Enhancing the Human Brain 2022. 2.0
I was inspired in my prior post by this book, “Building a Second Brain” by Tiago Forte. I haven’t finished it, but the idea of building upon layers of tools to organize thoughts, save materials, and be able to marshall them for creative and potentially profitable projects is a great one. The achievers of the future will know how to leverage these tools.
This is my office, inspired by my framed poster of The Andromeda Galaxy. As I approach retirement, not there yet!, I recall that it is not essential that one seek “profit”. It will work just as well as I work to organize our family geneology and heritage, to know how to save and keep accessible, essential resources.
BELOW, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, ARE THE APPLICATIONS AND RESOURCES THAT I DISCUSSED IN MY LAST BLOG POST, WITH A SHORT DESCRIPTION OR NARRATIVE FOR EACH ONE.
Collaborative tools such as the cloud storage app Dropbox and Dropbox teams allows linkage with many other software resources and people.
I use Dropbox, along with Googe Photos, to save my photos, my correspondence, my CLE materials, my family and personal videos, and so much more.
It is well-established, secured by two factor authentication, and it appears Dropbox will be around for a long time. I say, “The key is redundancy!”, back ups, and being ever alert to a service becoming “long in the tooth.” Even Google and Microsoft abandon and shut down software. It must be so in a world of “accelerating change”.
Since these images are in no particular order, here is the first of many Microsoft 365 applications. Part of what was knows for years as “Microsoft Office Pro Suite”. A software historian knows that it evolved from Microsoft Works which was patterned on Appleworks, which I first bought in 1981.
It has been a “running joke” that Powerpoint slideshows are designed to put audiences to sleep; and so hey can. It is up to the creator to maintain content and interest. And, just to show “an old dog can learn new tricks”, I built on my skills with Powerpoint when I learned about Techsmith’s Snagit, below, screen capture tools. In just a few days at the beach, while my wife rested and recuperated, I created this video on the Solar System for my 2021HunterGrandchildren YouTube Channel. It is just a first step of what you can do if you want to engage, entertain, and attract a following and audience. Or, just share in appropriate circumstances, “one on one”: https://hunterlawfirm.net/our-amazing-solar-system/
If you are in a big firm, perhaps you will have to be a spreadsheet expert, or maybe you’ll have someone to handle such things for you. But if you are a sole practitioner, you must be a “jack of all trades”. I started with “Visicalc” and “Appleworks”. I learned to create a budget, track my costs and income sources, and calculate each month and year my hourly rate of return, my dollars per case, my number of cases in each practice area, and to produce charts and report to guide my decisions. It allowed me to survive in good and difficult times. Remember that courses in Linked in Learning, Udemy.com, and Youtube can help you build these skills.
See below next slide:
I mastered the spreadsheet programs and the flat databases in Appleworks and Microsoft Works. They were good, simple, “flat,” “list managers”, but Microsoft’s relational database, Acces,s is “a bear”; it lets the user complete various “tables” of items and numbers, do mathematical calculations, and link these tables in myriad ways. Then you can do magical things like create “queries” and “reports”. It can even link to Excel Spreadsheets.
I have taken in-person classes and online courses. I have bought 500-page books. The best thing I did was, over 20 years ago, before “Clio” and other pre-packaged practice management integrated systems, was to work with a great guy named Les Schreve in creating modules for billing and time management, client data, and personal injury practice management. We use those systems today. They still work. Service providers want $10,000-$15,000 to convert our data to a new system. We can do a “conflict search” back over 40 years!
As I have a five year window before I hang it up, I probably won’t convert. But look below for a good practice management system, Clio.
This is the icon for you Apple iPhone “Reminders”; looks like a simple shopping list, which it is, but do yourself a favor. Search YouTube and watch 3-4 tutorials and reviews. It is a revelation. I talk about Reminders and Notes in the prior article, so that’s all I’ll say for now.
SCREENSHOT OF YOUR IPHONE REMINDER’S SCREEN
This is the parent of Techsmith’s Snagit, shown below. I don’t use it but YouTube Boomer Tech Nerd Steve Dotto does, and he loves it. He does a screencast nearly daily and finds it to be user-friendly and cost-effective. Who am I do disagree.
