From time to time fellow Slawyers wax poetically about the paperless office (or the not-so-paperless-office). Seems to me most of us view it as the unattainable holy grail. However, while it is hard for most large firms to envision making the break away from all of the paper we generate, I think it is something we all owe in an increasingly environmentally conscious world.

Remember the promises of the new technology: three or four day work weeks; robotic servants cleaning our houses and serving us daily; and then again, the Paperless Office. The new technologies — the personal computers, personal . . . [more]

My post about Google’s new favicon got me thinking: do law firms use favicons, and if so, how good are they?

A completely unscientific survey of “quite a few” firm websites tells me that only a small minority of law firms make use of this branding opportunity — and those that do have, by and large, really weak favicons.

Herewith five that I came up with:

This is a weak one. It’s the Cassels logo, seen to the right, in miniature. But at 16 x 16 pixels, the thing just doesn’t translate well: the shape is unclear and the colours

You may have noticed that Google has a new favicon, that little graphic that appears ahead of a site’s URL in a browser’s location field. (Slaw has a white ‘sl’ in a blue square, for instance.) Turns out that Google wasn’t changing for the sake of change, but in order to accommodate the various new modalities that now use browsers — PDAs, iPhones, cell phones etc. They’re in the hunt for one that will scale well and look good in various contexts.

The ones they’re testing now belong to this family:

As you might imagine, choosing a new mini-logo for . . . [more]

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society has been elevated from a Harvard Law initiative to a University-wide research centre. Now, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

From the story:

“The Berkman Center’s focus on advancing the public interest at the intersections of law and technology, civic engagement, and international development, has already created a community of scholars from across the University,” said Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman. “The elevation to a University-wide initiative is a natural evolution and we are eager to create new networks of interaction on a University-wide basis with the intent

It’s a trio of trills today.

• First up is a fillip of finches. Alek Komarnitsky has set up a web cam pointed at a nest of baby finches. The image is refreshed every few seconds, which makes BirdCam even more fun than his other enterprise, which is titled “Watching Grass Grow – The Most Boring Website in the World” Of course, you may prefer the silence of the lawn to the imagined tweets of baby finches. You can also let Alek’s site play you some bluegrass music while you contemplate the chicks or chickweed.
• Now for some real sound. Sort

We’ve featured Google graphics before, but this one this morning is sensational.

. . . [more]

Following along from last month’s exchanges at the Writers’ Union, a couple of interesting speculative pieces on what technology will do to book publishing and to libraries.

The Economist has a piece this week from Book Expo America on Publishers worry as new technologies transform their industry
. I liked the last line, which echoes what I said to the Writers’ Union:

Publishing has only two indispensable participants: authors and readers. As with music, any technology that brings these two groups closer makes the whole industry more efficient—but hurts those who benefit from the distance between them.

But . . . [more]

A friend raises an interesting question for the Slaw community:

Imagine that you have a ten person lawyer firm (+ support staff) that needs to move to matter-centric DM. What choices would such a firm have, other than the conventional (and somewhat pricey) legal DM vendors (i.e. OpenText and Interwoven), whose work is good but doesn’t quite scale this small.

Does anyone know whether there is a matter-centric DM based on open source or web services, keeping in mind standard law firm security and confidentiality requirements. Does anyone have any novel ideas or suggestions? . . . [more]

Two recent announcements show that Lexis has identified India as a significant market for future sales. This is all before the Indian market is fully opened up for foreign law firms, of course, when there will be an explosion of demand for access to foreign law.

LexisNexis, as part of its global expansion strategy, aims to be the number one print and electronic, legal, tax and regulatory publisher in India. LexisNexis has offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. To this end, a senior executive, John Atkinson has been named Managing Director for LexisNexis Butterworths India, to be based . . . [more]

It’s a sad day today. It seems that the license to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song will not be renewed by the CBC. From the composer’s release:

The CBC has been offered a new license on terms that are virtually identical to those that have existed for the past decade (the cost to CBC to use the theme is approximately $500.00 for each game broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada). However, the CBC has chosen to move in a new direction.

Given Annette’s post earlier today, do you sense a trend? Aren’t the CBC supposed to . . . [more]

Another Canadian flagship on the chopping block.

Lend your voice!

http://savecbcorchestra.com/petition

http://www.standonguardforcbc.ca . . . [more]

Mindmaps can be useful tools, when hierarchical arrangements don’t get at the scope of an idea or plan. (See Mind42, MindMaps Online, Thinkature, and Free Mind for some posts about mindmaps here on Slaw.) But it can be tedious to put the players on the field. Text2Mindmap is an online application that creates an online mindmap (in Flash) from a simple text outline. You’re then free to do some modest rearranging and styling of the components — though there’s as yet no ability to move an element from one node to another, for instance. This is a . . . [more]