Google announced today they are launching a new plugin for Microsoft Office called Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. The plugin will allow Microsoft Office users to collaborate with each other seamlessly, affording the same benefits Google Docs currently delivers, such as the ability to share and edit documents simultaneously among multiple users, all within the confines of Microsoft Office’s well-known interface. The plugin is available for the Windows versions of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010.

Cloud Connect offers a bridge from Microsoft’s desktop-based productivity software to Google’s cloud-based offerings, and will offer a way for millions of Microsoft . . . [more]

A growing number of recent decisions in courts across the globe have commented on the concerns raised by the explosion in social media use by jurors in trials.

Recently England’s most senior judge commented extensively on the concerns in a trial where an overzealous juror posted details of the case, closing her summary with the question, “Did he do it?”. Now I’ve felt somewhat humbled by having to make life-altering submissions before a panel of twelve of my client’s peers, but pleading my case to the entire internet? That’s an audience that could overwhelm even the savviest advocate.

The judge . . . [more]

Don't re-invent the wheel, use the expert tools to find your information, and look for the interconnectedness of the information that you use.

At last week’s second annual MILOfest, the official Macs In Law Offices conference, I was pleased to have the opportunity to share the results of Clio’s inaugural Apple in Law Offices Survey.

The Apple in Law Offices survey was undertaken as an attempt to quantify what seems to be a rising trend of using Macs, iPads, iPhones, and other Apple products in law offices. While the number of anecdotes of PC users switching to Macs, BlackBerry users opting for iPhones, and iPads being embraced is no doubt on the rise, there is a lack of hard data to . . . [more]

I gave a presentation this morning on social media issues at a TechAlliance breakfast club event. Thought I would share this one slide.

If someone posts something about you or your organization that you don’t like, it’s best to so some sober reflection to consider the best response. Sometimes attempts to suppress things on the internet can backfire and bring more attention to it. It’s called the Streisand effect.

For example, you might be better off ignoring it if the comment is on an obscure place few will see, or if the person who posted it is clearly a . . . [more]

Inspired by Ted Tjaden’s custom search engine that principally queries Canadian law firms, I’ve put together a Google Custom Search Engine for Canadian law blogs. The engine queries only the 249 blogs which are currently on the Canadian law blogs list maintained by Steve Matthews at lawblogs.ca.

As I explain on the page, because Google doesn’t let you rank your CSE results by date, I’ve given you the option of looking at results from the past day, a week, a month, or year.

What would make this really useful, of course, would be an RSS feed for your . . . [more]

A ZDNet article by Denise Howell caught my eye. It is titled Four legal predictions for Foursquare. David Canton mentioned foursquare in this recent post and Connie’s post about RockMelt and its integration of social media inspired me to write.

Foursquareand other location-based social networking tools offer an interesting service: easily find members in your community of interest. The privacy commissioner website offers another perspective on geolocation: unique rsks, mostly by a user not knowing what private information they are sharing.

Denise’s post sums up the legal issues for Foursquare as:

1. Location-savvy privacy standards and penalties
2. Service-side

. . . [more]

The Minister of Culture in the UK hints quite strongly that an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) system would be established to resolve situations where alleged inaccurate personal information is posted to the Internet.

Google’s been speeding things up lately, as you’ll know if you’ve turned on Google Instant for your searches. (See Google’s Instant Search: An Alphabet Book.)

Now Google’s rolling out Instant Preview, which, as the name suggests, lets you get a preview of the site itself. I’m not one of the lucky rolloutees yet, but Google, ever solicitous, has a Google Labs site that will let you play with the new feature. You’ll know when it arrives in your neighbourhood, because a small magnifying glass icon will a appear beside each of your results.

A click on it brings up . . . [more]

On Friday Adobe announced two new products that demonstrate the company is increasingly embracing cloud-based technologies.

The first product, Adobe SendNow, allows you to send large files to a single or multiple recipients. While this is not a new concept, Adobe adds several features that provide value to lawyers. SendNow allows you to set expiry times for how long a document will be available for download, and allows you to confirm that a document has been viewed by the recipient.

The second product, Adobe CreatePDF, is a cloud-based version of Adobe Acrobat that allows you to convert a . . . [more]

new social web browser launched today

Free e-mail services from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others make getting up and running with an e-mail address a trivial effort. The unfortunate side effect of choosing to use a free email address for a law office – or any business for that matter – is that these free e-mail addresses are burdened with a negative perception: price sends a signal, and using a free e-mail service as a core part of your businesses front-office sends the wrong message.

Just a few ago, cost was a reasonable justification for solos and small firms to choose a free e-mail service. The . . . [more]