Just like that Leatherman tool you didn’t know you needed until it arrived at Christmas, I did not realize how handy a screen grabbing and snagging to can be. Crop and image, mark it up, created as a “stepped” set of instructions, scroll down for a larger image, or “Snag” a video. And the best part is with YouTube tutorials and built-in tutorials by Snagit, there is a wealth of instructional material, virtually for free.
SNAGIT SCREEN SHOT
EVERNOTE
The Author of “Building a Second Brain”, Tiago Forte, above, insists that the key to a “digital brain” and storage and retrieval system is a great note-taking app. Here is the current leader, Evernote. It links across platforms, gives you an Evernote e-mail address, and lets you send things into a current year “default inbox”, from which you can move to a note book or just archive, which isn’t bad because it is fully searchable, even for the words included on images that you might captuer. With “Web Clipper”, mentioned below, you can save e-mails, images, articles, and links. I have several thousand. When I need to “find password” in this WordPress blog host, that’s where I go to find it.
EXAMPLES OF EVERNOTE SCREENSHOTS
GOOGLES COMPETITOR TO DROPBOX
An imperfect, near miraculus feature; one day it will show us what “AI” really means. Have Google lens study your image, set off small “fireflies” across it, and give you its best guess of what’s in your image, and what it may be worth. It is a fun and worthwhile tool.
Remember “Project Gutenberg”, a effort to collect all all the writings of the world? Haven’t heard much of it lately, but I shall look it up now. I was impress when Google Sholar let me look up appellate cases and find virtually all cases in which I have been named, even when I was not “record counsel”. Someday, Google scholar may provide you that perfect answer in the nick of time.
Mr. Khan has a vision, to educate the work. I commend him for the effort
Be sure to wait for the sale, which is always; course $10-$14. Compare that to your typical C.L.E., continuing legal education. Competently, if tediously presented, there is no “official credit”, but you control what you get and when.
Formerly Lynda.com. I have let my subscription lapse, but you can take as many course as you like for the subscription price.
THE CODE IS NOT COMPUTER CODE, BUT EDITING OUR OUR OWN GENES. IT CAN CURE DISEASE, BUT IT ALSO CAN ACCELERATE THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. WILL WE ALL BE TALL, BLOND, ATTRACTIVE, ATHLETIC? WILL WE PASS OUR IMMUNITY ON TO OUR CHILDREN? THE ETHICAL, MORAL, RELIGIOUS, AND MEDICAL QUESTIONS ARE BEYOND OUR ABILITY TO QUALTIFY.
JENNIFER DOWDNER WAS INSPIRED BY WATSON, CRICK AND ROSELIND ELSIE FRANKLIN, AND BY READING THIS SHORT BOOK BY JAMES WATSON, WHOSE LATER VIEWS ON RACE AND GENDER GOT HIM CENSORED. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND OPINION WERE SORELY TESTED.
I AM NOT SURE OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GOOGLE MAPS, APPLE MAPS AND GOOGLE EARTH, BUT I AM SURE THEY ARE PROFOUNDLY CHANGING US. EVEN MY BELOVED WIFE, WHO IS A GREAT “CO-PILOT” RESISTS PICKING UP A PHYSICAL MAP. THEY CAN LEAD YOU FAR ASTRAY, BUT IF YOU EVER TRIED TO GET AND AERIAL MAP, FOR HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS FROM THE STATE OF WV, “BACK IN THE DAY”, YOU WILL KNOW THAT THIS TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING US PROFOUNDLY. AND NOW YOUR COUNTY ASSESSOR CAN PROVIDE YOU GREAT AERIAL PHOTOS. AND THEN THERE IS GOOGLE STREET VIEW, WHERE YOU CAN VISIT YOUR GRANDPARENTS’ AND GREAT GRANDPARENTS’ HOMES WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR SEAT.
GOOGLE SEARCH; WHAT CAN i SAY. SEARCH FOR YOUR SELF AND BE PREPARED FOR SURPRISES. AND THEN THERE ARE THOS PESKY GOOGLE REVIEWS.
I HAVE HEARD CRITICISM OF WIKIPEDIA, BUT HAVE YOU BOUGHT A SET OF BRITANNICA LATELY? oF COURSE NOT. IT IS SELF HEARING AND QUITE REMARKABLE. i ALSO LIKE THE MEDICAL SITE BY THE GREAT HOSPITALS, JOHN’S HOPKINS, MAYO CLINIC, AND CLEVELAND CLINIC. PEOPLE FACING SERIOUS ILLNESS NEED NOT RELY ON THE ALL-WISE DOCTOR. JUST AS WE NO LONGER HAVE THE ALL-WISE PRIEST. KNOWLEDGE, AND PURE AND UTTER CRAP, ARE OUT THERE FOR ALL OF US.
