On Tuesday Mozilla released Ubiquity, an amazing command-based interface for navigating the Web and creating mashups. Check out the video below. -M
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Recently, the LSTech e-mail list participants were asked whether or not they had posted material on YouTube. Many had, and Eva was nice enough to document that conversation on her blog, so that you can quickly go look at the videos of those who responded.
For those of you who haven't posted material on YouTube but are thinking about it, I want to highlight a few resources from see3 communications, a group that works with nonprofits to "create compelling visual media and Internet marketing initiatives." A few articles for you to start with include:
But what I've listed here is only the beginning of what you can find on see3 communications' blog. If you've got the time, I'd recommend paging through all of the posts that they've tagged with "video." (Thanks to Jon Stahl for pointing this group out.) - K
As Kate mentioned in an earlier post, I spent most of last week in Johannesburg, South Africa on a site visit with the Southern Africa Litigation Center, which is using the Pro Bono Net template to support their work providing technical legal assistance and litigation support to advocates in the region who are working on media defense and freedom of expression issues. Having spent nearly two years in Southern Africa, as a student, teacher, legal advocate and law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, I was excited to reconnect with friends and colleagues and hear about the progress that has been made since I was last there.
Overall I was impressed by the advances made in the legal services sector (having one of the finest constitutions in the world helps). But one area that has yet to come into its own is meaningful access to legal information, which was of course part of the reason for my visit. To that end, I wanted to share a resource that has great potential for developing regions such as Southern Africa: the Rule of Law Resource Center. An initiative of LexisNexis, the Rule of Law Resource Center represents "the single largest, most credible and authoritative collection of Rule of Law resources on the internet."
Among the resources highlighted in the collection is an article by Daniel Poulin entitled "Open access to law in developing countries." Another is an article by Graham Greenleaf called "Legal Information Institutes and the Free Access to Law Movement." And finally, a blog post from Out of the Jungle, which defends the practice of open access archiving. What each of these resources highlights is the need for opening access to free legal information and developing sustainable models for the collection and dissemination of legal information, including a call for more attention to developing countries where the need is arguably the greatest.
I would encourage all of you to take some time to explore these resources. Not only do they provide a compelling framework for more meaningful access to legal information in other countries, they may also teach you something about your own work and how we might provide better access to free legal information in our community. -M
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, over 5 million low-income seniors, disabled veterans, and others with disabilities have not yet filed for their stimulus payment and are at risk of missing out on their payments. Nationally, this amounts to over $1,685,319,300. (Statewide, county, and city break downs are available, too.) October 15 is the last day to file in order to receive a stimulus payment. - K
On August 22, 2008, technola made the Wordpress Blogs of the Day, which features WordPress.com blogs that have gained the most popularity. It's not quite Alltop, but not a bad showing among the other 3,904,806 or so Wordpress.com blogs. -M
On Tuesday, August 26, TechSoup is hosting a one-hour webinar about implementing online surveys. - K
Many in the legal aid community have fallen in love with Battlestar Gallatica, Doctor Who, and other recent sci-fi shows but may not have a social network that let's them know when there is a new must-see miniseries. So in an effort to help, technola presents Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. (Yes, for those of you who are really, really into sci-fi, this was released a while ago, but I was only able to watch it last weekend.)
Dr. Horrible is a short, three-part "supervillian musical" created by Joss Whedon (the producer of Firefly and Buffy) and his brothers during the television writers' strike. It stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day. For those of you who loved Firefly and Serenity, I highly recommend taking a look. - K
If you heard about the recent ruling that said that open source licensors are entitled to copyright infringement relief and want to learn more, The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU had a short segment that explained this ruling's importance. - K
Lately, I've been running across stories about computer security that run the gamut from trivial to terrifying. For example:
The good news is that TechSoup.org is currently putting on a Special Security Event, so you can learn about what you need to do to protect yourself. - K
Congratulations to Marnie Webb for making The Nonprofit Times' list of The 2008 NPT Power & Influence TOP 50. Marnie is one of the CEO's at TechSoup and has been a huge force behind NetSquared, which is a forum for discussing the web's social tools. - K
It's a simple fact: no one feels like they have enough time to do everything that they want to do. Plenty of time managers have systems guaranteed to help us be more effective and efficient, but usually it means that we have to make a huge change to how we currently work. And change isn't easy, especially if you feel like you already are struggling to keep you head above water.
