A hackathon (hack + marathon) is an event where computer programers, often in conjunction with graphic designers or other related disciplines, get together for marathon sessions to collaborate intensly on a project. There is a specific goal in mind, such as coding specific software or solving a specific problem.

Brooklyn Law School’s Incubator and Policy Clinic recently held its first legal hackathon, a day long event for law students, lawyers and entrepreneurs to help lawyers think more like hackers. One of the organizers said “What I’m hoping to get at today is to figure out how we as lawyers stop . . . [more]

I predict that Windows 8 will not catch on for mid-sized and large law firms. Windows 8 Enterprise is offered and has some interesting features, but the change is so huge that I see little potential for adoption by law firms.

Today our IT Manager showed me his iPad running a virtual instance of Windows 8 sourced from his home Mac. The interface has radical and interesting new flavour that sources apps and reminds me of my iPhone.

Among many others, BBC News has a preview article today. Microsoft also offers a consumer preview that links to a video for . . . [more]

I sometimes help clients wrestle back domain names and corporate social media accounts from disgruntled ex-employees or other unfriendly parties. All businesses and organizations should keep in mind that these are valuable assets. It is important that they are registered in the business name, and not that of an employee or service provider. 

And if use or control of those accounts resides in an employee who is about to become an ex-employee for whatever reason, make sure that control is passed back at the time the employee leaves.

Otherwise, the disgruntled person with control of those can lock you out, . . . [more]

Risk management has been a hot topic in the corporate community for about 10 years, springing mostly from scandals such as Enron, Worldcom and more recently the financial crisis of 2008. The devastation that these events wrought forced boards of directors to devote significant resources to managing risk and to keep abreast of what is happening in the world at large.

When one looks at law firms, we see that attention is paid to risk management only in the micro-sense; controls are put in place to prevent lawyers and staff from stealing trust funds, there are some controls over who . . . [more]

I spent a portion of last week viewing things through 3D glasses. Today, I saw an article from the Daily Commercial News titled Loughborough University researchers in England work on 3-D printing app.

It’s not really printing, of course. But it works somewhat like the inkjet printers used in many homes and offices. In an inkjet, the printhead, containing black and coloured inks, moves back and forth across a sheet of paper. As it moves, tiny nozzles spray droplets of ink, forming printed words and pictures.

But it turns out that the “ink” can be many things.

There have . . . [more]

Last week The Delimiter ran a story about the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) criticizing Australian organizations for their preference to host cloud data within Australia’s borders:

A number of US companies had expressed concerns that various departments in the Australian Government, namely, the Department of Defence, The National Archives of Australia, the Department of Finance and Deregulation, the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and the State of Victoria’s Privacy Commissioner had been sending negative messages about cloud providers based outside the country, implying that “hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails

Should you put a disclaimer on your re-tweets (or on your Twitter profile) that your retweeting does not necessarily mean your endorsement of the content of the message so distributed?

Here is an article suggesting that disclaimers are not a bad idea. Associated Press has recently warned its journalists about this, and suggested that a mere disclaimer may not be enough. The article goes into blogger endorsements under the recent FTC policy on that topic too.

Can readers of your retweet figure out when your ‘no comment’ is an ironic dismissal of the content, rather than a neutral retransmission? Would . . . [more]

Canada Post has begun legal proceedings against Geolytica Inc. (carrying on business as Geocoder.ca), a small Ottawa business that offers a mix of free and commercial geocoding services. The claim is that Geolytica has infringed Canada Post’s copyright in the postal code dataset by offering it for sale. (The full statement of claim is available here, as published on the defendant’s website.) Geolytica, by way of response, asserts on its website that:

Since 2004 we have crowdsourced* the generation of the “Canadian Postal Code Geocoded Database.” When you make a query to geocoder containing for example this

Again this year, the always exciting 60 Sites in 60 Minutes plenary session concluded ABA TECHSHOW 2012. Presenters Natalie Kelly, Dan Pinnington, Catherine Sanders Reach and TECHSHOW Chair Reid Trautz shared variety of serious and funs sites with the packed room. It was a lot of fun to do 60 Sites. For those who could not make it, here is a full list of the sites we presented:

Sites to help you do your job

• ABA Preview of Supreme Court Cases: Everything you want or need to know about what is happening at the Supreme Court, past,

David posted yesterday about Google’s project glass. Sounds pretty cool, and I’ll probably try it at some point. However, I do have to wonder what optometrists think when they see this? Most of us already face excessive amounts of screen time in our working lives. Will we now face never-ending screen time? And what’s the impact of constantly forcing our eyes to re-adjust their focal distance?

I did some sleuthing and I found very little in terms of outraged optometrists. Perhaps it’s too early. There were a couple of blog posts, and I also found this fox news story . . . [more]