This post was written by Tara Calisham: "How the heck did I miss this? Google announced last week that now when you import files into Google Docs (JPEG, GIF, PNG, or PDF) you have the option of running optical character recognition on them. This is really huge; this means that instead of just static files, you'll be able to upload sets of words with which you can do further work. There appear to be some limits on what you can upload/convert (more about that shortly) but I find this really exciting..."

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Source: Research Buzz, 29 June 2010. © 2006-2010 ResearchBuzz, reproduced with permission of the author

This post was written by Richard Georges: "Google: Don't upgrade Office, add Docs | Beyond Binary - CNET News. Microsoft makes a lot of money selling software. The Office franchise is very familiar to lawyers who have largely adopted Microsoft Word as a standard word processing system. Those of us who grew up with WordPerfect still use it; but, we are always having to send copies of documents in Word format to other lawyers. Google Docs is a web based document processing system that can be used in conjunction with Word to collaborate on documents, and to make documents available to other lawyers without worrying about software compatibility..."

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Source: Future Lawyer, 11 May 2010. © 1996-2010, Richard M. Georges, reproduced with permission of the author.

Podcast description from the site: "From the Sedona Conference on e-discovery to the latest features of Office 2010, the hot technology topic of the day is collaboration. However, when most lawyers think of collaboration tools, their lists end after email and "track changes." What are the real stories of collaboration technology in 2010? In this episode,  co-hosts Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell discuss the current state of affairs in collaboration tools for lawyers and the many ways these tools can benefit your practice. After you listen, be sure to check out Tom & Dennis' co-blog and book by the same name, The Lawyers Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Bill4Time.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:22 -- 24.8MB)

Active links and podcast are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Legal Talk Network, 16 March 2010. © 2010 · Legal Talk Network. Reproduced with permission of Scott R. Hess.

From the site: "We're at the time of year where everyone likes to make and share lists. Some new types of Internet tools let lawyers share useful lists of information in easier and more powerful ways. In this new episode of the Kennedy-Mighell Report, co-hosts Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell discuss why Twitter Lists, bookmark lists, OPML lists and other sharable lists should be making their way onto your list soon.  After you listen, be sure to check out Tom & Dennis' co-blog and book by the same name, The Lawyers Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies.

Special Thanks to our sponsor, Bill4Time

>Show Notes Wiki

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:40 -- 28.1MB)

Related Podcasts

• October 7, 2009 -- Bulls and Bears: Lawyers Using Social Media
• August 24, 2009 -- Online Reputation Management
• July 6, 2009 -- What Technology is Dead Today?
• April 16, 2009 -- Online Interference in the Jury Box
• April 14, 2009 -- ABA TECHSHOW in Review

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Legal Talk Network, 17 November 2009

Posted by Joe Hodnicki: "In What Problems Does Google Wave Solve, Daniel Tanner writes "I believe that people who don't see what Google Wave [Wave's About Page] is for are simply looking at it from the wrong angle. ... It's not a geek/hacker tool or a social media tool." Google Wave is built for the corporate environment. "Google calls wave an 'online tool for real-time communication and collaboration'" writes Tanner. "The way Google should have advertised Wave is: 'it solves the problems with email.'" Which problems? Tanner identifies seven:

• Collaborating on a piece of text
• Adding new people to the conversation
• Keeping added people added
• Attaching files
• Multiple conversation branches
• Small corrections
• Email to IM to Email

Even at this very early stage in Wave's development, Tanner thinks it is an excellent tool. Hat tip to Beyond Search."

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Law Librarian Blog, 18 October 2009

In the news: "Mark Gerow of Fenwick & West describes 10 ways you can use Microsoft SharePoint to improve collaboration, streamline processes, communicate more effectively with your clients and help your attorneys and colleagues find the information and documents they need more quickly and easily."

