Novalawcity

It's RSS Day!

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a type of web technology that makes it easy to keep up with regularly updated blogs and websites, including nearly all news sites, and to set up customized news alert with Google news or similar sites.  Right now, it may be the best current awareness tool there is. 

Instead of having to visit all the websites you follow, RSS feeds send updates from all of the websites you select to one place.  This is a great time saver and literally allows you to read or scan more in less time once you've got it set up.  You don't have to be a techie to understand or use it. Popular RSS readers like Bloglines and Google Reader are easy to set up and use.

Today is RSS awareness day.  To learn more about how it works and to see how the readers work, check out the brief overview at rssday.org.

Mac law students: a resource for you

If you're a law student who uses a Mac, the Mac Law Students blog, written by 11 Mac-using law students from around the world, is a resource you may find useful. 

The most recent post there reviews eight Mac web browsers, paying particular attention to how they affect certain features in Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw.

Other recent posts include the iPhone's future for law students and lawyers; news about the California bar allowing use of Macs; advice on fixing a wi-fi connectivity glitch in a recent Leopard update;and reviews of applications for creating clippings files and visual timelines.

"There is no shame in Googling oneself"

...so writes Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, responding to the new Pew Internet and American Life Project survey that shows only 47% of Americans have searched for their names using Google or another search engine.  The practicing of Googling oneself has been widely termed "ego surfing," but it's no longer about ego.  Zorn proposes we replace that term with "identity monitoring" or "information control searching" and notes

It's downright irresponsible not to Google yourself every so often just to check what might be out there -- some scrap of false information, a baseless rumor, a misappropriation of your identity... you never know.

 

Video of the Week: What's blogging, anyway?

Maybe you've been reading along here at Novalawcity, clicking links on the weekly email alert.  You sort-of grok that a blog seems like a backwards journal or some kind of newsletter, but you're not sure you could explain it, and you're not sure what the big deal is. Here's a video that explains it all in three minutes, courtesy of the CommonCraft Show:

Here's another tip: blogs written by and for legal professionals are often referred to by the term blawg.  What other blawgs are out there? Check out the ABA Journal Blawg 100 for their list of best blawgs covering many categories including Ivory Tower, JDs in Training, Politics for Sport, Lawyers Behaving Badly, Gossip, Lawyer's Toolkit, and more.  You can even vote for your favorite in each category.

Visual Dictionary Online

The creator of the www.visualdictionaryonline.com have produced an interesting graphical dictionary. Below is their graphic for court. If only Black's were this innovative. Check it out.

Hat tip to V.U.Lawcity

Video of the Week: Jack Bauer in 1994

Dial-up. Floppy disks. Prodigy. Beepers. AOL. Pay phones. Dot matrix printers. Windows 3.1.

Thirteen years ago, those tools were, if not state of the art, what many of us relied on. This week's video imagines what 24 protagonist Jack Bauer's work would be like if they were still the most current technologies available.

Hat tip: Susanna Leers on the Teknoids listserv.

Mashing up your tax dollars

The Sunlight Foundation has just released a new application that overlays data for nearly 1500 House Defense Appropriations bills onto Google Earth to help citizens investigate where and how their tax dollars are being spent. 

From the Sunlight Foundation press release:

"Navigating earmarks on Google Earth is much more compelling and user-friendly than reviewing a list of earmarks or a spreadsheet," said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation. "Americans who are concerned about government spending and the upsurge in member use of earmarks now have a simple way to visualize and investigate how Congress is awarding defense-related federal funds."

The press release also explains how to get the data and start using it:

To start navigating earmarks, download Google Earth and then download Sunlight's House Defense file. This presents a 3-D view of where the recipients of earmarks in the House Defense appropriations bill are located and corresponding links to EarmarkWatch.org –where citizens can further research each earmark and its recipient. Users can search for earmarks by city, state or zip code.

Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip!

How do legal ethics apply to legal professional use of social networking sites?

That's the question examined in a Law.com Legal Technology story today.  Mind the Ethics of Online Networking looks specifically at how use of social networking sites by lawyers may be viewed by three categories governed by state ethics regulations: communications, solicitation, and advertising.

Just because the interaction is in cyberspace rather than the conference room doesn't make it immune to regulation. For instance, California State Bar ethics opinion 2004-166 found that an attorney's communication with a prospective fee-paying client in a mass-disaster victims Internet chat room violated Rule 1-400 of the state's Rules of Professional Conduct.

Some lawyers are weighing the risks of disciplinary action, noting that it's necessary to move forward with technology and that telephone users were once considered mavericks.  Others note that malpractice insurance doesn't cover the sort of ethical and disciplinary violations that could result from use of these tools.

What kind of information technology user are you?

The Pew Internet and American Life Project studies the effect of the Internet and digital technologies "on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life." 

You can take a short quiz to find out where you fit on their typology of Information and Communication Technology users. 

Since I rarely use cellphone text messaging, I tried the quiz answering that question both no and yes, which is apparently enough to change my result from Connector ("they connect to people and manage digital content using ICTs) to Omnivore ("they have the most information gadgets and services, which they use voraciously to participate in cyberspace").  Overlapping those two roles feels appropriate for this librarian. 

The Truth About Cell Phones And The Do Not Call Registry

Are your friends and family forwarding you dubiously sourced emails that make you worry that every telemarketer in the land will soon have their grubby mitts on your private cell phone number?  You could check the story on urban legend depository and fact checking site Snopes.com, but an authoritative source is even better.  Courtesy of BeSpacific, here's a link to press release on the Federal Trade Commission's website to share with them.

The FTC reminds us:

• Contrary to the e-mail, cell phone numbers are NOT being released to telemarketers, and you will NOT soon be getting telemarketing calls on your cell phone.
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers are barred from calling consumers on their cell phones without their consent.
• There is only ONE National DNC Registry.  There is no separate registry for cell phones.
• While the telecommunications industry has been discussing the possibility of creating a wireless 411 directory, according to the FCC, even if a wireless 411 directory is established, most telemarketing calls to cell phones would still be illegal, regardless of whether the number is listed on the federal government’s Do Not Call Registry.

Visit the FTC site for additional details.

Need to register a number to avoid telemarketers? Head over to the Do Not Call Registry and follow the directions there.