, place your cursor over the photo or post, click the edit button (the pencil in the top right corner), click on Options and then select Report/Remove Tag in the dropdown. From there, choose why you want to remove the tag. If you select the option I want to remove this tag you can choose to:

• Remove the tag so the post no longer links to your timeline;
• Ask the person who tagged you to remove the post; or
• Block the person who tagged you (this is mutual).

In this dialog box you can also report harassment and offensive content to Facebook. You could also directly ask the person to remove the tag or post, but would need to rely on them complying with your request.
Knowing when you are tagged
Facebook sends you a notification on your activity log (click on the globe icon) whenever your friends tag you and − by default – there will also be an update on your timeline. To review and approve posts from anyone (including your friends) before they go on your timeline, you may want to consider enabling Timeline Review. When this is turned on, posts may already be visible in other places on Facebook (and will stay that way), but they won’t appear on your timeline until you approve them. When you have a post to review, it will show up in your activity log. You can enable Timeline Review in your Privacy Settings. Note that tags from non-friends require your approval before they appear on your timeline, even when Timeline Review is off.
Make sure you understand how Facebook tagging works and actively monitor status updates that you are tagged in. This can help preserve your online reputation in the event embarrassing or damaging content about you is posted on Facebook.

You can actually tag anyone in a photo, even if they don’t have a Facebook account. If you type in the name of someone who is not one of your Facebook friends when tagging a photo, you have the option of listing their email address. When you are done tagging the photo, they will receive an email that provides a link to the image. They will be able to see the photos in which they are tagged, but nothing else on the site, unless, of course, they get their own Facebook account.
Learned this while writing an article on Facebook tagging. The info comes from the Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/help/463455293673370/. Hmmm…

Have you ever needed or wanted to look at a previous version of a website? This is easily done on the Way Back Machine (archive.org)

It allows you to browse through
over 150 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. Just type in the web address of a site or page and hit enter. (Unfortunately, keyword searching is not currently supported.) You will see a listing of dates that archives for that page or site are available for. Click on a link and you are surfing in the past. And the resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible.
Looking at really old websites puts some perspective on how far we have come. There is an early version of the website I build for my old firm from December of 1996. Hmmm… fond memories of coding HTML in NotePad. At least I had hair in my bio picture way back then. 🙂

• Nicholas on Software Tools for Editing
• Jamie on Software Tools for Editing
• Steve Coughlan on ‘I Hope This E-Mail Finds You Well’
• Lyn on Womxn
• Celia Chandler on Gross Negligence

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