Digital Practice of Law

Live Web Site Interaction

Chat Gets Pushy
3-17-04

"There isn't a shopper alive who hasn't been cornered by a salesperson in a boutique who asks, "Can I help you find something?" Now, a small Web-hosting company has translated that somewhat irksome practice to the Web. . . Rackspace Managed Hosting, of San Antonio, Tex., has embedded a proactive live chat into its Web site. The scenario works like this: After roaming the Web site for about 30 seconds, a user is greeted with a live, pop-up chat window that includes a thumbnail picture of a salesperson and a header announcing a "Live Conversation with Jay." "Hello," Jay might type next. "Can I help you with some managed hosting solutions today?"

Comment: A form of this type of web interaction will become commonplace in the legal profession in the coming years.

Google Adds More Search Features

Google continues its dominent ways with the addition of the the following search areas:

"Parcel tracking IDs, patents and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google's search box for quick access to information about them. For example, typing a FedEx tracking number will return the latest information on your package. Other special search by number types include :

• UPS tracking numbers example search: "1Z9999W999999999"
• FedEx tracking numbers example search: "999999999999"
• USPS tracking numbers example search: "9999 9999 9999 9999 9999 99"
• Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers example search: "AAAAA999A9AA99999"
• UPC codes example search: "073333531084"
• Telephone area codes example search: "650"
• Patent numbers example search: "patent 5123123"
Remember to put the word "patent" before your patent number.
• FAA airplane
registration numbers example search: "n199ua"
An airplane's FAA registration number is typically printed on its tail.
• FCC equipment IDs example search: "fcc B4Z-34009-PIR"
Remember to put the word "fcc" before the equipment ID."

Comment: Broadens your search capability for various litigation support and factual research projects.

Largest Citie's Research

"Living Cities Databook Series" - Brookings Institute - Statiscal research on the 100 largest cities in the United States.

Links to Computer Sites

The following are just a few of the technical journals staff should be reviewing monthly.

http://www.infoworld.com/
http://www.networkcomputing.com/
http://www.iwsubscribe.com/newsletters/
http://www.techweb.com/
http://www.zdnet.com/
http://www.nwfusion.com/
http://register.microsoft.com/regsys/
http://www.tsif.com (includes speed test for your computer).

Finding Private Investigators

http://www.pimall.com/nais/home.html
http://www.hierosgamos.org/hg/private_investigators.asp
http://www.virtualgumshoe.com/

The Virtual Chase - Legal Research on the Web

Virtual Chase is an excellent web site re research strategies for finding the law on the web. The "How To Research" section provides "tips and articles about research methods generally as well as specific sources of information and strategy."

News Aggregators

Beating Information Overload with News Aggregators by Dennis M. Kennedy.
"Lawyers are in the information business. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a tool that allowed us to handle more information and at the same time obtain better-quality information? Well, we’ve got it. "

Another great article by Dennis Kennedy discussing new tools to handle information overload.

CEOExpress

CEOExpress is a great onestop shop for business news links and much more.http://www.ceoexpress.com/default.asp

Shareware and Freeware

Home for all sorts of shareware (purchasable software available for trial download) and freeware (totally free) products. http://www.download.com

Google Viewer

"The Google Viewer displays the pages found as a result of your Google search as a continuous scrolling slide show. You can view your search results without using your keyboard or mouse and you can adjust the speed with which the images move across your screen. Each image of a page's contents is accompanied by a short "snippet" describing that page." http://labs.google.com/gviewer.html