I drift along sometimes, dreaming that maybe I can stop learning new technical things for a while and actually use a few technologies to finish some long-term projects. Then something comes along to wake me up. One of the more recent of these wake-up calls came with the announcement of Apple’s iPad. People were complaining that it didn’t support Adobe Flash content.

I don’t generally pay a lot of attention to either Apple or Adobe, because I tend not to associate either one with open standards or open software. That’s just a bias though, and life is never that simple. . . . [more]

I live in a one television household. One television supplied with data via satellite dish, 3 cell phones, 3 laptops, a desktop, an iPad, 3 iPods with screens and the best piece of tech – a long play record player that has a USB port. We don’t watch a lot of television, but for a family of four, we do consume our fair share of internet bandwidth.

There is plenty of news lately about internet delivered television. Google TV, Apple TV, and way back in 2005, PC World talked about Microsoft’s Internet TV, today’s version being Microsoft Mediaroom . . . [more]

As Windows 7 and Office 2010 sweep across the land, along with a plethora of interesting new hardware devices like iPads and netbooks, the urge to upgrade is striking a great many attorneys. I can hardly walk into a room without somebody sidling up to me and asking “So….should I upgrade?”

The answer is always the same: “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” they respond, with that unsatisfied look in their eyes. They’re surprised. I’m a technologist. I’m supposed to always be pushing them to the bleeding edge, chuckling softly that they only have 4GB of RAM, suggesting that they could get a 3rd . . . [more]

A Slaw exclusive: Jason Wilson in lengthy conversation with the VP of Tech at Thomson.

Rats, I missed Bloomsday, an event I like to note here on Slaw. It happened last Wednesday, which was June 16, the same date on which, in 1904, Leopold Bloom wandered through Dublin as Joyce’s Ulysses.

My Bloomsday offering to our readers is a Joycean oddity, by Lance Wakeling (whose Private Circulation is often good), Stately, plump Buck Mulligan. On this site you’ll find all of Ulysses serialized as it were . . . one . . . word . . . at . . . a . . . time. You click on a word and the next . . . [more]

Publishing trends are not working in favour of the major legal publishers and their recent financial performance confirms this to be the case – revenue is down and staff cuts and outsourcing have replaced publishing as the primary means of maintaining profit margins.

The end of growth

It is a fact that legal and regulatory information is no longer seen as an area of growth and expansion for the multinationals. All three major legal publishers have reported lower publishing revenues while still holding out the prospect of a return to growth in future years. Is it a realistic expectation? Do . . . [more]

On Friday, I attended the amazing workshop Digital Odyssey 2010 – Going Mobile, held by the Ontario Library and Information Technology Association. Focused on how to develop information/library services and products in a mobile environment, the individual sessions discussed augmented reality, QR code, designing for mobile, ebooks, and more. Jason Griffey, keynote speaker, discussed why the mobile world is important and why we should be thinking about it. Here are some highlights from his session:

• 4.1 billion people on the planet have cellphones.
• More cellphones and cellphone contracts than people in some countries. People are carrying multiple devices.

. . . [more]

I’ve been learning the ins, outs, and inbetweens of my new iPad, which means for the most part figuring out what apps work on it and what their limitations are. (e.g. I don’t use Word so I’m not fussed about its lack; but I do use RTF and am disappointed that I can’t create rich text files.) In the course of doing that, I’ve downloaded the iPad app version of Dropbox and have been impressed all over again by that great service.

If you don’t know Dropbox you should take a look. It’s a file storage and sharing system that . . . [more]

This past March, I was fortunate to get some face time with one of the senior directors for Thomson Reuters’ new Print and Advanced Media division to talk about business. Among the many topics to be discussed was that particularly irksome one, the future of print. When we kicked off our conversation, the director acknowledged that she had had some feelings of trepidation when she signed on to help run a division that seemingly—excuse the pun—has a limited shelf life.

I understood where she was coming from, particularly since I’d just seen Thomson Reuters’ 2009 financial report released the . . . [more]

I have my fingers and toes crossed that an Apple Store in Michigan can hook me up with a shiny new iPad tomorrow. I am flying through Detroit on my way to the CALL/MichALL 2010 Conference in Windsor. An iPad is an early birthday present since an e-reader has been on my must have list for a while. Now that I can acquire an e-reader on steroids, I can’t wait any longer. Canadians have to wait for the iPad release, and since I can’t reserve over the phone, or online without a US mailing address, I just have to make . . . [more]

As anyone who follows tech will know, a prototype of Apple’s secret (as it then was) next model iPhone escaped into the wild, thanks to a careless employee. It made its way from the finder to the tech blogging site Gizmodo. There the thing of beauty was disassembled and the entrails reported to the public by Jason Chen. Subsequently, California police executed a search warrant and removed material from Mr. Chen’s residence. As I understand it, no criminal charges have been laid against Mr. Chen at this point.

Most of the discussion has debated the legality of the search warrant, . . . [more]

Yes, it is that time of year in Canada. On or before April 30, 2010, to be specific, for most people.

As a known procrastinator, I vow to file on time this year.

I find the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) website surprisingly helpful on the special deductions this year for the home renovation tax credit and also in answering questions on RRSPs (although the CRA is an easy target for criticism, their website is one of the better websites having an effective online A to Z index).

And with the advent of online tax preparation software, the . . . [more]