Food For Thought: Don’t Work Hard, Work Efficiently

Working hard* seems to be the easy, quick remedy to combat the ever growing tasks we face at home and work. It sounds incredulous to tell someone not to “work hard”. However, simply working hard(er) neither promotes innovation nor does it make efficient use of time spent working (present and future).

As a programmer, working hard is analogous to brute force coding. By brute force coding, I do not mean banging my keyboard on my desk until something works. What I mean is: I have a project/requirement and I am going to write my code until that requirement is fulfilled regardless of method and without any planning or design. What I would have developed is a block of code that has fulfilled my one requirement, and, likely nothing else. My code is neither easy to debug nor is it reusable for future projects/requirements. I may have to write that same block of code again, with slight modifications, next week.

My challenge to you: when faced with the next big project or large workload, do not work hard, work efficiently (Google “working efficiently” to find tips on how to work efficiently).

*Working hard and not efficiently will most likely lead to desk rage (please see info-graphic below)

The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act : Essential to 21st Century Democracy

The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) was promulgated and recommended for enactment by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in July 2011. The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) sent a letter of support to the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) in November of that year, and at the American Bar Association midyear meeting in February 2012, the House of Delegates approved the Act.

What is UELMA? AALL’s FAQ on the Act states: “UELMA provides a technology-neutral … approach to ensuring that online state legal material … will be preserved and … permanently available to the public in unaltered form.” The categories of legal material named in the Act are:

1. The state constitution,
2. State session laws,
3. Codified laws, and
4. Agency regulations which have the effect of law.

States may include other types of publications as well.

What does UELMA require? According to the Uniform Law Commission’s summary, official electronic legal material must be:

1. Authenticated, by providing a method to determine that it is unaltered;
2. Preserved, either in electronic or print form; and
3. Accessible, for use by the public on a permanent basis.

Why should states adopt UELMA? The Uniform Law Commission has enumerated several reasons, the first of which states:

•  The availability of government information online facilitates transparency and accountability, provides widespread access to essential information, and encourages citizen participation.

Another important incentive highlighted by the ULC is the limited nature of the Act:

•  The UELMA does not affect any relationships between an official state publisher and a commercial publisher, leaving those relationships to contract law. Copyright laws are unaffected by the act. The act does not affect the rules of evidence; judges will continue to be able to make decisions about the admissibility of electronic evidence in their courtrooms.

Are states adopting UELMA? As of March 21, 2012, versions of the Act have been introduced in six states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. You can track the progress of the legislation on the ULC’s Legislative Fact Sheet. If you support the principles that UELMA represents, contact your state representatives and urge them to sponsor the legislation. Not sure how to contact your representatives? Find them here.

Organizing with Evernote: “Mailing it In”

I rely on Evernote, the ubiquitous note-organizer-on-steroids program, to keep track of all my stuff. Evernote works on Windows computers, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and even on the Web wherever you have a computer. (See my last blog post, “Evernote–One Tool to Rule ‘em All” last November.) One easy, super-useful way to stay organized with Evernote is to email it whatever you need to keep track of. To do this, first you need to know your personal Evernote email address.

In Windows, go to Evernote, and click the “Usage” icon, at the top right corner of the Evernote window, just below the title bar and window control buttons. The third line of text down will start with “Email Notes To:” and end with an email address, probably ending in “@m.evernote.com.” That email address is unique to your Evernote account. Any email sent to that address automatically becomes an Evernote note.

On the iPad, open Evernote, then click the “Settings” icon (the picture of a gear in the lower right corner of the Evernote screen). Under “Settings,” tap “Evernote Email Address,” and you’ll see the address. (Clicking “Reveal in Contents” will help you add the address to your iPad address book.) (Check out “Chapter 4: Safari” in Apple’s iPad User Guide.)

You can easily get page links to webpages from Safari, the built-in iPhone and iPad Web browser, into Evernote by emailing them. iPhones and iPads run a simpler version of Apple’s Safari browser. Evernote does have a Web clipping bookmarklet for the iPhone and iPad but it’s very slow and doesn’t work well. One advantage to the bookmarklet is that it can clip the whole page. But if you just want to get something “quick and dirty” from Safari to the iPad, just email it to Evernote.