IF YOU DON’T READ OF THE PAST AND THE MASTERS OF THE PAST, YOU WILL NOT KNOW WHERE YOU CAME FROM. YOU WILL BUY INTO THE LEFTIES AND THE RIGHTIES VIEW OF HISTORY. F_____ THEM! THINK FOR YOURSELF AND CURATE CAREFULLY YOUR READING. CHERNOW IS A FAVORIAT EOF MINE. ESPECIALLY THE FATHER SON PAIR OF WASHINGTON AND HAMILTON.
VOICE TO TEXT; I COVER THAT IN MY FIRST ARTICLE. A BIT TOO PRICEY FOR ME.
Talk about pricey; Nexis/Nexis are pros at overpricing. If I can think of it, there’s an app to create your own compilations of important data. I’ll think of it; later
I AM SATISFIED WITH MICROSOFT “TO DO”, A CLONE OF WUNDERLIST, BOUGHT BY MICROSOFT
I WOULD USE IT EVEN MORE, BUT I HAVE DISCOVERED APPLE IPHONE “REMINDERS”.
IT IS STILL GOOD TO SIT DOWN ONCE A DAY AND ONCE A WEEK AND KEEP TRACK OF THE IMPORTANT STUFF; USE IT IN COORDINATION WITH OUR OUTLOOK 365 CALENDAR AND “REMINDERS”; IF YOU CAN MAKE “TASKS” WORK, YOU ARE BETTER THAN i. 
MICROSOFT’S COMPETITOR TO DROPBOX, IDRIVE, AND GOOGLE DRIVE.
A FAVORITE OF MINE, PATHAGORAS DOCUMENT ASSEMBLY. NO NEED FOR “SQRL” CODING. jUST TREAT YOUR FORMS AS WORD DOCUMENTS. MYRIDA FEATURES, MANY OF WHICH i DON’T USE. BUT BUILD YOUR COMMONLY USE PETITIONS, MOTIONS, AGREEMENTS AND FORM INTO “PATHAGORIZED” FORMS, AND YOU WON’T BE SORRY. MUCH LESS PRICEY AND EASIER TO USE FOR THE SMALL FIRM PRACTITIONER THAN “HOT DOCS”.
ONENOTE, MICROSOFT’S COMPETITOR TO EVERNOTE.
MICROSOFT’S PUBLISHER, GREAT FOR CARDS, BROCHURES, CALENDARS, AND CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTERS. LEARN IT AND YOU WON’T BE SORRY.
In a world of incessant change, I was able to find a 14 inch bar for my 20 year old Craftsman chainsaw and a plastic bulb for the fuel-line of my stringer, adding years to their lives. I have also had disappointments. But it is where I get my micro-cassette recorders, and it is my “go to app” for old projectors and other vintage techno-marvels.
AS THEY SAY, “LAST BUT NOT LEAST”. EVERY LAW OFFICE NEEDS ONE OF THESE AT THE DESK OF EVERY PERSON. FUJITSU SCANSNAP SCANNERS. TAUGHT TO MY BY BARRON HENLEY OF AFFINITY CONSULTING IN COLUMBUS OHIO. WITH 3-6 OF THESE MACHINES, YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO SAVE A CLIENT PAPER FILE. RETURN IT OR SCHRED IT, BUT MEET YOUR STATE BAR RETENTION REQUIREMENT PAINLESSLY AND NEVER CLIMB INTO A DUSTY OR WET STORAGE UNIT AGAIN!
BURT’S GRAPHIS OF OUR FRACTURED SOCIETY AND WORLD OF ACCELERATING CHANGE. OUR THINKERS AND LOVERS MUST FIGHT PASSIONATELY AGAINST THE “ME, ME, ME” ATITUDE OF THE NAYSAYERS AND CONSPIRITORIALSTS.
CHANGE HAS NEVER BEEN THIS FAST, AND IT WILL NEVER BE THIS SLOW AGAIN. (UNKNOWN)
This post was written by Burton Hunter