SharePoint can:

1. REPLACE YOUR DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

2. AUTOMATE NEW BUSINESS INTAKE

3. SEARCH ACROSS ALL YOUR SYSTEMS

4. ENCOURAGE 'COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST' USING MY SITES

5. CREATE A FIRMWIDE CALENDAR

6. CREATE A PRACTICE GROUP WIKI

7. COLLABORATE WITH CLIENTS USING EXTRANETS

8. MANAGE PROJECTS

9. DISPLAY 'KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS'

10. CREATE A 'MASHUP'

Read full text

Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 28 July 2009. Copyright 2008.  ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe  <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.

Law Practice Today's June 2009 issue focuses on working remotely. Features include:

Mobile Technology: Tools for Practicing Law from Wherever You Want to Be

By Tom Mighell - From BlackBerrys to netbooks, here are some tips to help you choose the mobile devices right for you.

Is It Time for Your Firm to Reconsider Remote Access?

By Allison C. Shields - Many attorneys find that working remotely provides a better work/life balance, and here are more reasons to consider it for your office.

The Virtual Firm and You

By Robert Cannon - Virtual firms are becoming more and more prevalent. Here are some things to consider before launching your own cyberfirm.

Working Remotely on the Mac

By Jason Wietholter - Get advice for using your Mac as a work tool no matter where you are.

"Glance" at Your Colleague's Computer Screen - Remotely!

By Stephanie Kimbro - This Tech Tool Review introduces an excellent application for sharing computer desktops via the Internet.

Source: Law Practice Today, June 2009

In the news: "Law firms running Microsoft SharePoint already own most of the required tools to recover from a complete or partial data loss, so implementing a backup plan need not be costly. But be sure to include an automated, site-level backup, says Fenwick & West's SharePoint expert Mark Gerow."

Important points include:

ELEMENTS OF A SHAREPOINT BACKUP PLAN
CREATING A BASIC SITE-LEVEL BACKUP
OPTION NO. 1: SCRIPTING SITE-LEVEL BACKUP USING STSADM
OPTION NO. 2: PROGRAMMING SITE-LEVEL BACKUP USING C#

RESTORING A SITE-LEVEL BACKUP

Read full text

Posted by Sabrina Pacifici: "Navigating the Enterprise 2.0 Highway: Heather Colman provides an overview of Hicks Morley's implementation of ThoughtFarmer, an Enterprise 2.0/wiki style intranet platform, one year ago. Despite a few growing pains, she describes how the application was successful at meeting the primary objectives to decentralize content updates and increase knowledge sharing and collaboration within the firm.

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Source: beSpacific - Accurate, focused law and technology news by Sabrina I. Pacifici. 27 May 2009 Copyright ©2002-2009. BeSpacific LLC. All Rights Reserved. Subscribe <http://www.bespacific.com/mt/subscribe.html>.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha: "Zotero, a wonderful free resource for collecting, managing and citing sources, recently announced a major upgrade to version 2.0. "Most important among the new features is the long-anticipated ability to collaborate in groups and group libraries," according to their post entitled Zotero 2.0 Mothership Lands.

ReadWriteWeb has done a nice job of explaining the new features:

Now, users who are working on collaborative projects can finally share their research in an easy, straightforward manner. If you are working on a research project in a group, for example, you can now easily create a new group and all the members of the group can just add the papers and books they found to this new group, including notes and other remarks they added to the new entry.

Here's a screenshot of both how groups looks inside of Zotero itself (Firefox plug) as well as how a shared group appears on the web.

[View the screenshot at the source site listed below]

So you can see how it looks, here's a list of my publications which I collected using Zotero groups.

I've said it before, but I say it again: I love Zotero. It's a truly wonderful tool for compiling resources - and now it's also great for sharing them. As a librarian, I can see myself using the groups page to share bibliographies with faculty and staff members. As a incoming OneL, I can see how I might want to share resources with my classmates using Zotero Groups.

ReadWriteWeb also reports that:

Some of the most exciting changes to Zotero are still ahead. The team also announced that it expects to roll out a recommendation engine in the near future, as well as a storage solution for sharing attached files (PDFs of academic papers, for example), as well as the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds from public groups and libraries.

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: WisBlawg, 18 May 2009