“For all but three of my 33 years at the bar, I’ve practiced on and from Balboa Island, Calif., in Newport Harbor, heart of the O.C. (that’s Orange County, for those of you who don’t watch teen TV),” Ed Siebel writes for Law Technology News.
“Most of those years have been spent solo, though I had a partner for four years and I spent a four-year interregnum working as the manufacturing manager for one of my clients,” Siebel writes. “Over the years, as is so often the case with solos, I have done a little bit of everything except evidentiary trial work. I’ve tackled real property transactions, low income tax shelter securities, business purchases and sales, law and motion, a significant number of appeals (both civil and criminal), lots of general small business counsel and, of course, estate planning, some probate and a bit of family law.”
“Since 1988, I’ve been using Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh computers. I’ve stayed with Macs for a single reason — they just work. Simply, consistently and at a high quality. They help me work solo or in a small office without worrying about my computer, essentially without the need for tech support. By and large, my Macintosh, like my telephone or desk lamp, is a reliable and unremarkable working tool. It’s just there and does its job,” Siebel writes.
“My system starts with the usual software — Microsoft Corp.’s Word, Sage Software’s Timeslips, Thomson West’s Westlaw, Safari (Apple’s browser), Intuit Inc.’s Quicken and Now Software’s networked calendar and contact managers. While the entire Microsoft Office suite is available for Mac OS X (and is loaded on my computer), I prefer Apple’s Keynote presentation software to PowerPoint, and I never use Outlook (e-mail/calendaring). Instead, I use Apple’s Mail extensively with my clients and colleagues. (I use Excel rarely, only when I need to build a spreadsheet.) I send and receive faxes over the network with 4-Sight Fax from Soft Solutions. I scan virtually all incoming documents and store them in client files on a Canon 1240U flatbed scanner and store them in client files on my computer desktop,” Siebel writes.
“File/document management is handled by Apple’s OS X operating system, an exact analog to a manual filing system. With Apple’s Searchlight index and search technology, finding any document, anywhere on the disk in seconds is a snap,” Siebel writes. “I haven’t had a system crash in perhaps a year on my desktop machine. Oh, occasionally one of the applications will crash, but it doesn’t affect the others. I find that every so often, Word will unexpectedly vacate the premises without warning, usually when I’ve grown lax and forgotten to save regularly. In six months, that’s happened maybe twice.”
Siebel writes, “Then there are the little things that make it a pleasure to work on the Mac. Any document from any application can be saved into Adobe’s PDF format. You print to a PDF file, instead of a printer, using a drop-down menu — just like selecting different paper trays. Makes electronic filing or eliminating metadata a snap. Of course, there’s the issue of viruses. One of the best advantages of using Apple is that you can just about forget about viruses, because there aren’t many that can penetrate Macs. And OS X, Apple’s UNIX-based operating system, does a good job locking them out.”
MacDailyNews Note: There aren’t any viruses that can penetrate Macs running Mac OS X. Five years and counting. By the end of 2005, there were 114,000 known viruses for PCs. In March 2006 alone, there were 850 new threats detected against Windows. Zero for Mac. While no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack, Mac OS X has helped the Mac keep its clean bill of health with a superior UNIX foundation and security features that go above and beyond the norm for PCs. When you get a Mac, only your enthusiasm is contagious. – Apple Computer: 114,000 viruses? Not on a Mac.
Siebel continues, “There are quite a few of us out here practicing every day, very successfully using Macs. If you’re curious and want to find out more, I’d suggest a couple of sources for information. First, sign up on MacLaw. It’s a free, active legal community with more than 1,000 members. Questions are welcome and rarely receive fewer than four or five responses. Second, stop by to spend some hands-on time at your local Apple retail store. Either MacLaw or the Apple Store may even be able put you in touch with another lawyer in your area who uses Macs in his or her practice for some face-to-face answers. Try it — you just might like it. I do!”
Full article with more info here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s always great to hear real-life stories of the Mac in action!
Related articles:
Lower prices give Apple Macs yet another edge over Windows PCs – September 18, 2006
Getting Macs into businesses despite the IT department – July 19, 2006
A corporate view of Apple’s Boot Camp announcement – April 07, 2006
Apple takes No. 1 spot in western Europe education; next step: overcome corporate IT ‘mistrust’ – March 05, 2006
Can Apple’s switch to Intel processors help Mac crack Windows’ corporate desktop stranglehold? – February 27, 2006
Is it time for your business to consider Apple Macintosh? – January 26, 2006
InformationWeek: Intel-based Macs won’t cause many businesses to replace their Windows PCs – January 16, 2006
Survey shows Apple Macs owned by nearly 10 percent of US small and medium-sized businesses – February 17, 2005
Group of America’s largest corporations complain about software vulnerabilities, security expenses – May 20, 2004
Macs can store and transmit viruses that do not affect it. This is kind of like Typhoid Mary, who didn’t get sick but carried the disease.
