Free Web Tools for the Way You Work

Nicholas Gaffney provides a slew of free web tools in his Marketing the Law Firm Newsletter article, “Free Web Tools for the Way You Work.” While many of the apps on this list will be familiar to you, Gaffney offers some excellent suggestions on PR and collaboration tools as well as advice on how lawyers and law firms can use these tools effectively. -M

Free Friday: Browser Testing Tools

If you work on web-based projects, you often want to know how your site renders in multiple browsers, but don’t want to actually install them on your machine. Here are a few great free tools that allow you to do just that:

• Xenocode Browser Sandbox – Runs any browser from the web with no installation.
• LunaScape – Puts the “big three” browser rendering engines into one tool and allows you to easily switch between them.
• BrowserShots – Allows you to quickly run page tests on nearly every browser and version available.

Happy testing! –M

Shriver Center Releases 2008 Poverty Scorecard

The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law just released it’s “2008 Poverty Scorecard,” an interactive website that allows users to see how members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives stack up based on their voting records on  poverty-related issues in 2008.  The site also provides background information on the 22 bills rated, allows you to send a message to your representative, and offers dowloadable CSV files of the scorecard data.  -M

Pew Report on Twitter and Status Updating

Today the Pew Internet & American Life Project released a report on “Twitter and status updating.” Below are a few highlights:

• As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used a status updating service like Twitter;
• 19% of online adults ages 18 and 24, and 20% of online adults 25 to 34,  have used services like Twitter (use drops steadily after age 35);
• Twitter use is highly intertwined with the use of other social media and wireless technologies, although users consume news and own technology at the same rates as other internet users.

The full report is available here. -M

Seven Steps to Bring VoIP to Your Law Firm

Law Technology News just posted a nice article that outlines seven steps for moving a law firm to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), as well as a few surprises that the authors encountered along the way. My favorite: “A surprising number of vendors could not transcend jargon and clearly articulate the value of system or carrier features.” -M

Free Friday: The Best Free Software of 2009

In mid-January PC Magazine released their “Best Free Software” review for 2009. Included in the list are over a hundred new picks, sorted by category, as well as some old favorites (labeled “Hall of Fame”). If you haven’t yet seen the 2008 list, it’s available here. -M

Tech Tip: Google Cheat Sheet

This wonderful two-page Google Cheat Sheet (PDF) lists Google services, query structures, tools, advanced search structures, special web searches and background information on Google. Each of the sections is color coded based on skill level. [Note that this cheat sheet was last updated in October 2006, but much of the information remains relevant and useful.] -M

ABA Site-tation Gets a New Look

ABA Site-tation, a blog that covers technology issues facing the legal community, recently re-launched at a new address and with an updated look. Check out the the great information it offers on security, online tools, and mobile computing. – K