From Around the Web
Google has been busy adding features and functionality to its free online office application suite Google Docs lately, in what some are calling a further encroachment onto Microsoft's office suite territory. In addition to online word processing and spreadsheet creation features, Google has added the ability to create presentations/slideshows to Google Docs. That means that Google is offering free online software functionality which allows you to create (or upload and edit) word processing files, spreadsheets, and presentations. Google Docs’ office software components lack some of the advanced formatting features and other options provided by their offline, for-pay office software siblings. However, Google Docs tools can work well for working on drafts and collaborating on documents with other authors. In the case of Google presentations, the functionality is still quite limited, as this review points out--for example, there are no options yet for "adding transitions, notes, audio files or content from the web," and the presentations are not yet exportable in .ppt (PowerPoint) format.
To use Google Docs you will need to sign up for a Google Account (if you don’t already have one for the purposes of using Gmail), and log in. You can read about Google’s presentation functionality and watch a video on Google Docs in this Official Google Blog posting.
To create PDFs in Google Docs: while viewing a document, click on the "File" menu drop-down, which will display several document file export options, which currently include HTML, RTF, Word, Open Office, PDF, and Text. Choose the PDF option and voila, instant (and free) PDF creation! There are several useful export options available to you when working on a Google spreadsheet including .xls (Excel) format, but unfortunately Google presentations are not yet exportable in .ppt (PowerPoint) format.
I had a lot of feedback to my Aug. 28 post, Is the FindLaw Story Getting Distorted? My main point then was that we needed more facts before jumping to conclusions. Since then, more facts have come out, and a particularly good overview of the situation was a piece yesterday by Dow Jones Newswires writer Nat Worden, Google Slaps FindLaw in Effort to Crack Down on 'Link Juice.' Carolyn Elefant, with whom I co-author the Law.com blog Legal Blog Watch, also writes about this today in a post, Finding Out More About FindLaw's Link Sales. While Worden's piece sheds more light on the situation, I'm still not convinced this was as big a deal as some other bloggers see it to be. FindLaw spokesman John Shaughnessy took a position in line with what I thought in my earlier post -- that the marketing document that spawned this scandal in the first place was never intended for law-firm customers. In fact, Shaughnessy seems to deny that FindLaw ever intended "to sell links." Yes, Shaughnessy is a flak, but I've met him several times and find him to be a straight shooter. Even if one accepts that FindLaw did sell links, Worden's piece makes clear that the SEO industry as a whole is on the fence about whether this is "wrong." As Worden quotes Todd Friesen (yes, the Todd Friesen who helped get this ball rolling with his post Shame Shame Shame FindLaw): "There's nothing wrong with selling links, and there's nothing wrong with Google trying to stop it. It's all part of the SEO game. Those who are selling links just have to be careful to explain the risks involved to their clients." Therein lies the nub of this for me. If FindLaw did this, was it careful to explain the risks to its clients? That is two "ifs": Did it do it and did it explain it? There appears to be at least circumstantial evidence that FindLaw did some link selling -- at least enough to convince Google to give it a slap on the knuckles by downgrading its page rank for a couple of days. If so, what did it tell customers? I have now seen several legal blogs characterize this as a situation of FindLaw "scamming lawyer customers." That suggests that FindLaw engaged in fraud or deception with lawyer customers. I still haven't seen anyone connect the dots in a way that leads me to that point. I know that I see this situation much differently than Kevin O'Keefe, who has been critical of FindLaw on his blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs. In fact, based on Kevin's post yesterday, he and I even read the Dow Jones piece with different eyes. Even my co-blogger Elefant sees it differently, describing FindLaw's practices in her post as "shady." As I noted in my earlier post, I'm no apologist for FindLaw. In fact, I devoted substantial time to a series of posts exposing what I described as "FindLaw's aging core" -- a series for which I won an international press award. But as a lawyer, I do like to connect the dots, with the dots being facts. An accusation that a company defrauded consumers is serious stuff. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but no one's yet shown me that it did.
