It allows for remote access to your machine and apparently it can even be used to catch a thief. My rough impression is that it seems like it is a lighter version of Apple Remote Destop or VNC.

I don’t usually have a need to remote access my machine that much — it’s a laptop and so if it isn’t with me it is usually just shut off. And if it is off with the lid closed, it ain’t likely going to wake up again (though I’m assuming if it was asleep with a network cable attached, it could?).

That being said, I am starting to not take my laptop with me when I’m out of the office for meetings. It’s heavy and I’m frankly trying to save my lower back. Instead just use my iPhpone. Between Safari, Mail, MobileMe, iCal, Address book, and all the other goodies like OmniFocus on my phone I find I don’t need my laptop unless it’s for something specific (such as a presentation).

Now that I’m leaving it behind more, I now can see some limited need to leave my laptop on and be able to access it from my phone, even if just to access files or to have it as a spam filter.

Anyone have any suggestions or further thoughts?

But I’m not immune. I get about 50-100/week. Apple Mail’s filters have been doing a good job, but lately in the past few months about 5 get through a day, not counting the rules I had to create to eliminate spam from people like (spammers) LawCrossing or Affluence.org who refuse to actually remove people when requested.

So one quick search and a trip to Hawk Wings and enter SpamSieve for a test run. Only one day into it, but it is getting trained up and doing a pretty awesome job so far. It uses a different type of filtering (Bayesian) than Apple Mail so that’s part of the trick.

It also has a handy guide to integrating it with your iPhone (though it involves leaving a computer running back at home…).

I’ll give it a go over the next 30 day trial period to see how it goes.

LPM blogs

Build a Solo practice. Susan Cartier Liebel’s blog and one of the first I started following when I developed my consultancy.

There are quite a few others that I dip in on regularly, such as Chuck Newton and Home Office Warrior. These days I mostly just see what is out there via the twitter people I follow, though I very sorely tempted to join Solo Practice University to give it a go.

Tech for the solo/small firm

Keep up to date with Future Lawyer and for the Mac users, subscribe to MILO and read iPhone JD if you have an iPhone.

SEO

SEO Moz comes in very handy and has lots of tools to help with SEO. My Pro subscription has been useful, but there are plenty of things to get you started for free.

SEO Book. I bought and read Aaron Wall’s SEO Book and it’s been a great help to understand the issues and where to improve (even if I don’t get to do all of what he and SEO Moz recommend).

UK

In the UK we have the SOLO IP group, which I’d hoped would offer more practice management tips and tricks, and still has the potential to be a really useful resource specifically for IP practitioners.