Since it does not directly affect the Mac, you might argue that it was not ‘penetrated’ but it went through the OS and was resident on the memory and/or drives. Maybe it’s just splitting hairs, but any Mac on a Network handling mission critical data should have a virus scanner application.
Having anti-virus protection allows you to know you are not passing infected files to your contacts and colleagues that may be using other OSes. It’s just being a good corporate citizen. That’s the right way to do business.
He only said that viruses can get on to Macs, meaning anything from the Lisa to the new Mac Pro, not that they could get into OS X, which is entirely true and needs not be corrected.
Sorry.
I have no desire to worry about “passing infected files”, especially w/ all the incorrect flak I’ve taken for going mac in ’91.
Let them eat cake.
This demonstrates only that the Macs are too easy to use that even lawyers knows how the Macs work.
There should be a law that says that lawyers have to use PC´s.
That would be justice.
By the way. The first viruses found in the wild were Apple II viruses, such as Elk Cloner, which was reported in 1981. Now there is no known viruses that affects Macs.
I agree with the writer and I wish more people like him wrote testimonies like this.
I live like a mile from this guy (FWIW) and have been using Macs professionally for as long, and add another decade before that with Apples in high school. I’ve never had nor felt frightened of a virus ever – even in Apple DOS or Mac OS 1-9.
Even my old Macs still work – My IIci, PowerBook 100, 3400c, G3 firewire, G4 1.67 Aluminum, PowerMac G3 233 Beige, PowerMac G4 QuickSilver… And every one of them networks via AppleTalk!
For the most part I’ve managed to avoid Windows altogether, though I’ve coded software for the PC – on my Mac! Virtual PC was great and necessary when the company was still Connectix, and Apple didn’t have Intel inside.
Anyways, I just wanted to point out that even behind the Orange Curtain there are specs of illumination! We’re not all entirely dim (though so few of us are. Sigh.)
— torpid Oh!
— MW: herself
“ It’s a free, active legal community with more than 1,000 members.”
I’m far more interested in free, active illegal communities.
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It is not my responsibility to pay for and install anti-virus software to protect other people with PCs from getting it through me.
Sorry. If they want me to do that, they should pay for the software and they should pay for the CPU cycles too.
Isn’t it funny that the only software he mentions that trips up comes from….. Microsoft.
Still, only twice in 6mths isn’t that bad I suppose.
I love these testimonials, more available on Apple’s Hot News section. Interestingly, there was another lawyer on record for saying he preferred Macs and KeyNote for making his swift presentations.
Oh I know the self righteous will bang the drum saying we are being irresponsible…but I also agree that there is no way I am running anti-virus software on my Macs. Not unless I send Bill Gates the invoice for the software, the cost of slowing my computer and the risk premium for having potentially damaging software on my Mac.
Windows is the origin and the only cause of there being the volume of viruses there are and it is the people who choose to use that (godawful) system that have to protect themselves.
@ Penetration: Since it does not directly affect the Mac, you might argue that it was not ‘penetrated’
No argument at all: It wasn’t penetrated. Period.
but it went through the OS and was resident on the memory and/or drives.
So what? Other data goes through the system too. Doesn’t affect it either.
Maybe it’s just splitting hairs, but any Mac on a Network handling mission critical data should have a virus scanner application.
It’s not splitting hairs; it’s simply a spurious argument.
Having anti-virus protection allows you to know you are not passing infected files to your contacts and colleagues that may be using other OSes. It’s just being a good corporate citizen. That’s the right way to do business.
Well how did it get on the Mac to begin with? Certainly not from another Mac. It came from an infected PC trying to find other PC’s to infect. So applying your same logic, those who passed it along to the Mac should have taken steps to ensure they didn’t pass it along to anybody. But they didn’t.
Look, if PC users, who are vulnerable to this kind of crap, aren’t interested in protecting themselves any better than that, why should we Mac users care one iota? Why should we pay the virus-scanning CPU-cycle tax?
And PC users always have the option of buying a Mac, but choose not to. Look, when you go boat shopping, you have a choice of buying a boat without holes in the hull, or a boat with holes in the hull. Smart shoppers buy the boats without holes. Same goes for computers.
Why should we care whether or not we pass along PC viruses to those stupid enough to use Windoze?