Last week, the FBI arrested blogger Kevin Cogill (a/k/a Skwerl) of Culver City, Calif., on suspicion of violating a federal copyright law for posting nine tracks to his blog from the unreleased and much anticipated Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy. On this week's legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we discuss the legal issues involved in this case with Lisa Borodkin, an entertainment attorney in private practice in Los Angeles, and Philip Daniels, an associate in the Entertainment, Media and Communications Practice Group at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton in Culver City, Calif. Hear about the legal issues in this case, the new federal copyright law and what the future looks like for Cogill. Listen to or download the show from this page or using the Legal Talk Network widget in the right-hand column on this page. As always, you can keep up to date with all Lawyer2Lawyer programs by subscribing via RSS or using iTunes.
My mother-in-law subscribes to a wide variety of magazines, which are kept within arms reach of the couch. Since one of my favorite vacation activities is cozying up on a couch with a blanket and not leaving for long periods of time, I made my way through a several of them, including the Good Housekeeping [...]
Other than a brief moment last Saturday night, I was off the ‘Net for most of last week and was forced to turn to The Forum to stay in touch with world events. Compared to the quick, immediate reporting of Andy Carvin and the rest of Twitter, the coverage of Gustav and other national events [...]
In addition to covering the most recent developments in the legal world, the ABA Journal also provides practicing attorneys with valuable resources to help make their practices more productive and more profitable. Here are a few recent articles from the Journal you don’t want to miss:
Testing Your Tech
When it comes to everyday tasks – pulling client files, sending out bills – how efficient is your firm? The ABA Journal offers a simple ten question “tech audit” to gauge your firm’s office efficiency.
50 Ways to Market Your Practice
Marketing is a necessary – though daunting – fact of life for solo and small-firm attorneys. The ABA Journal has collected 50 tips from practicing attorneys that can help you ramp up your marketing efforts. (Many of the tips are drawn from the ABA’s Solosez discussion group.)
101 Law Hacks
You can’t add more hours to the day, but you can make more of the hours you have. In this cover story from the July edition of the ABA Journal, Jason Krause gathers together 101 tips, tricks and tools that can make you more productive.
Tried Chrome, Google’s newly released Web browser? Share your experience and get the scoop on this new Web browser in the Community Forum.
The authors of The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell, have recently launched a companion blog and wiki that are well worth checking out if you’re interested in learning how to better utilize technology to support collaboration as a lawyer or legal advocate. I happen to own the book, but I would [...]
I just saw that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is using Twitter to send out alerts about field office closings, including the New Orleans District Office, which was closed due to Hurricane Gustav. For more on interesting uses of Twitter and other social media around Gustav, see this post by Beth Kanter. You can also [...]
Rick Segal, apparently an ex-Microsoft employee and current venture capitalist, writes of a business plan he received which contains revealing metadata that the authors obviously didn’t intend for anyone else to see. Potentially strategic information has been leaked via metadata in a number of high profile incidents relevant to the legal world, including during a lawsuit by SCO against DaimlerChrysler. Some lawyers routinely check documents they receive from opposing counsel for metadata. Metadata can hide in several forms in Microsoft Word documents, including comments if you have not deleted all comments from the document, tracked changes if you have not accepted or rejected all changes in the document, and document properties (see File->Properties in the menu, under the “Summary” tab there is information such as title, author, and company, that you may want to change or delete). Converting to PDF is not a foolproof way of preventing metadata from reaching prying eyes as document properties metadata and other metadata such as comments may be preserved. (Acrobat 8 features an “ Examine Document” tool which can help bring to your attention metadata in a document). Programs exist to “scrub” your documents of metadata, including Workshare Protect and Payne Consulting’s Metadata Assistant. Other resources:
ABA Journal: Metadata MinefieldYourABA: If I don't see it, does it mean it's not there? Metadata–ethics, technology and moreLTRC Presentation: Dangerous Curves Ahead: The Crossroads of Ethics and Technology (PDF)LTRC Site-tation post: Electronic Document Redaction and the FTCLTRC publications: Lemon Juice, Cornstarch, and Microsoft: Invisible Ink And Your Documents
This article, adapted from a Red Earth white paper, gives practical recommendations for minimizing legal risk in your organization's email. In detail, it discusses why email disclaimers are needed, the different types of disclaimers that can be used, and how to add them. You can also check out some easy-to-use
examples of disclaimers
for your organization.