But how, you ask? Like this: Any email sent to your personal Evernote address automatically becomes an Evernote note. If you add “#important #work” to the subject of the email, the note will be created with the “important” and “work” tags (if they already exist). If you add “@todo” to the email’s subject, the email will be added to the “todo” notebook (if it already exists). You can add as many tags as you want, but only one notebook–and the notebook (“@notebook”) has to be the last thing on the subject line. You can add tags and notebooks using the Evernote application on your computer, or using the Web version of Evernote.

To send an email from within Safari, tap the Safari Action icon (the fourth icon from the top left of the Safari window, right next to the address field–it looks like a box with a curved arrow pointing out of it), which brings up the Action Menu. Then, on the Action Menu, tap “Mail Link to this Page.” When the email displays on your screen, the cursor will be in the “To:” field. Start typing “Evernote,” and once you type enough letters, your Evernote email address will show up in the “To:” field, if it is on your Contacts list.

There’s a special syntax you can use to tag that note, and to pick which notebook the email should go into. If you add “#important #work” to the subject of the email, the note will be tagged with the “important” and “work” tags (if they already exist). If you add “@todolist” to the email’s subject, the email will be added to the “todolist” notebook. (Here are links to documentation for this syntax, and more information on the Evernote blog.)

You can do the same thing with Outlook, or your favorite email program. Forward an email to your personal Evernote address, add tags (using the “#” character) or notebooks (using the “@” character), and the new Evernote notes will show up already categorized and sorted.

This is a new idea for me, one I just set up and started to use. I’m starting with three main notebooks I’ve been emailing links into: @action, for things I want to act on, like to-do items; @info, for things I need to remember or use, like schedule changes or notes; and @toread–for weblinks or books (you can email Amazon weblinks to Evernote too!)

As soon as you click “send”–and sync Evernote, just to be sure–your email will be safely ensconced in your favorite organization tool!

Self-Checkout at The Library?

The future could be now. Image via LibBest

Don’t you love going to the supermarket or hardware store and have the convenience of self-checkout? Shouldn’t a similar system be used in a library? RFID technology is nothing new for libraries. For years, anti-theft tags have been used to stop intentional and accidental removal of unchecked materials. RFID tags expand on this by enabling the following.

• Upon checkout the tag ID is listed as checked out in the database and bound to the patron.
• Books that pass through security are checked with the database dynamically to ensure they are checked out. This simplifies circulation overhead by no longer requiring a security stripe to be disabled or re-enabled upon checkout, collection, and shelving.
• The physical location of a book can be tracked using a Digital Library Assistant. Imagine an incorrectly shelved book, waiting on some forgotten shelf until discovered by weeding or chance observation. These systems are standard in warehouses.

When a library’s collection can be indexed and tracked by a computer, self-checkout kiosks become an obvious progression.

See some examples of similar systems all ready in use.

Video demonstration of an RFID self-checkout – Queens Library

Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii  - Self-checkout using 3M Self-Checkout stations..

Policies and procedures for Self-Checkout – At New York University

Lexis Advance debuts today!

The long-awaited Lexis Advance platform officially debuted today.  Bob Ambrogi gives a good review of the new interface at http://goo.gl/W6IbE while Greg Lambert provides a more technical review of the launch at http://goo.gl/p8ugR.

 

Evernote–One Tool to Rule ‘em All

Ever use a notebook? Spiral-bound, reporter’s, fauxhemian Moleskine even. Sure–everyone does it. Ever miss typing, bullet points, check-boxes? Ever lose or misplace your notebook, wish you had it with you at work, school, home, bed? Ever lose it and wish you had a backup? Right? Right? Well, let Evernote be your friend. Evernote is software, a service, a notebook–your everywhere notebook. Click “New Note.” Type. Paste. Drag and drop. Sync. Go home, the note’s there. Pull out your iDevice, Android, Palm Prē, Blackberry even–ditto.

