Technola : Public Interest Law & Technology Updates & Commentary : Matthew Burnett & Kate Bladow : Tech Advice for the Non-Profit Legal Sector

Content comes to website coordinators in many formats, such as Word or PDF. This content must be "fixed" before it's posted, a process that usually consists of converting the document to plain text or HTML and then making the document look like the original again. Speaking from too much experience, this process is tedious but necessary. If not done, the content will be poorly presented and difficult to use.

Caroline Robinson, the Website Coordinator for MassLegalHelp.org at Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, pointed out a tool that she uses to simplify this process: HTML Tidy Online. Instead of combing through HTML code to clean up the tags or converting the document to plain text and then reformatting it, she pastes HTML code into HTML Tidy Online, and the tool cleans it up for her, saving valuable time. - K

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On Tuesday NPR announced the launch of their new API, which allows users to easily generate custom API calls using an innovative query generator. The API can also return results in RSS, MediaRSS, JSON, Atom and through HTML and JavaScript widgets. For more background visit the Inside NPR.org blog or (for a more critical perspective) check out the related articles on TechCrunch and Mashable.com.

And for those unfamiliar with APIs, here's a nice overview. Examples? Pro Bono Net uses an API to share organizational data from the National Pro Bono Opportunities Guide with the ABA Second Season of Service's Volunteer Opportunity Search Engine, which also includes volunteer opportunities from the ABA National Directory of Law-Related Programs and Idealist.org. This same technology is being piloted to share resources between statewide advocates sites that are built on different templates and into case management systems so that advocates have ready access to resources that are automatically filtered based on a client's legal problem. -M

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I'm pretty certain that most of the millions of people online do not stop on a regular basis to think about what makes the Internet work. Most of them probably aren't curious about the intricate details of the Internet Protocol, even when they can't connect to the Internet. They leave these important details to you -- the techie -- to figure out for them. So where do you turn to demystify all of those TLAs? (That's three letter acronyms for those of you who don't live a stone's throw from Washington, DC.) Well, for DNS and SMTP, head over to Electric Embers. They've published DNS and SMTP for Internet Technology Integrators: Concepts, Tools and Tricks, which appears to be an easy-to-read introduction to the protocols. - K

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Are you still confused by words like "RSS," "feeds," and "news reader"? Well, I've got a podcast for you: This week Small Biz Tech Girl, who is part of the Quick 'N Dirty Tips network, did a great five minute podcast about RSS and Other Ways to Syndicate Content. - K

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