A new site has popped up as a
forum for people to vent
about issues with Adobe products, pricing, and support. It's called DearAdobe and aside from being hilarious to read, it might be a good place for nonprofits to be able to vent their NPO-specific issues with Adobe products.
I've been tagged by Diane Levin with the 5 blogs & 5 blawgers meme. The idea is to list five great non-law blogs and then tag five law-bloggers to do the same. My five: - Good Morning Gloucester. Capt. Joe works the docks in Gloucester, Mass., where he is never without his camera. His photos chronicle daily life in this seaport city, from sunrises to tattoos to seafood.
- Media Nation. Dan Kennedy, a Boston-area journalist and assistant professor at Northeastern University School of Journalism, covers "the press, politics, technology, culture and other passions."
- New Media Musings. Writer and technology entrepreneur J.D. Lasica describes this blog as "charting the rise of open, democratic, grassroots media." He also finds some fun tech toys.
- B.L. Ochman's WhatsNextBlog. Marketing and public relations consultant Ochman focuses her blog on Internet marketing and social media. I like that she does not tolerate marketing bulls**t.
- Slashdot. The tag line says it all: "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." You'll even find some of that dreaded "law" stuff covered here.
And now my five tag-ees:
An interesting article from the ABA Journal that discusses the results of the ABA’s annual Legal Technology Survey Report. -M
I am honored to have this blog appear today on Tom Mighell's blog Inter Alia as one of the "Blawg of the Day Hall of Fame." Tom notes that he first wrote about this blog on Dec. 5, 2002. Next thing you know, they'll be retiring my number.
I used to complain that PR professionals were blind to the blogosphere. Now that they've discovered it, there are some who could use a good set of blinders to keep them focused on their target audience. I'll bet I wasn't the only blogger to get this press release today:
STEVE REZAYAT TO ASCEND AS SPJA CFO
Los Angeles, California (September 3, 2008) Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) announced today that Mr. Steve M. Rezayat is joining the organization as Chief Financial Officer. More information can be found on the website www.spja.org.
Mr. Rezayat will be joining former Chief Financial Officer and current Chief Executive Officer Ms. Trulee Karahashi in the guidance of the organization that runs the nation's largest anime and manga convention, Anime Expo®.
Hello? The CFO of an anime society? And I care why? Did anyone at this PR agency bother to even look at the name of my blog, let alone its content?
Cybersquatting – or reserving domain names simply to resell them at a later date – has long been a problem on the Web. Many court battles have been fought as celebrities and businesses try to obtain domains they feel legally entitled to, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, but the problem remains. One particularly nasty variant of cybersquatting is known as front-running, whereby individuals use various means (such as buying search records or “sniffing” searches) to identify domains that other individuals or businesses are considering registering. The front-runners use this inside knowledge to purchase the domain themselves and then seek to resell it to the true customer at a significantly inflated price.
The issue was pushed into the spotlight recently when it emerged that a leading domain registrar – Network Solutions – had adopted a policy of temporarily registering all domains entered into the “Find A Domain” box on their web page. While Network Solutions claims that the policy was meant to protect users from front-running by guaranteeing that the domain would remain available for several days after they initially checked it, others accused Network Solutions of engaging in front-running themselves: due to the temporary hold on the domain name, customers had no choice but to register their domain through Network Solutions or risk losing it to another front-runner when the temporary hold was removed.
Since the controversy erupted, Network Solutions has taken steps to improve the temporary hold process to prevent front-runners from spotting the domains being held. Nevertheless, if you’re in the market for a domain name, this should serve as a cautionary tale. Pick out your registrar before you start searching for domain availability, and when you find the domain you want, register it immediately.
For more on domains and starting a web site in general, check our FYI: Starting a Website.
After reading this TalkLeft post about Sarah Palin's one Alaska Supreme Court appointment, I dug into the site of the Alaska Judicial Council and identified Palin's 10 appointments to the state's trial court bench. I also found out that today is the deadline for Palin to fill a vacancy on the Alaska Court of Appeals. I've put all this together in a post at Legal Blog Watch.
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