And even if we did care, Macintoshes can’t actively pass along a virus, only passively. And even if every Mac user did as you suggested, the results would be infinitesimal; it would barely obstruct overall virus propagation; nobody would even notice the fruits of our actions.
So you can go ahead an piss into the wind, for all the good it will do, but don’t expect sensible Mac users to waste CPU cycles on virus scanning for the benefit of idiots running Windoze. What you have, simply put, are delusions of altruism, however well intentioned they might be.
Since it is useless for my Mac, it has no place. And don’t come out with the silly “Oh, but when the first virus comes then you are toasted” because it only shows your PCish ignorance on the subject. An AV is a program, it needs a data base of know virus signatures and know virus-like behavior. They are totally USELESS if not updated regularly and with new virus incarnation: they become effective only AFTER the virus made surface, that is when your paid subscription allows to download the update for the data base.
Hence, totally useless on a Mac, if not to infect PC in case of virus, worms, and the like via email or embedded on files. The one that HAVE to HAVE an updated and costly AV program are the infection prone Windows users on PCs. As said: if they pay for an AV application on my Mac and the monthly fee and the waste of CPU we can start talking. On a second thought: even that is not a possibilities. AV programs on Macs have been shown to REDUCE their safety qualities in certain cases.
Hence, forget about it.
Having anti-virus protection allows you to know you are not passing infected files to your contacts and colleagues that may be using other OSes.
— Penetration
Sorry. If they want me to do that, they should pay for the software and they should pay for the CPU cycles too.
—Hywel
Bravo, Hywel.
The idiots running the virus magnets can pay for themselves the anti-virus taxes, and soon Microsoft’s protection-racket extortion. Microsoft would love Mac users having to pay that! Besides, any business running Windows protects itself from other businesses running Windows. It’s not as though Macs create new and unique viruses, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the next lie to come down the pike says they do.
Businesses and other users running Macs should spend money on useless programs that slow their machines to protect from themselves multi-billion-dollar conglomerates and Joe Sixpack who doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together? Let them eat static.
You know, using a PC is kinda like having unprotected sex with a lot of different partners. Your chances of catching something nasty go up with each new partner.
Smart people either have protected sex, are involved in monogamous relationships, or use a Mac.
Man, if I spent 33 years at the bar, I wouldn’t be able to walk, much less write an informative article.
Usually Right, Hywel, Macaday, et al:
Kudos to you folks! Those are my sentiments exactly.
Asking me to put anti-virus software on my Mac is like asking me to install a speed bump on the road in front of my house because other drivers are speeding. I feel NO repsonsibility to protect others from their own mistakes or to clean up the mess they’ve made.
Rainy Day,
I didn’t know that the Mac had such a hardware interface. I looked on the back, but the connectors were too small.
Brad,
He uses Microsoft Word, so it is possible for Word macro viruses to have an effect, even though they can’t target the Mac OS. The best defence: set the Ownership & Permssions (Get Info) of normal.dot to read-only, so macro viruses can’t replicate. No need for av software.
I wish someone would put together a Macrealstate web site to help realtors switch. That is one industry that is soooo Windows centric.
It would help my real state buddies who are shackled by the MS bal land chain.
I love Balboa Island! I was there back in January and went for a walk later in the evening and someone had parked a Rolls-Royce on the street just like any other car. Cracked me up. Beautiful houses, too.
Not for publication
This is an interesting article. However, I am
sad to report that Kiplinger has discontinued
its two legal software programs which were the
only major business and will legal programs available to Mac users. The Kiplinger programs were actually sold by H & R Block. One can
hope that some other company will fill the
large gap.
LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son,
A lot of guys like a tight fit.
To Karma:
Pretend you are an owner of a business, and you have 5 employees. You bring your MacBook Pro or whatever every day to work, and four of your employees also bring their various mac notebooks or use mac desktops. But there’s one guy, the guy who handles the financial info, or whatever, who brings his PC to work every day. It’s in your best interest that he not get a virus so that your own business isn’t crippled.
A better, cheaper option, though, would be to get linux.
Macs suck! They’re fscking toys! And they have no games! FFS, get a REAL business machine, and HalfLife!
But, the Mac Zealots are a bunch of great guys — doing free tech support for us WinDroids, and putting anti-Windows-virus software on their computers to protect us.
Those MacZealots do drink too much of Jobs yellow koolaid straight from his spigot, but they don’t mind being called names while they help us with our PCs.
Oooops!
sarcasm/
Penetration, a Mac cannot transmit any PC virus without the ACTIVE participation of the user. You have to deliberately do it.
It’s not like a Typhoid Mary that can pass along viruses.