On April 17, 2008 IT World Canada published “The 10 Best Technology Bloggers in Canada” a list compiled by ComputerWorld Canada editor Shane Schick [currently accessible; may require free registration later to view].

Congratulations to Rob Hyndman of Hyndman Law for being included. Schick’s rationale for selecting him:

The Toronto-based lawyer works with both vendors and corporate enterprises to untangle the intricate contractual issues that come up in their relationships. His interest in IT is best expressed by a quote, attributed to Gregory Benford, that appears at the top of his home page: “Any technology distinguishable

Olivier Charbonneau, bibliothécaire professionnel et chercheur à l’Université Concordia, and blogger behind the excellent CultureLibre.ca, posts about a petition started by Le député provincial de Mercier à Montréal, Daniel Turp, aiming to persuade ICANN to grant Quebec the top level domain designation “dot qc.”

Apparently the Deputy discovered that the semi-autonomous regions of Catalan and Greenland have their own dot suffixes.

The full list of top level domains is available on the IANA site. .GL, Greenland’s code is listed as a “country code”; while .CAT is said to be “sponsored” and “Reserved for the Catalan linguistic and cultural . . . [more]

The Internet is getting big and ugly. While our personal experience is still what we make of it, web-culture is seldom more than a reflection of our greater society. We take the good along with the bad; unfortunately, when it comes to web marketing, things don’t appear to be shaping up much different.

How bad is it? I recently came across this April 9th post by Steve Rubel that drives the point home: “94% of all email is spam, 64% of all English language blogs are splogs, and click fraud for sponsored links rose by 15% last year alone. Can . . . [more]

Apparently the University of Chicago Law School has stopped giving students access to the internet in classrooms, at least on an “experimental basis,” according to the Dean. Inside Higher Ed has the story on the situation, first broken by the blog Above The Law. Students are not happy about it, according to reports.

This seems to be the first time a law school has shut off wireless connectivity as a matter of policy.

I’ve just finished teaching a law school course and I’d have to say that, looked at from the other side, there are few if any good . . . [more]

It’s a science fillip this Friday and I’ve got three mildly related stories for your delectation.

1. The Complete Works of Charles Darwin is/are online. Here you’ll find “Darwin’s complete publications, thousands of handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published; also hundreds of supplementary works: biographies, obituaries, reviews, reference works and more.” You might want to take a look at the celebrated Voyages of The Adventure and Beagle — and you can, both in a scan of the original work and in the plain text version alongside. Or you may want to give your eyes . . . [more]

A legal low-tech note for a Friday — which is still law and technology and, so, fit meat for Slaw:

The Premier of Ontario will announce today that a regulation taking effect immediately will undo any existing bans on the use of clotheslines by homeowners and preclude any such bans in the future. The regulation, which hasn’t yet made it to the e-laws site, is made pursuant to the Energy Conservation Leadership Act, 2006, S.O. 2006, c.3, Schedule A:

s.3(2) A person is permitted to use designated goods, services and technologies in such circumstances as may be prescribed, despite

John Ruggie, appointed UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on business and human rights has recently released his report, “Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights.” [PDF]

From the summary:

Responding to the invitation by the Human Rights Council for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises to submit his views and recommendations for its consideration, this report presents a conceptual and policy framework to anchor the business and human rights debate, and to help guide all relevant actors. The framework comprises

Google News has added a quotation feature. According to the Google News Blog, entering a person’s name into the News search box will bring up a recent quote above the search results — provided, of course, that person has been quoted by an indexed news source. If you then click on the highlighted name of the person (beside the lead quote) you’ll go to a page full of quotes from that speaker.

Here, for instance, is a bit from the 117 quotations from Stephen Harper:

It seems that Google News can recognize a person’s name. At least, a search . . . [more]

I’ve happened on a paper published last year by Graham Greenleaf, Philip Chung and Andrew Mowbray, Co-Directors of AustLII & WorldLII, “Emerging Global Networks for Free Access to Law: WorldLII’s Strategies 2002-2005” on SCRIPT-ed – A Journal of Law, Technology & Society.

SCRIPT-ed is an online journal out of the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh, and is associated with the AHRC Centre for Research in Intellectual Property and Technology Law there. . . . [more]

In recognition of National Library Week, Entertainment Weekly has posted a photo gallery of movie scenes featuring libraries.

Thanks to Nicole Engard for first spotting it.

 Enjoy! . . . [more]

A big congratulations to the BC Courthouse Library Society for launching a new series of legal research video tutorials, including a new YouTube channel for sharing these gems via the firm Intranet!

This announcement comes in the wake of VALL’s fantastic screencasting workshop put on by the BCCLS’s Alex McNeur & Drew Jackson a few weeks back. I hope a few law firms (especially in BC) will take advantage & re-publish these internally. It doesn’t get much easier than cut-n-paste!

Please drop by & check it out. Sample below:

Congratulations to Drew, Alex and everyone at BCCLS! . . . [more]

I am a total sucker for this kind of stuff.

This week is National Library Week for our American friends.

Many commercial database vendors and aggregators are marking the occasion by providing temporary free access to their products.

For example:

• Greenwood Publishing is providing free access to database products as diverse as Praeger Security International Online, Reader’s Advisor Online and ARBAOnline (thousand of reviews of reference works). You have to register first.
• Gale is allowing free access to a long list of popular and academic collections like Literature Criticism Online, Science Resource Center, and the Gale Virtual Reference Library