I’m not in her techie league, but I do like looking in on what Nicole is doing at What I learned today. Today the one that tickled me was When is good. It seems worth a whirl (if we weren’t already spending half our time trying to schedule meetings, meals, etc.)
And take a look through her link to Wordle’s Word Clouds and to Twitabit, for when Twitter is down (Twitter is down!? Stop the thumbs!), and to 100 Niche Search Engines.
(You can see I’m clearing out my blog post rough drafts!)
See Jim Calloway’s post: Security Issues of Carrying Digital Documents
I also really like this, because going paperless is as much a conceptual adjustment as a business model one: A mobile lawyer is a paperless lawyer
Oregon has excellent resources for non-profits and volunteers, whether you run one, serve on a board, want to work at one, or want to start one:
1) Connectipedia (see 6/17/08 Oregonian article, by Steve Woodward: Nonprofits share the knowledge)
2) TACS: they write the Oregon non-profit source book, without which we would all flail about helplessly, with or without profit.
If you ever thought working for Big Bucks in Big Law was Nirvana, think again:
From Fastcase blog: Legal Tabloids Creating Headaches for Firms
‘“Blogs have democratized the means of production for publishers, leading to a fast proliferation of new media. Several of the most prominent legal blogs, including Above the Law and Greedy Associates, began as niche publishing outlets for salary information and legal gossip — but since have become genuine new media phenomena in their own right – to the chagrin of some law firms, which provide seemingly constant fodder. This week, the National Law Journal outlines some of the steps that firms have taken to prevent their associates from leaking information to these popular internet hubs….
As David Lat, editor of Above the Law, has mused: “Anything that is visible with the human eye can be leaked.”’ (read full post)
One of my library patrons expressed some curiosity about the relative property tax rates of different Oregon counties (and cities). This was prompted by reading the “timber money” article in Sunday’s Oregonian, where a resident of Grants Pass/Josephine County was quoted as saying that local residents pay a property tax rate of $.58/$1,000 (see below for excerpts from the article).
And a few weeks ago, a speaker on Think Out Loud noted that the residents of his county paid nothing for the services of their sheriff’s department (it has been paid for out of the taxpayer-supported timber payments). (Compare this with my law library’s Washington County where the residents in the past two elections voted in special levies for Sheriff’s Department services.)
So, how does one compare the local taxes people across the state pay, including counties that want federal timber money, counties with Indian reservations, counties with prisons, with farmland, with desert, etc.?
A new Bedsworth at A Criminal Waste of Space to mark the day – July First! And it is, of course, almost the funniest thing you’ll ever read by an appellate court judge.
(I’ll not say anything more or will get into very hot water. But he does mention law librarians, which ought to merit a Yeah!, but will get more of a snerck (you know what kind of sound that is – the ones librarians everywhere contain valiantly (though not forever) when we’ve just been asked the Question of the Week at the reference desk.)
To sample a few previous Bedsworth columns, visit this site.
See Jim Calloway’s links, from his post: Your Website: Getting the Attention of the Search Engines. Excerpt:
“You finally got your law firm Web site online and waited for the new clients to come rolling in. But for some reason it just didn’t happen that way. Well, all of our marketing efforts are long term projects, with the possible exception of TV, radio and newspaper ads. Your marketing efforts will hopefully still pay off for years in the future. But the Internet is all about immediate gratification, right? So this week, I’ll have a bit of an online symposium on getting noticed by the search engines.
The first article is The ABCs of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by two of my favorite people Sharon D. Nelson and John Simek of Sensei Enterprises, Inc. SEO is one of those terms that intimidates a lot of people. Sharon and John do a great job of explaining the basics in understandable language. Everyone should read this article even if you don’t have time to start your SEO project this week. And, remember that you don’t have to try all of these techniques….” (Read full post.)
See also, Copyright, Technology, and Access to the Law: An Opinionated Primer, by James Grimmelmann, New York Law School
See also: State of Oregon backs off claim that its law is copyrighted
(I last blogged about this here.)
This post is as much for people who NEED VA’s as for those who want to BE VA’s.
MyShingle has an update post on using Virtual Assistants. It links also to this virtual assistant guide.
Final recount results are in, here.
Of course, there is also this:
Official Count from the Oregon Secretary of State’s election web page (which hasn’t been updated since the 11th, or so it says – it’s a mystery).