I used to be a OneNote addict “power user.” But I was frustrated that it was hard to sync and impossible to use unless I was at a Windows computer. So if you like OneNote, c’mon, drink the Kool-Aid. Evernote will do almost all of what OneNote will do (Evernote’s formatting isn’t as flexible), plus, Evernote works almost everywhere (hence its name).

Evernote (http://www.evernote.com/) is software that works like a virtual notebook. It has programs that work on most gadgets. It works with your data in the cloud on most devices, and keeps copies of your notes on your computer or iPad. Access the notes–with rich formatting, graphics, files and a PDF reader–anywhere, even via the Web for when you’re using someone else’s computer.

And like good technology, Evernote:

• Doesn’t get in your way, and
• Lets you use it your way–from simple to complicated.
• Has a low “geek factor.” If you want to, just enter notes, then search easily by note contents.

Unless you want to get your geek on, in which case you can tag notes, drag in files, PDFs; drop in scanned notes or even take pictures of notes or signs with mobile devices. Evernote recognizes text in pictures. You can even use links to specific notes that can also be shared with non-Evernote users!

Use Evernote:

• As “The Notebook” (everyone uses one)
• Try using it for:
• Notetaking
• To-dos
• Shopping lists
• Snippets of legal drafting forms and language
• Recipes
• Files
• The Great American Novel (or even Law Review Article)

Notebooks and scraps of notes go everywhere–where you want and where you don’t. Your great new idea doesn’t do any good if it’s on a scrap of tablecloth in the pocket of your other shirt. And when you have seventeen notebooks full of notes, you’re out of luck finding stuff, unless you have your own personal archivist. Notebooks aren’t secure, aren’t backed up, are impossible to organize–and can’t be searched!

Evernote solves all these problems.

And the price is right–free! (There is a premium version, but at $5/month, it’s cheaper than your Moleskine habit.)

Evernote works everywhere: computer, tablet, desktop and mobile Web if your device doesn’t support it directly. It’s easy to organize with–great tagging, excellent, intuitive searching (including scanned and photographed text–take pictures of handwritten notes, and search them!), and (much) more power if you need it. It records audio on mobile devices, and stores files in the cloud with notes.

Evernote is compatible with Outlook–send emails directly to Evernote, with formatting. And clip Web pages from many browsers, and support for others, like Safari on iPhone and iPad.

Evernote does have some problems. Formatting in notes can be wonky, especially on the iPad–rich formatting there is new and still being worked on. Unlike files, if you open and edit a picture in a note, the changes don’t always appear.

The Wall Street Journal’s personal technology columnist Walt Mossberg had some issues with it (http://allthingsd.com/20100120/evernote-review/): data limits and other restrictions (since eased) with the free version, differences between apps on mobile platforms, and buggy Web clipping.

It can also be slow in mobile Safari–I usually just email Web links to Evernote.

Even so, Mossberg liked Evernote–a lot.

So give Evernote a try. You don’t have much to lose (except stacks and scraps of paper). And you may really like it.

Some Evernote resources:

• Evernote intro (Purdue University Information Technology):
• http://wiki.itap.purdue.edu/display/INSITE/Evernote
• Evernote Essentials ebook:
• http://nerdgap.com/landing/evernote-essentials/
• Evernote GTD ebook:
• http://ebook.dangoldesq.com/

Controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) now before House Judiciary Committee

Numerous web companies, including Google and Facebook, are reacting harshly to the Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261), a.k.a. SOPA.  Introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (TX-21)  on October 26, the bill contains the most controversial parts of the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (S. 968), but radically expands the scope of what constitutes a “‘rogue website”, or site that engages in criminal copyright activities as defined under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, P. L. 105-304 [H.R. 2281]. 

H.R. 3261 would essentially force U.S. Internet service providers to block access to rogue sites.  There would be a ban list that ISPs would have to enforce, modifying their DNS records to prevent  foreign sites from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Smith said the legislation is designed to “stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites… that profit from selling pirated goods without any legal consequences”.  Unsurprisingly, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are among the strongest supporters of the legislation.

In this morning’s testimony before Congress, the MPPA claimed that SOPA would allow the U.S. Department of Justice “more effective tools to protect American intellectual property, including the films, television shows and sound recordings created by our members”.  You can follow the hearings via Twitter using #sopa or watch the webcast via the Committee’s website.

