March 2007 Archives

Humor, travel, music, and even a few research sites were featured in 45 Sites in 45 Minutes, presented by Michael Saint-Onge (LexisNexis) and yours truly last weekend at the SCALL Institute - Global Legal Landscapes. This was my second presentation of this nature to SCALL and I had a great time.

You may recall that last year I spent much of my preparation time looking for the right tool to use to download the featured web pages in case of a technical catastrophe. After all, it would be a little hard to fake it without the web. I went back to last year's entry, saw that I used NetSnippets, and figured I'd do the same this year. With new computers at home and at work, I just needed to download and install it again. Except.....it seems that Netsnippets has been discontinued. It was back to the drawing board.

There was precious little time left; after all, I didn't think this was a problem I needed to solve AGAIN, so I waited until just a few days before the presentation to work on the download. This time around I decided to take the easy way out. I captured screenshots to Powerpoint, and decided that would have to do in a pinch.

Whether this kind of backup is still necessary is hard to say. It inevitably takes a couple of hours to compile, and considering the fact that Internet connections in conference hotels and elsewhere are becoming quite reliable, perhaps I'm going overboard. But just when I think I'm ready to fly without a net, I imagine myself in front of an audience with....nothing, and I start grabbing screenshots again.

This was my first time using a wiki for a presentation. It turned out to be a very easy and efficient way for MIchael and I to collaborate. I'm really liking PB Wiki's new WYSIWYG editor. It's unquestionably easier than remembering the special wiki syntax that PB Wiki used before.

I've been spotting presentation wikis fairly frequently over the past year. Here's just a couple of examples:

Technology Training in Libraries

60 Sites in 60 Minutes at the Texas Library Association

Sometimes wikis are the actual presentation medium, other times they've created to distribute supplementary information and handouts. Just think, you could continue to collaborate and communicate with your audience after the program is over. Try THAT with PowerPoint!

Amazon is getting a little TOO good at figuring out which products I might be interested in purchasing. Shortly after I wrote the previous blog on the pains of moving to a new computer, I received an email from Amazon suggesting I might want to buy the following product. How did they know?

My home desktop computer is close to 6 years old. That's eons in computer-years and it's well past time for a new one. But a new computer, now that's an experience you don't embark on lightly. It's not really the money; computers are cheaper than ever before. Not only that, but I've discovered Craig's List and found a good deal on a laptop that's less than a year old and still under warranty.

No, it's not the money, it's the time, all that time getting to know the newcomer, re-installing software, cleaning up the old stuff that isn't needed anymore, and figuring out what to do with the old computer.

I could have bought software to help me move my settings, etc. to my new computer. But I tried that last time, and it really didn't work. Of course, in 6 years, they might have figured out this data migration stuff, but I figured how hard could it be to just move a few files.

Quicken went well. Outlook, not so much. My inbox was duplicated in the file view, which was harmless enough, but I found it irritating. So I searched the web and found a solution, then worked on setting up my accounts, and an hour later, Outlook was ready to go.

The process continues. I've backed up all my data files to another hard drive that I have inserted into a hard drive enclosure, the best peripheral I've ever bought. I purchased an additional hard drive on ebay to use to backup the entire image of my old computer, just in case. It came complete with a virus. (Thank you Norton Antivirus, for catching and fixing that little problem!) I bought and installed Acronis True Image to create that image. have a new wireless router that needs to be installed. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm trying to adjust to the new extra wide monitor. I've had to tweak the settings to make it readable, and draw the shades because of the glare. I finally kept the high resolution, and set the fonts to large. Now if only someone would tell that to Movable Type. The text in this edit box is almost unreadable without the magnifier that came with my new wireless mouse.

I'm sure I'm making stupid mistakes, which is proof that this technology stuff stll isn't that easy.

You may not hear from me for a while.... :-)

Interested in wikis? If you want to more about how lawyers can use wikis for research and as internal knowledgebases, make sure to read Dennis Kennedy & Tom Mighell's article - Wikis for the Legal Professsion.