I am usually used to picking up on spam from a mile away. But the email message in my box this morning had me pause for a moment–perhaps it was legitimate? A quick search on the web, however, showed it to be a new type of scam, possibly as recent as March. This was the message I received from a company called “Asia DNR”:

Subject: Crosbygroup-Intellectual property rights (To President/CEO)

Dear President/CEO:

We are the domain name registration organization in Asia, which is mainly responsible for domain name registration and dispute. We have some points need to confirm with your

This is not new to Slaw but I certainly want to join the chorus. Two weeks ago I went Mac, and after about a day of adjustment I have never looked back. Even after two weeks I’m finding it odd to sit down at a PC. I love my Mac. Traditionally, the conventional wisdom has been that PCs are better for the “office” and Macs are better for “creative” work. I don’t see it. The Mac is better, period. I’ve known this for awhile but held off on going Mac for a variety of reasons but now I couldn’t be . . . [more]

There are few members of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) who are unfamiliar with Karen MacLaurin. The lively Executive Director of Ottawa’s County of Carleton Law Association for the past 20 years, Karen has been a fixture at CALL conferences for more years than any of us want to remember. She has also been a key contributor to many CALL initiatives. The Copyright Committee, Vendors’ Liaison Committee, Courthouse Librarians’ SIG, as well as other groups, have all benefitted from Karen’s energy and experience. In 2007, Karen was the chair of the program committee for the Ottawa CALL conference. . . . [more]

Seems Slaw isn’t the only website having tech troubles. This from CanLII just now:

We are currently experiencing difficulties with our case law search indexes. Some recent cases may be omitted from your search results. We will inform you as soon as the problem is fixed.

We apologize for the inconveniences.

In response to the changing needs of students and researchers, and the changing information environment, academic libraries are re-evaluating their roles, and planning their futures. As part of this general and ongoing adjustment, there is an opportunity for librarians to capitalize on their expertise in bibliography, to shore up their position at the heart of scholarly communications, and to improve their budgets by supporting in-house academic publishing.

Karla Hahn, Director of the Office of Scholarly Communication at ARL, has done a lot of ground breaking research in this area, and an accessible interview with her on the topic has . . . [more]

A couple of days ago, David Bilinsky blogged on Slaw about the new Client ID rules that have come into force in most jurisdictions in Canada (Slaw: New Client ID Rules). The rules are an attempt by the legal profession’s regulators to try to get the federal government to back off from attempting to undermine solicitor client privilege in pursuit of money launderers.

While I’m no fan of money laundering, I have to say I’m not a fan of the new rules.

The purpose of the rules is to “know your client” in the same ways that banks . . . [more]

Just say “Ahaa!”

If you’re looking to say “no” in Nepali, that is. Jennifer Runner maintains a page that tells you how to issue negation in 520 languages. You tell me I’m exaggerating? I say, “naw nae na mo aowa ne saate and, just to be clear, nou!”

Beyond a simple “no,” she’s got a number of phrases translated into a wild variety of languages. Perhaps the second most useful word to know when you find yourself in parts scarcely known, is “yes.” In which case, this is the page you want, and where you’ll find 520 affirmatives, . . . [more]

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced plans this morning for more stringent regulations for listeria testing.

This represents a reverse move from proposed plans earlier this year. It appears the Maple Leaf episode provided the political will to change the policy.

Change is coming to Canada too. . . . [more]

An English court has recently held that the fact that a defamatory comment has been published online does not mean that anyone has read it. The plaintiff must show that the comment has been accessed as well.

In the English case, Brady v. Norman [2008] EWHC 2481 (QB), described on OutLaw.com, the question was one of qualified privilege, and whether some people without an interest in knowing the information had nevertheless been given access to it.

While this is reminiscent in some ways of the Bangoura case in Ontario, where the only visitors to the online defamation appeared . . . [more]

Expect a version of Firefox capable of running on your mobile. Code named Fennec, the mini-browser is being tested on various platforms in “developer alpha” form, and likely will be available in a more stable alpha early in the new year. You can read the vision statement here. Of course, the iPhone will not be among fox friendly phones, having a developer policy that forbids browsers other than Safari, as Opera learned.

A fennec is a small fox, as you probably knew: see the Flickr collection of photos (cuteness warning!).

If you’re feeling adventurous — and . . . [more]

Well it seems as if Barack Obama might be the first black Twitter president of the United States. The Twitter blog indicates he will be the first to have an official account.

They also indicate an enormous spike in Twitter usage during the election.

Canadian politicians seem slightly ahead of the game in this respect, with our own Prime Minister having an account. But his number of followers, around 2,000 at present, pales in comparison to that of Obama with over 120,000.

Sure, we can cite population differences between Canada and the U.S., or talk about the impact of American . . . [more]

The Australian government has just started a public consultation on the desirability of ratifying the UN E-Communications Convention in that country. The page containing the public notice also offers a link to the consultation paper in PDF or Word.

The American Uniform Law Commission (formerly NCCUSL) has a Committee to study implementation of the Convention in the US. The working group met recently to discuss options for implementation.

In Canada, there appears to be little action since the Uniform Law Conference meeting on the topic in August. Professor Gautrais’ paper on the impact of the Convention on Quebec law . . . [more]