Critics of H.R. 3261 predict that any user-generated content site or cloud-based service (i.e. virtually any participant in “Web 2.0″) could find itself targeted by the bill.   Opponents likewise argue that the new legislation represents a severe threat to online innovation and legitimate communications tools, effectively stifling free speech and impeding job creation.

Additonal objections have been raised by digital rights proponents, IP/copyright advocates, and public watchdog  groups.  Furthermore, in order to increase public opposition to H.R. 3261, open government organizations such as EFF, Public Knowledge, and the Sunlight Foundation are hosting grass roots events such as American Censorship Day: November 16th to coincide with today’s hearing.  Free Speech.net has started an online petition while the Center for Democracy & Technology has posted a resource list of the growing opposition to SOPA. 

Whether or not H.R. 3261 will pass remains to be seen; witnesses have another five days to present testimony.  More information about the bill can be found on the House Judiciary Committee website under Issues >> Rogue Websites .

Bring PC experience to mobile devices

With all the new technologic “toys” available to the everyday consumer, most have some combination of a home computer, work computer, laptop, smart phone, or tablet.  There was a time when pcAnywhere was the only software available to take remote control of another computer. The company Splashtop (http://www.splashtop.com/), has developed a similar application for Mac , and it’s now available for Windows systems . It turns your mobile devices into a touch-optimized system to access applications, view files, play music and show videos right from the palm of your hand. The underlying concept is obviously not new—existing VNC and RDP applications have offered similar functionality for years.

The key advantage of Splashtop is performance, using a proprietary protocol to reduce latency and provide a more responsive user experience. The application also has some advanced features that you do not get with VNC, such as the ability to relay audio from the remote computer to the client. Splashtop requires a free app to be run on any computer you wish to access remotely, MAC or PC. The app runs in the background and provides secure access to the system from any mobile app in the Splashtop line. This currently includes iOS, Android, and webOS and can run from $.99 to $9.99 depending on the operating system and any sale promotions.

Like most remote control software, there are two components to Splashtop: the Streamer, which you install on computers you want to control, and the Remote, which you install on your mobile device.  Once Splashtop Remote Desktop is installed, accessing a remote system is as simple as tapping the computer in the list presented and entering the secure PIN number for access. In just a few seconds your mobile device displays the remote system’s desktop as if it was generated locally.

The app employs a number of touch gestures to accomplish various tasks on the remote desktop, including pinch/zoom, scrolling, and drag/drop. Usage hints are displayed each time a system is accessed to clearly demonstrate these gestures. The remote desktop takes over the entire mobile device display, with a small keyboard icon in the lower right of the screen. Tapping this icon opens the onscreen keyboard with special keys added at the top row to control the remote desktop. There is even a Windows key to facilitate entering Windows key commands.

I personally use Splashtop to remote into my work computers to make changes to the websites, access our databases, run reports, or in emergencies fix problems with our servers. It has been a great tool and has saved many trips back to work late at night or on weekends. I also use Splashtop to access the podium PCs to run updates and fix any problems from the comfort of my desk home. Since I can remote into the podium PCs it saves me the time from having to walk into all the classrooms. It has enabled me to multi-task on projects that would normally take up a lot of my time.

Splashtop has also released many other cool programs such as Whiteboard, Xdisplay, CamCam, TouchPad and many more. Splashtop is not the end all answer to remote computing, but it is an inexpensive, easy to use application, that allows users to never really be “disconnected” from home or work. Depending on wireless bandwidth and mobile processing power, Splashtop can be glitchy at times, and is not particularly ideal for playing graphic intensive games remotely. However, if you want to watch a movie on your home PC, do a little work while out of the office, get that file you forgot on your work computer, or even access live video feed from your computer’s webcam this might be the program for you.

Is Teaching Cost-Effective Legal Research (Im)Possible?