Alison Paul, who manages to cram an amazing amount into each day, passed along a great article that points out 25 Painless Ways to Free Up an Hour a Day for Your Goals. While each of these requires you to change, most of them are small changes -- stop checking your e-mail constantly, consolidate errands, or watch less TV -- and mean that you'll free up some of your time to do what you really want to do. Granted the items that will make the most difference, for example re-examining your priorities or saying "no", are slightly more difficult. But maybe, as a reward for getting things done and being more efficient, your boss might support the idea letting your leave early if you finish your essential work?
And for those of you who are like me and just can't get up early, I found a post in the comments that highlights How to Wake Up Early, Refreshed, and Excited. Evidently, hitting snooze repeatedly is not the first step. - K
MSNBC features a story about university presidents at some well-known schools who are encouraging the nation to re-examine establishing a legal drinking age of 21. Known as the Amethyst Initiative, this group is concerned about the level of binge drinking on college campuses and believe that setting the age at 21 hasn't worked.
As I've been thinking about this issue tonight, I've been wondering about what legal aid should contribute to this debate. What effect would lowering the drinking age have on our client communities? Would it have any at all? I'd love to hear your thoughts, which you can leave in the comments. - K
Matthew's gone to Johannesburg, South Africa for the next week, and he's instructed me to keep you informed about the high points in both the legal aid and technology worlds while he's away. (I told him no promises, but I'd try.)
What Matthew's trip really means, however, is that he's left me in charge of technola for the next week. Fortunately, for those of you who have come to know and love this blog, I don't have any radical changes in mind -- after all, Matthew will be back next week. But you may notice a little mission creep as I have a few posts in mind that go a bit further afield. Stay tuned. - K
The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was one of the first foundations to encourage grantees to evaluate the outcomes of their projects. To that end, they have developed a tremendous library of free resources intended to help programs plan and implement those evaluations.
For those of you trying to grasp the basic tenets of evaluation, take a look at their Evaluation Toolkit, which covers planning, budgeting, and managing an evaluation. After that, if you still need more information, check out The Evaluation Handbook and The Logic Model Development Guide. - K
An excellent article by Lisa Herrod on A List Apart, which discusses the challenges of (and provides some solutions for) delivering better user experiences for the Deaf. -M
I've just discovered Alefo, a fairly new (pre-beta) "startpage" solution that's similar in function to iGoogle and Netvibes, but allows you to essentially "cut and paste" portions of websites that you want to include on your startpage and updates the content dynamically. No more hunting down RSS feeds and widgets (although you can add those too) or browsing multiple sites for content each day. With Alefo, you can just "drag and drop" your way to a truly custom start page, complete with tabs for different topics. -M
Hamster Dance. Star Wars Kid. All Your Base Are Belong To Us. All went viral and were viewed by millions. But as it turns out, going viral might not be all that it is cracked up to be. You do get the immediate fame, but your site, project, or product may not gain a lasting following according to The Word of Mouth Manual - Volume II from Dave Balter. You would do better building a community of loyal followers even if it takes longer.
Dave has a few other nuggets to share.
Jim McMillan at the National Center for State Courts posted a brief article on virtual machine software and his experience with it. He's included links to resources that explain what virtual machine software is and why you'd want to use it. - K
We've blogged about Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox in the past, but this week's post on the 10 Best Application UIs of 2008 is worthy of special attention. Among other insights, Nielsen argues that "[a]pplications are about features, but they are also about connecting with users. Several [winning] applications explicitly targeted emotional design that puts users at ease and projects a sense of playfulness." -M
On Saturday, The New York Times was brave enough to say what we all know: Passwords are inherently insecure. And this insecurity can't be blamed on the users who write passwords down and post them on their computer monitors, use one of the common passwords, or don't change their passwords often enough. Even if users followed these basic rules, passwords still wouldn't work because the log-on procedure itself is risky due to phishing, keystroke logging, and other security threats.
While the article suggests using an alternative that depends on cryptography instead of mnemonics, currently it looks like there isn't a good solution for this problem. (For those of you who are suggesting biometrics, fingerprints aren't as secure as you would think: Burn Notice taught me that a copy of the fingerprint is left on the scanner and can be pulled off with Play-Doh to be used again.)
