It’s been a while since I made any use of Google Notebook — mostly, I think, because I’m not much of a note-taker unless I have a project in the works, and then I’ll probably use a desktop app. But I may revisit the online application because the Official Google Notebook Blog tells us they’ve added an export function that lets you:

• Export this notebook to Google Docs.
• View this notebook as a web page.
• Get updates from this notebook in Google Reader.
• Get updates from this notebook as an RSS feed.
• Save this notebook as an Atom document. This

Google is rolling out a new feature that will use some of your data to “improve your search experience.” According to the Official Google Blog, we can expect to see a notation appearing in the upper right hand corner of search results pages that state “Customized for the [your city] area.” Using the location of your ISP, Google will give prominence to results that come closest to that location. You will have the ability, apparently, to dictate which address is used for the location customization.

What is not made clear is whether you will be able to turn this . . . [more]

Out-Googling Google.

by David J. Bilinsky

July 29, 2008.

♫ I tried my best to let you know
That I’m not trying to test you
It’s just so hard to let you go
When I have nothing against you…♫

Words and music by Midtown

It was just a matter of time. It isn’t that I have anything against you, Google, indeed I have learned so much from you, but in time, all things must end. Alas, I have found another.

Cuil (pronounced cool) is the new well, Cool search engine in town. And she is big – very big . . . [more]

beSpacific reports that LLRX has posted a positive description of Zotero. The review does not mention that there is only a draft version of a citation style for the Blue Book, and nothing in the works to make Zotero work with our own inimitable Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation.

I think Zotero is the product of the near-to-mid future, and I expect legal writers will move to it as soon as there is a style for them to use, because most of us are fed up with the vagaries of Endnote and related products (lack of networkablility . . . [more]

We encourage you to take a look at our friend Jordan Furlong’s provocation to his legal publishing colleagues:

Stop.
Time out. Stop doing what we’ve always been doing. Put aside the deadlines and schedules for a moment. Put down the pen, those of us still using one. Push back from the keyboard, take a deep breath, and close our eyes. Make a mental list of all of our longstanding assumptions about this industry — what we produce, how we sell it, who buys it. Now, throw all these assumptions out, because it’s just about time for us to reinvent

I’ve just discovered that Google offers a way of stripping style sheets (and images, if you like) from any website, with the effect that you’re left with simply the text and fundamental html formatting. The advantage is that this can make reading the text of sites much easier on the small screens of various mobile devices.

The Google URL is http://www.google.com/gwt/n, which offers you an ultra simple screen:

I’m glad to say that Slaw works well when fed through this device. The following link will take you to Slaw with all style and images removed:

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slaw.ca&_gwt_noimg=1

If you’re able . . . [more]

Shifd is a nice little program that just might prove handy for some folks. Created by two guys from the New York Times R&D department in a 22-hour hack at a London contest, the app lets you file snippets of data that interest you and retrieve them from any computer or your cell phone. (The feature involving mobile phones is currently only for the U.S. but they’re working on Canada, we’re told.) There’s also a desktop version running on Adobe Air that syncs your notes with the Times server.

You’re invited to file data in one of three modes: notes, . . . [more]

After an article published earlier this year in the New Atlantis, the discussion has flared up again about the negative effects that distractions and multi-tasking can have on productivity.

In response to the New Atlantic article, others have been chiming in. Nicholas Carr, whose blog we have mentioned here in the past, wrote “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” for the Atlantic Monthly. The Sunday Times this week published an article called “Stoooopid …. why the Google generation isn’t as smart as it thinks.” All of these articles complain that the way we access information is harming . . . [more]

Some time back we posted about Google’s wisdom of the crowds encyclopedia knol, the idea being that it would be useful to have experts write about what they know and authenticate the pieces by attaching their names and info to them. Google now tells us that the experimental phase is over and you, too, can contribute to the store of the world’s knowledge by either writing your own knol or by making suggestions to those of others, suggestions they’re free to accept or not, of course (a process Google has called “moderated collaboration”).

I have to say that thus . . . [more]

Roxer

Remember that name – it’s a great site that permits drag and drop web site construction. You can build a website without knowing one character of HTML.

It’s the brainchild of Lex Arquette and Jeremiah Grossman, whom Slaw readers will know from WhiteHat Security.

Roxer for free has its limitations. The beta pricing for the subscribed version is $7 per month. . . . [more]

When a shift away from law is wanted, you might take a look at Robbins Library Notes, a blog by Jason Pannone, Librarian at Robbins Library, Department of Philosophy, Harvard University.

Incidentally, his is one of the many blogs facilitated by the Berkman Center‘s offer of a free blog to anyone with a Harvard or Radcliffe email address. I haven’t been able to find a decent listing of all such blogs, but there is a page setting out the 40 most recently updated Harvard blogs, if you want to see what Crimson is up to. . . . [more]

Interesting answers to the question posed to Ask MetaFilter today.

Of course, it begs the question of whether in fact “so many lawyers” actually do use WordPerfect. Do you or folks at your firm? If so, why? . . . [more]