Here comes XOOM

The Motorola XOOM is now available for pre-order and is being hailed as the first real iPad competitor. It runs a new version of Android that is designed specifically for tablets, super fast, and a bit pricey. Is this what you've been waiting for? 


Read more about XOOM.
Visit the Motorola XOOM site.  

New citation app

A new smartphone application takes most of the grunt work out of citing books in scholarly papers. 

Quick Cite, which costs 99 cents and is available for both iPhones and Android-based phones, uses the camera on a smartphone to scan the bar code on the back of a book. It then e-mails you a bibliography-ready citation in one of four popular styles—APA, MLA, Chigaco, or IEEE.

Click to read the full article. 


We're interested in hearing how this works for you, please share your comments. 

Have you ever wanted to print from your phone?

With Gmail, now you can. 

Let’s say you need to print an important email attachment on your way to work so that it’s waiting for you when you walk in the door. With Gmail for mobile and Google Cloud Print — a service that allows printing from any app on any device, OS or browser without the need to install drivers — you can.


To get started, you’ll first need to connect your printer to Google Cloud Print. For now, this step requires a Windows PC but Linux and Mac support are coming soon. Once you’re set up, just go to gmail.com from your iPhone or Android browser and choose “Print” from the dropdown menu in the top right corner. You can also print eligible email attachments (such as .pdf or .doc) by clicking the “Print” link that appears next to them.

Read more about this at the Gmail Blog.

What does running out of IP addresses mean to you?

Have you ever thought about how many IP addresses exist, and what you would do if the world ran out of them? Me either. Thankfully, others have and with the rapid increase of internet capable devices we should be thankful for the foresight. Now we don't have to worry that our next internet capable gadget won't be able to connect. 

How will this effect you? An interview on NPR explains.  

BLOCK: So, the transition from IPV4 to IPV6, are you anticipating that that will be pretty smooth or are there lots of potential complications there?

Mr. SHANKLAND: I think it's going to be more in the area of hiccups and some unpleasantness, than catastrophe. That's why I think the word IPocalypse is a bit overblown. A lot of money is going to have to be spent, but I don't think the Internet is going to come to a screeching halt, for example.
Websites will get slow in some cases because when you're trying to get data from some server on the other side of the Internet, the data might have to get translated from IPV4 to IPV6 and then back to IPV4. That has to happen every time a little packet of information goes from one place to another.
So I think we'll see some delays in the performance of the Internet as we make this gradual transition from IPV4 to IPV6. 

Read the transcript or listen to the interview.

A new way to use your RSS Reader

"Keeping Up, 2.0 Style" introduces a useful way to utilize RSS Readers, that many may not know about. 

The majority of database vendors (such as EBSCO, ProQuest, and Elsevier) provide RSS feeds that will deliver the most recent tables of contents of journals in their database to your reader.

This means that instead of searching through databases for new search results, as well as keeping up with your RSS Reader, you can incorporate them in one place. The ease of staying up to date just got a little bit easier. While this feature may not be ubiquitous at this time, it certainly has the likelihood of becoming a sought after user request in the near future.  


Like the author of the article, I use Google Reader for my RSS Reader of choice, what do you use? 


Read the full article here. 

Finding the right context

"Being Articulate and Finding Context" offers some great thought provoking comments on how important it is to find a way to communicate with people using a context they can relate to, which hopefully piques their interest. There is always this concern about technology and trying to decipher what the best way to communicate it to our patrons, you. One interesting way the author recommends follows, 

I think we have to stop thinking only about the issue itself and start thinking about how to make it relevant to people. We should speak in words that make sense and use them in a context that people understand. Perhaps the answer is telling stories. Stories can be a powerful way to share experiences and raise awareness.

To read more, visit the blog post here. 


Whether the conversation revolves around java issues, malfunctions, or low batteries -- we strive to put it in a related context!  

Collaborative Writing Project

The Collaborative Writing project from Fall 2010 is complete. We've created a short video to demonstrate how we used Google Docs and Blackboard Vista to accomplish this with Professor McMorrow. This project was intended to fill two class meetings, hoping the students would use the time to engage in team learning by creating a memo that would advise entry level lawyers on legal ethics in a practice area. The areas were determined by Professor McMorrow.

Students were allowed to select their topic of interest and were placed into groups from there by filling out an entry survey created on Google Docs. This collaborative project would simulate the workplace – working with different people, different levels of proficiency, picking up where someone left off, etc… To accomplish this we created a shared space for each group, which also allowed Professor McMorrow access to drop in anytime, through Google Docs. From here the students had an opportunity to review each other’s work by downloading a copy of another group’s memo and then reposting it with comments and feedback by utilizing a Blackboard Vista discussion forum.

Finally, a final evaluation survey, also created in Google Docs, and revision history, another helpful feature in Google Docs, allowed for Professor McMorrow to obtain feedback on the collaboration, technology, and the overall assignment.

If you would like to explore opportunities for creating collaborative workspaces please contact us at lawedtech@bc.edu.