An interesting blog post appeared on the Dewey B Strategic blog (the blog subhead: “Risk, value, strategy, libraries, knowledge and the legal profession”), posted by attorney and DLA Piper Director of Research Services and Libraries Jean P. O'Grady, on May 5, 2011: “The Myth and the Madness of Cost Effective Lexis and Westlaw Research Training.” It may be impossible to teach cost-effective legal research using Westlaw and LexisNexis in the manner the author describes. That said, I think the problem Ms. O’Grady is addressing is as much an result of her approach as it is a reflection of reality.

I think that there are (at least) three problems with Ms. O’Grady’s blog post. First, the tone of Ms. O’Grady’s blog post is rather negative: It criticizes, but suggests no better approaches. There may be a straw-person problem here as well: I don’t really recognize or understand the extremely detail-oriented model of cost-effective legal research instruction she discusses. She mentions that her solutions to the problems she diagnoses will be in a subsequent post, so I hope she describes her model further then. Second, her post is oriented toward large law firm research, and takes a trees-for-the-forest approach. And third, Ms. O’Grady seems never to have worked outside of BigLaw firms (that is, firms ranked in the American Lawyer 100, or of similar size), where the vast majority of lawyers do (see some numbers on firm size, below). Her approach to legal research and to cost-effective legal research teaching, reflects this: if more information, be it legal research or cost effective rules, is good, then more is better. BigLaw litigation tends to be massive, with massive discovery, trial–and legal research–budgets.

Law Practice and Overly-Expensive Memos

According to our Westlaw educational representative, there are some frightening numbers associated with computerized legal research. BigLaw firms spend approximately $150,000 a month on their Westlaw accounts. By comparison, if it were even possible to buy the equivalent of law-student Westlaw access, that sort of account alone would cost about $100,000 a month.

Such huge legal-research budgets presents a false picture of legal research in the real world of lawyering. As one of the commenters on Ms. O’Grady’s post, Chicago-Kent Law professor and Director of the Legal Research and Writing Program Mary Rose Strubbe (who practiced for four years with a small law firm doing complex federal litigation), wrote, “you imply that all or most lawyers are working at large firms, with librarians. In Illinois, for example, far fewer than 20% of the licensed lawyers work at private firms having more than 25 lawyers.”

These numbers are close to Florida’s. According to the Florida Bar’s 2010 Economics Survey, 65% of Florida attorneys work in firms of 1-5 attorneys, and 77% work in firms of ten attorneys or fewer. (DLA Piper, according to their website, has “4,200 lawyers located in 30 countries and 76 offices.”)

Given the costs of computerized legal research, it is extremely unlikely that small-firm lawyers have access to resources even approaching those available at BigLaw firms–unless they go to a library with free (limited) Westlaw or LexisNexis access.

At the run-of-the-mill small law firm, unlike BigLaw firms (which almost certainly pay a flat rate for their legal research), when a lawyer does legal research using Westlaw or LexisNexis, the meter is running. This can have frightening results. The $1,300 to $6,000 memo is real. A student of University of Arizona Law reference librarian and adjunct assistant professor Sarah Gotschall ran up about a $6,000 legal-research bill (but at least got an iPad for the $800 he eventually had to pay out of pocket). A friend of mine did it to the tune of $2,000. Even I spent $1,300 doing some in-house research, unaccustomed as I am to having to account for the cost of Westlaw access.

Granularity and “Easing In”

A major problem with Ms. O’Grady’s approach to cost-effective legal research training is this: She thinks that the solution to trainee lawyers learning cost-effectiveness is to give them a lot of detail. So much so, in fact, that she cites the number of databases that Westlaw and LexisNexis have between them, about 100,000–and implies that new legal researchers should ideally have some idea about the pricing of all these available modes of research.

How can newly minted legal researchers be expected to do this? They don’t understand some of the resources they are accessing, and certainly not their importance. New lawyers have all heard about the importance of running their cases through a citation index, but what percentage have internalized the importance of making sure all the cases they rely upon are good law? (It may take a courtroom loss for that to sink in.) Given that, how can a new lawyer figure out whether the importance of a resource justifies its cost? Law students and new lawyers should be “scared straight” slowly, and, to begin with, given a framework for understanding the costs of Westlaw and LexisNexis legal research. But that framework shouldn’t be more complicated than “This is expensive—BOO!”, with the “BOO,” of course, being the $6,000-memo story and its equivalent.

