Quincy Courthouse Going Live on the Internet

Live Justice Comes To the Internet "The Boston Globe reports that an experiment in live justice is coming to the Internet, uniting citizen bloggers with the public's right to know in one of Massachusetts's busiest courthouses, Quincy District Court. Dubbed Open Court, the project will operate live cameras and microphones during criminal sessions where the court's proceedings will be streamed live over the Internet at the Open Court website to give the public an unfiltered view of court proceedings while an operating Wi-Fi network serves citizen bloggers who want to post to the Internet."

Original Boston Globe Article: Quincy court going live on the Web

Video annotation made easy with MediaNotes from CALI

MediaNotes has often been called the “track changes” for video. It allows you to annotate video and audio files similarly to how Word allows you to markup a document with comments. Here at BCLS we’ve been testing out MediaNotes within the clinical setting out at the Legal Assistance Bureau as part of an ATIG grant. While this application demonstrates a strong use for MediaNotes in reviewing interview skills, there are many other ways that this program could be used in an educational setting. 

Examples of use include;

• Evaluation and feedback of student performances in mock negotiations or trial practice
• Evaluation and commenting on videos used in instruction or previously recorded student performances
• Commenting on class presentations

MediaNotes allows you the ability create fully customizable tag sets, or borrow from the CALI community. This can allow you to start conversations with students in ways previously limited to text reviews or face-to-face discussions. As a member of CALI, BCLS faculty, staff, and students are offered MediaNotes free of charge while here. 

If you are interested in using MediaNotes please contact lawedtech@bc.edu or try it out now by visiting www.cali.org.

Google's Library of Alexandria Comes to a Halt

Google seemed poised to deliver the digital version of the Library of Alexandria. For years, the company has been scanning books from libraries, amassing an incredible repository of the world's printed information. That data was searchable--snippets of text helped identify books related to search terms--and, recently, Google made it into a bookstore. Read more: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/26559/?p1=A4

The official 48-page ruling from US District Court Judge Denny Chin

Adblock Plus, annoyance-free web surfing for Chrome and Firefox

Adblock Plus claims that it can 

• Block all ads automatically, no distractions
• Browse faster and safer

For free. 

Primarily within Firefox, though the Chrome functionality is improving rapidly. This little add on is the winner of the 2011 best overall (non-security) add-on for browsers, for the second year in a row. Impressive. The install took seconds, and we've been sailing around the web mostly ad free. The difference is immediate and incredible. Boston.com and Campus Technology are changed sites! 

See who Adblock Plus beat. 

Continue to Adblock Plus to install the add-on or find out more. 

Let us know what you think!

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office has arrived, but not for Macs.

I was eager for something like this to come along, so when I say a new post in my reader entitled "Google Cloud Connect or: Shouldn't This Have Been Built into Word in the First Place?" I anxiously clicked away. As the post will tell you;

What does Google Cloud Connect do for you?

• Cloud Storage – Every document you create or open and save on your computer is saved both to your computer and to your Google Docs account. That means if you need to work on it from another computer, you can just go to docs.google.com and download it.
• Version Control – Every time you click save in Word, PowerPoint, or Excel, Cloud Connect will save a new version of the document. Did you ever delete something by accident and then save the file? Or edit a document only to realize that the previous version was better? Version control can solve these problems. You can access old versions, listed by date, from directly within Word, PowerPoint, or Excel.
• Collaboration – Just like Google Docs, Google Cloud Connect allows you to share your documents with others just by entering their email address. Your collaborators can edit the files simultaneously, and if you both edit the same part of the document at the same time, you’ll be able to decide which version should be used.

And more. There are endless benefits to a setup like this. Now you can work online or off, at any computer, and have all of the functionality of Word or the simplicity of Google Docs. This is similar to MS Office Apps, which has proven to be very useful for me many times, but will utilize the Google Docs setup I already use.

Mac users will have to wait, from "Google Cloud Connect moves Microsoft Office files to Google Docs, as long as you're not using a Mac"

"Due to the lack of support for open APIs on Microsoft Office for Mac, we are unable to make Google Cloud Connect available on Macs at this time," Sinha said. "We look forward to when that time comes so we can provide this feature to our Mac customers as well."

To find out more, or start using connect, go to Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office.

Multilingual Zotero with Duplicates Detection

Recent improvements to Zotero make it easier and more accessible for you to use. 

Adhering to detailed bibliographic rules is a hefty task that Zotero makes easy by automating the creation of bibliographies and citations. What if, however, you are a multilingual scholar, working with materials in more than one language? There are special challenges here that will soon be met, thanks to the efforts of Zotero community developers who are nearing the final testing phase for Multilingual Zotero, a groundbreaking tool that can automatically capture, organize and correctly format items enriched with translated and transliterated multilingual data.

Finish reading and watch a screen cast at the Zotero blog.  

Mobil Security and Free, Lookout

Do you have a smartphone? Well many more of us do now, than did before. One thing that rarely crosses anyone mind, other than with they fall prey to an attack is protecting your mobile device. If you check on your bank balances, provide password information, download apps, or even check email -- you could be at risk. Lookout provides you with an option to keep yourself protected for Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile smartphones.

Try it out!

Lookout: Free Mobile Security for Smartphones