Portable keyboard and mouse to use with iPhone

The Tip of Night for December 16, 2024 discussed how to use the VM Ware app for an iPhone. As mentioned, if you really want to get work done on the run, you'll need a keyboard that you can use with your phone. Today I received the Samsers folding keyboard and mouse - available here on Amazon - and was able to successfully pair via BlueTooth. I'm writing this post on my iPhone from within VM Ware using the keyboard and mouse now.

You certainly wouldn't want to work for more than a couple of hours this way, but if you need to find something on a network drive for an attorney, or make limited edits to a spreadsheet, you can do so without needing to head back to the office or to wherever you have a laptop.

The Samsers keyboard folds up, and comes with a case in which you can store both it and the mouse.

Don't miss that you'll need to flip the switch on the side at the top of the keyboard to power it on, and the mouse will not work until you have turned on Assistive Touch in your iPhone settings.

You can also use the keyboard and mouse by connecting a USB-A receiver hidden in the bottom of the mouse if you have a device with the necessary port, or if you've got a USB-C to A converter. It personally drove me a little nuts that pushing up on the scroll button moved the screen down, and vice versa. This is caused by the iPhone's assistive touch function, which reverses the direction of the wheel, and apparently there is not a way to fix it.

Above the numberpad, you'll see a key with a battery icon. Tap this to find out the charge remaining for the keyboard - a little red light will flash 4 times when the charge is 100%; 3 times for 75%; 2 times for 50% and 1 time for 25%.

I really didn't have any trouble smoothly typing on the keyboard. It felt quite natural.

Activate the Zoom feature for an iPhone under the Accessibility settings so you can get a window at the best possible visibility. In this mode when you doubletap with three fingers, you'll be able to use a scrollbar to adjust the zoom setting.

Relativity Study on AI

Relativity commissioned a study last year on how lawyers are using artificial intelligence. Here are some key points that I found interesting:

1. While 38% of law firm study participants used AI software, significantly more — 50 % — of government employees did.

2. AI software was most often used by legal teams for document review.

3. Two-thirds of study participants have implemented training programs to help employees learn how to use AI.

4. Paralegals actually use AI more often than lawyers.

5. AI is more often used as a way to automate low-level tasks, and with the goal of cutting costs - two times more frequently than as a means to enhance risk compliance or legal analysis.

6. There was more concern about the loss of confidential data, than there was about misleading AI hallucinations.

7. IT professionals tend to be concerned about the loss of confidential data that is input into large language models (LLMs).

8. Law firms were twice as likely to use in-house proprietary models or software provided by vendors as they were to rely on publicly available AI software.

finding broken links in Excel

The Tip of the Night for May 8, 2015 concerned a macro that will check to see if links on an Excel spreadsheet are active.

The vba code below is an improvement. The code I posted about back in 2015 will generate a new worksheet in your spreadsheet with a list of the filepaths that don't work:

This vba code, posted here by Eawyne, creates a new spreadsheet which lists all of the links, and also indicates which cells the links appear in. [Be sure to use the version posted by Eawyne on 11/18/21 - not the one below it - it will give you incorrect results.]

Refer to column C to see which links do and do not exist. The linked to text appears in column H, and the cell of the original link is indicated in column B.

The code as written by Eawyne will stop after checking 1000 links. It can easily be modified by changing this line:

ReDim arr(1 To 1000, 1 To 9)

Increase the '1000' on this line of code to 9999, or whatever value you need.

It is also set to review links on multiple worksheets - something the older vba code did not do.

Public Sub CollectHyperlinks()

Dim Sht As Worksheet, Hl As Hyperlink, FSO As Object

Dim arr() As Variant, i As Long, Anchor As Object

Dim FileMsg As String, AnchorMsg As String

ReDim arr(1 To 1000, 1 To 9)

Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

i = 1

arr(i, 1) = "Worksheet"

arr(i, 2) = "Hyperlink Anchor"

arr(i, 3) = "File"

arr(i, 4) = "Hyperlink Name"

arr(i, 5) = "Hyperlink Address"

arr(i, 6) = "SubAddress"

arr(i, 7) = "ScreenTip"

arr(i, 8) = "TextToDisplay"

arr(i, 9) = "EmailSubject"

For Each Sht In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets

For Each Hl In Sht.Hyperlinks

Set Anchor = Nothing

AnchorMsg = ""

FileMsg = ""

With Hl

If FSO.FileExists(.Address) Then FileMsg = "Exists"

On Error Resume Next

Set Anchor = .Range

If Not Anchor Is Nothing Then

AnchorMsg = Anchor.Address

Else

Set Anchor = .Shape

If Not Anchor Is Nothing Then

AnchorMsg = Anchor.Name

End If

End If

i = i + 1

arr(i, 1) = Sht.Name

arr(i, 2) = AnchorMsg

arr(i, 3) = FileMsg

arr(i, 4) = .Name

arr(i, 5) = .Address

arr(i, 6) = .SubAddress

arr(i, 7) = .ScreenTip

arr(i, 8) = .TextToDisplay

arr(i, 9) = .EmailSubject

On Error GoTo 0

End With

Next Hl

Next Sht

Application.ScreenUpdating = False

With Application.Workbooks.Add.Sheets(1)

.Range("A2").Select

ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True

With .Rows("1:1")

.Interior.Color = 10837023

.Font.Color = RGB(255, 255, 255)

.Font.Bold = True

End With

.Range("A1").Resize(UBound(arr, 1), UBound(arr, 2)).Value = arr

.Columns("A:I").Columns.AutoFit

End With

Application.ScreenUpdating = True

End Sub