Yesterday’s brief (approx. 3 hours) Blackberry outage prompted a lot of email traffic on a listserv I read. The debate seemed to be between those who thought that notwithstanding the occasional system-wide failure, Blackberrys were still the preferred mobile device for the legal community, and those who favoured some of the newer devices that have more features and functions. Interestingly, there wasn’t much traffic blaming RIM for the service disruption.

Blackberrys have been in the news a lot lately. There have been news stories about employers cuttting back on employee off-hour use. There was even a story about a hotel . . . [more]

Kevin Kelly is one busy guy. An editor of Wired, he’s also the man behind the Cool Tools blog — and an author of books. But, as is so often the case on Fridays, I’m going to eschew (god I love that word!) books of unremitting text and point you to Kelly’s book of photographs. Asia Grace is a collection of photos taken by Kelly during a protracted ramble through large tracts of that continent, and he’s put the beautiful results on line for our weekend delight.

What you see above is merely one cluster of thumbnails out of a . . . [more]

Now this is useful: Google announced today that you can create forms using spreadsheets in Google Docs. You may find it easiest to open a new spreadsheet, save the blank document, and go immediately to “Share,” where you’ll find the share as a form option. Following that will offer you the chance to create a form using a wizard. All of which is cool. But the kicker is that you can then send this form out via email and your recipients can fill it in without having to log into Google or, indeed, have Google accounts. Their data, sent by . . . [more]

The connection to our usual subject matter is tenuous, but in honour of the biggest day in this year’s US primary schedule, I thought I’d post a few links about the ongoing love-hate relationship the US has with electronic voting machines.

For now, I’ll avoid the conspiracy theories linking machine-maker Diebold to various groups and politicians. But there are many concerns about the technology. Here’s a few to look over while you wait for the results to start rolling in:

• Technology Review writes that the biggest concern is not security but useability – people aren’t sure whether their vote is

Subway is suing Quiznos, more or less, because Quiznos ran a contest in which it asked people to make a video showing that Quiznos’ sandwiches were superior to Subway’s. The resulting entries were posted on the web, of course, and, Subway alleges, made false claims and defamed their product. (The winning video is available in the story in the New York Times — and in my view it’s fairly wretched and wouldn’t have won the $10,000 prize in any contest I ran.) Apparently, the novel issue stems from the fact that Quiznos didn’t make the ads but only instigated . . . [more]

Demo 08, a show for new tech products, is going on right now, and some of the stuff on display looks pretty interesting. Here’s a taste of 10 new items to look out for. Here are a few of my personal favourites.

The Pulse Smartpen allows you to take notes (on a special notebook) while it records what’s going on. You can simply tap your notes to replay what was recorded at the moment you wrote that part. Of course, you can upload both your notes and the recording to your computer as well.

Another technology, this one a . . . [more]

One of the new (‘to me’) blogs I’ve been reading over the past couple months is Scott Karp’s Publishing 2.0.

The purpose of this post is no more than to say that I think Scott’s blog is really great, and one that I have no hesitation in recommending to the Slaw community. Scott’s got a great vision on a number of topics that are relevant to law librarians, legal publishers and 2.0 lawyers alike. From modern journalism (and citizen participation), to blogs, social networks and monetization strategies for web media, the topic list is fantastic.

We all have a . . . [more]

Further to Simon’s post, a study of the Legal Writing professorate in the US, and some speculation on how gender discrimination influences its status.

Liemer, Susan and Temple, Hollee, “Did Your Legal Writing Professor Go to Harvard?: The Credentials of Legal Writing Faculty at Hiring Time” . Brandeis Law Journal, Forthcoming Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1033477

Interestingly, though the survey discusses the fact that teachers of legal writing have, in aggregate, much more professional experience than their ‘doctrinal’ tenure-track colleagues, the study does not pick up on the professional-academic schism. The article contains many useful references to the literature on . . . [more]

Every once in a while I feel the need to rep-re-sent the East Coast on Slaw and the following case which was heard at the SCC on Wednesday of this week (Jan 23) does that; but it also raises an interesting question that has broader implications. Simply put, can a commercial fishing license be defined as property under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act? Here is a story about the case from the local paper. And the summary from the SCCRoyal Bank of Canada v. Saulnier.

A simplified synopsis is if the court rules in favour of the Royal . . . [more]

What effects has the internet had on the information seeking behaviors of younger people? Ever heard of ‘Horizontal Information Seeking’ and ‘Squirreling behaviour’? Here is the first longitudinal study of the question, by the British Library and University College London. Also, there is reaction from Eric Lease Morgan and 3 Quarks Daily. . . . [more]

As you may have already heard:

1. You can now QuickCite statutes; and
2. Solicitor Forms & Precedents are now available through Quicklaw.

I haven’t had much of an opportunity to explore the statutory QuickCite function yet, but from my first quick glance it seems like a welcome addition. You can access this feature when viewing a particular statutory provision by clicking on the QuickCite symbol, which looks like this: 

As for the scope of its coverage, according to the Source Information entry, “Federal and provincial statutory references from the last revisions, cited in case law decided from [1 January] . . . [more]

Today our American cousins celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in honour of Dr. King who spoke out for civil rights. It is no surprise that many Canadians respect the man and his message, and also pay homage to him.

A few links of interest:

• Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service – official U.S. government website
• Proclamation – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – City of Toronto 2008 proclamation
• Leaders like King bring message of hope – column by Kevin Little, The ChronicleHerald (Halifax)

Compare these thoughts–

from the City of Toronto 2008 proclamation:

The people of Toronto are