Lots of people turn to classified ad websites such as Craigslist and Kijiji to find movers to help them with small moves. But, from the lists and lists of movers, how can you tell who are honest? And if you do get ripped off, where can you turn? Here is a checklist of sorts. . . . [more]

I’ve been getting a daily blast of legal-tech news from Lexology, having ticked the IP, IT etc. boxes and those for Canada, the U.S. and U.K. Today, there was a single item under the “Canada” banner: “Employers need to be careful to avoid waiving the protections of written computer and email policies” from the firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, a name I’m not familiar with — but then I’m not exactly up on them all. The telltale was the mention of the 9th Circuit Court and then “the Ontario Police Department.” Ah. No . . . [more]

There’s a good overview of four online presentation tools — “PowerPoints” in the clouds — over at ReadWriteWeb. We’ve already looked at Zoho Show 2.0 here on Slaw, and everyone should be familiar with what Google Docs can do in that respect (not much). A new player, 280 Slides, is starting to make online son et lumière look really interesting: you can pluck images out of Flickr and you can download your finished presentation to PowerPoint 2007 format, if you wish.

But I have to say that SlideRocket is the one to watch. Still in closed beta (I’m . . . [more]

One of my first efforts as Crosby Group has been evaluating the B.C. legislation tracking/research service Quickscribe. An excerpt of the press release is below. I hope you find this report useful. I would love to hear your comments!

Quickscribe: A Comparison and Evaluation Report (White Paper) Released

[June 26, 2008] A new white paper comparing British Columbia legislative tracking services was released today by Crosby Group Consulting. The report titled, Quickscribe: A Comparison and Evaluation Report, was commissioned by Stem Legal Web Enterprises Inc. to objectively identify key differences between Quickscribe Services Inc. and the BC government

An odd sort of an announcement today about a White Paper on the implications of Web 2.0 for the legal profession, but without any indication how to find the white paper.

Here is the press release:

Collaborative Network Addresses Emerging Legal Issues

2008-06-26 21:58:06 –

– nGenera, together with California law firm Folger, Levin & Kahn, and Legal OnRamp, today announced that they had collaborated to use a wiki tool to author a sophisticated white paper on legal issues presented by new Internet technologies, including wikis themselves. . . . [more]

The popular social network platform Facebook today added the ability to comment on items in the “mini-feed” of news in each individual’s profile. Mashable compares this to the functionality of the new platform FriendFeed.

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What do you think about this new feature? Can Facebook continue to add features of other networks, and become everything to everyone? At what point will it become so unfocussed that no one will use it?

Hat tip to David Tallan for catching the story earlier today.

[This blog post is recreation of a post from earlier today that was lost in a technical . . . [more]

Or just around the corner. Adobe today announced the shipping availability of the Adobe Acrobat 9 product line. Acrobat 9 apparently delivers native support for Adobe Flash technology, the ability to unify content in rich PDF Portfolios and PDF document co-navigation capabilities. . . . [more]

Here it is again: the LLRX tour d’horizon of gadgetry, “60 Gadgets in 60 Minutes” by Ed Vawter, Barbara Fullerton and Dina Dreifuerst. From the frivolous (marshmallow gun) to the somewhat less frivolous (a Cadillac automobile), the gadget gamut is certain to offer you something that you just can’t live without — even if only for ten seconds, until rational thought kicks in again.

It’s offered as an iPaper set of slides and as a PDF and PowerPoint presentation suitable for downloading and viewing while you let your “sweat analysing shirt” do its work. . . . [more]

About a year ago founders Kevin Lai and Travis Fielding unveiled the website housing123.com, a mash-up between the Canadian Real Estate Association’s Multiple Listings Service and Google Maps. Their service allowed website visitors to view housing sales on a map rather than having to sort through pages and pages of listings on the regular MLS site.

Lai and Fielding received a cease and desist letter from CREA’s legal counsel and decided to close the site effective June 15th. There is some indication on their blog that they may re-open the site with user contributed property listings.

Blog TO’s . . . [more]

The AALL’s Computing Services Special Interest Section (CS-SIS — which does come off sounding a whole lot like our wholly different CSIS, no?) is offering a free online 5-week course for law librarians to introduce them to the new web technologies. The course will take a couple of hours a week, and the weekly outline looks like this:

• Week 1: Blogs & RSS
• Week 2: Wikis
• Week 3: Social Networking and Second Life
• Week 4: Flickr & Social Bookmarking
• Week 5: Next Steps: Web 2.0 @ Your Library

You can get more info — and sign up — at . . . [more]

Thanks to our friends at Spada’s new Swordplay site for links to an article at the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology on INFORMATION INFLATION: CAN THE LEGAL SYSTEM ADAPT which asks, how do vast quantities of new writing forms challenge the legal profession, and how should lawyers adapt?

It’s written by George L. Paul, a partner in Lewis and Roca, LLP and Jason R. Baron, Director of Litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.

The piece is well worth your attention. . . . [more]

1-800-4664-411 equals 1-800-GOOG-411

Okay dear readers, another number to put on your mobile’s autodial. Google 411 launched in Canada today.

Dial 1-800-GOOG-411 to connect to a computer armed with voice recognition software.

The automated voice will ask for city and province. A voice menu runs you through finding the information you’re looking for ((Business information only – they won’t offer residential service)).

I asked for Indian restaurants in Toronto and got decent recommendations with location details and an opportunity to connect by phone. . . . [more]