So since it looks like it will be a while until there is an accepted replacement for passwords, I've pulled together some resources to help you educate your users about password security.
The Social Security Administration has recently launched a set of online retirement planning tools. These tools can help you or your clients estimate benefits, learn about Social Security programs, and apply for benefits.
Thanks to the LSNC Advocate Feed for pointing this out. - K
The Legal Services Corporation and LexisNexis have announced the launch of the HotDocs® software donation program:
The new donation program will strengthen the important national online document assembly project that LexisNexis, LSC and the State Justice Institute have nurtured to provide access to justice for low-income Americans. LSC initiated that program, known as National Public Automated Documents Online (NPADO), in 2001 with a grant to the Ohio State Legal Services Association that developed a system in which legal aid programs use HotDocs® Professional Edition to create easy-to-use guided document assembly interviews from existing forms. Interviews are then uploaded to a national server, allowing users to assemble professional-looking legal documents.
Any LSC or state IOLTA funded legal services organization can request a donation using the program's website. -M
An ABA Journal article about the Standing Committee on The Delivery of Legal Services hearings on the delivery of legal services through technology at the ABA Annual Meeting in New York City. -M
While Law Professor Blogs professes to be "a network of web logs ("blogs") designed from the ground-up to assist law professors in their scholarship and teaching," I've found them to be a great source of legal information for advocates of all stripes. Here are a few blogs in the network that may be of interest to legal aid and public interest advocates:
For the full list, visit lawprofessorblogs.com. -M
Ever visit a website and wonder "who is hosting this"? Check out Who is Hosting This?, a free website that tells you who hosts any domain (a Firefox bookmarklet and plugin are also available here). If instead you find yourself asking "who owns this"?, try dwhois.net, a simple, fast whois lookup service. -M
I happened upon another one of those sites that both scares and intrigues me: CriminalSearches.com. Now you can search for people's criminal histories for free. While a site like this could be helpful for legal aid attorneys who want to do a quick search on opposing parties, the New York Times points out how the site could actually prove to be a problem for both those leaving jail and attempting to start anew as well as the general public. Thanks to Doc Mara for pointing this out. - K
Are you still trying to convince staff that there are certain websites that they don't need to look at while at work? You know, the sites where they are likely to pick up a nasty little virus and make a huge mess that you are going to be responsible for cleaning up? Well, McAfee feels your pain. To help with your ongoing efforts to educate your co-workers, they dug in and researched the most dangerous websites. You can check out their report for the full details, but it looks like you need to focus on keeping your staff away from .hk, .ch, and .info. - K
LSC recently released its 2007 Fact Book, which contains a wealth of information on client demographics, private attorney involvement and staffing at LSC-funded organizations. According the Fact Book, there were 116 full-time IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations in 2007, with an average salary of $50,959 (comparable to that of a Staff Attorney at $51,680).
Only 30% of IT Managers were women, which is just slightly higher than the overall percentage of women in professional IT industry positions (26% in 2007, according to the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology). Comparatively, women at LSC-funded organizations represented approximately 82% of Paralegals, 67% of Staff Attorneys, 60% of Supervising Attorneys, 54% of Managing Attorneys, 48% of Deputy Directors, and (notice a trend here?) 32% of Executive Directors.
With regards to race, approximately 62% of IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations in 2007 were Caucasian, 14% African American, 14% Latino, 8% Asian/Pacific Islander and 3% Native American. In 2004, African Americans made up approximately 9% of the overall professional IT workforce, Asians 9% and Latinos just under 6% (NCWIT 2007 Scorecard). Finally, about 8% of IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations were attorneys and their average number of years in the profession was 13.3 (3.3 years longer than the average Staff Attorney and 4.9 years less than the average Supervising Attorney). -M
By now, you should know that you can't just wander around the Web picking any ol' image to use as you please. You usually need to have permission first, and in a lot of cases, that permission costs money.
But don't fret, you can still find free images online. In fact, any work created by the US Government can't be copyrighted, and Uncle Sam has been kind enough to make several public domain image collections available for the public to use. For example:
And there are many more--.govWatch lists what they consider the top thirteen and does a later post on the newly updated NASA collection.
Of course, before using any of these images check that they are in public domain. Especially on the National Archives site, you can run up against some donated works that do have copyright restrictions. - K
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