Citation Indexing

The most important example of the importance of a resource justifying its cost is, of course, citation indexing. And unfortunately, this is one area where there is no way around the Westlaw and LexisNexis duopoly. Their databases are the only ones set up for making sure that a case is still good law. Fortunately, the cash prices for this per case are not too excessive: $15.00 to Shepardize a case–cheap compared to losing a case through incomplete research. (KeyCite pricing varies by type of material.) Fastcase apparently gets asked about this a lot, and has talked about it internally. And, to speculate, doing so would let them put a big wedge into the duopoly. But that kind of database analysis, perforce done at least in part by hand, is obviously a huge undertaking. Access to ALR or forms or even headnotes is nice. But if a case is not good law, then much of the research that involves it is worthless.

BigLaw–Part of the Problem

Ms. O’Grady several times suggests that there are two sides to this dispute: The terrible information vendors, who are the true culprits in the spiraling, pathological cost of computerized legal research, and us, the virtuous law firms bearing the brunt. She even says so in a bold-faced statement: “Subscribing to the myth of cost effective research training keeps the focus off the true culprits and keeps us from demanding a real solutions [sic].” But how can BigLaw be expected to help solve the cost-effective legal research problem–boycott Westlaw and LexisNexis? The BigLaw machine would stop–obsessively over-researching issues, and the attendant huge amounts of time for which their model allows client billing, encourages Westlaw and LexisNexis, not discourages. BigLaw is part of the problem, not of the solution—for the moment, not even potentially.

Market forces may solve or help solve this–but only when the full-fee model that BigLaw firms hew to are replaced by different practice models and more sensitive billing models, as the economy changes. (The Economist ran an excellent article recently about how law firms are becoming more nimble and international, changing focus more rapidly, and retrenching, on May 5, “A Less Gilded Future.”)

A Conclusion and Some Solutions

Ms. O’Grady’s analysis is interesting and relevant. Nonetheless, she does have issues: a rather contrary tone, an over-detailed approach to cost-effective legal research instruction, and an overwhelmingly BigLaw background, far from the much more common small-firm law practice environment. Any one of those issues would be worrisome. Given all three factors, I think her perspective is somewhat unrealistic.

I do have some student-tested solutions of my own:

• a more general approach relying on a general cost-benefit comparison, perhaps;
• running some Westlaw and LexisNexis numbers with law students, clerks, and new lawyers;
• explaining, with examples and numbers, that Westlaw and LexisNexis are all but prohibitively expensive for small-firm use;
• teaching free and low-cost resources (where possible, except for citation indexing)
• the new flat-rate subscription plans Westlaw and LexisNexis are offering to solo and small-firm lawyers
• not to mention a realistic view of the contribution of BigLaw firms to the exorbitant, increasing price of computerized legal research and the lack of any responsiveness from the Westlaw and LexisNexis duopoly.

But I will go into more detail about these ideas, and examine some other possibilities later, especially after I can examine Ms. O’Grady’s proposed solutions.

QR Codes! (or what is that funny looking bar code thingee?)

Over the next couple of m onths, you will see QR Codes appearing next to the names of librarians, faculty, and at the ends of stacks to provide additional information of who we are and how best to use resources.  

QR Codes (short for Quick Response Code) direct you to websites, videos, or other content using your mobile phone and its camera.  

QR Codes were originally created for inventory, but their appearance and ability to encode more data than a traditional barcode has lead to them being used in creative ways.

A separate application is necessary to read them on most mobile phones.

To install a QR Code reader (and get in on the fun!), go to your phone's app store just as you would for any other application (The App Store, Android Market, Blackberry App World, etc.) or visit one of the following URLs on your phone:

i-nigma reader

• Browse to http://www.i-nigma.mobi/ 

mobiletag

• Visit http://m.mobiletag.com

neoreader

• Visit http://getneoreader.com/

QuickMark

• Please use your app store

ScanLife

• Visit http://www.2dscan.com/

UpCode

• Visit http://www.upcode.fi/

BeeTagg

• Visit http://getbeetagg.com/

Kaywa

• Visit http://reader.kaywa.com/