Author Archives

    Bryan Sims

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    Creating a Transparent Signature Stamp

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    I have briefly blogged before about creating a transparent signature stamp. I have also referred you to Rick Borstein’s excellent post about creating a stamp to use in Adobe Acrobat.
    For the third time in less than a week, however, I have found a great little video tutorial that explains how to create a transparent signature stamp in a Word document. This document can then, of course, be converted to a PDF if that is something you need to do.

    I have used the method described in this video for several months. The signature stamp, when combined by my virtual fax program, allows me to draft letters and fax them without ever printing a copy of the letter.

    The video was created by Finis Price at TechnoEsq. You can see it here.
    [quicktime width=”320″ height=”240″]http://www.technoesq.com/wp-content/themes/connections/img/videos/TranspSig.mov[/quicktime]

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    CaseMap Seminar in Los Angeles

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    CaseMapI can’t believe that I forgot to mention this before. CaseMap is holding a user summit at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on May 8. The summit is not a traditional seminar, but is instead comprised of sessions taught by professionals who actually use CaseMap and its companion programs TimeMap and TextMap. The sessions focus on the best practices for the use of those programs.

    The cost is $395, which includes a full day seminar, breakfast, lunch, and a cocktail reception. You may also be able to earn up to 6 hours CLE credit. If you are interested, contact Nancy Smith at 904-276-1028.

    If you are able to be in the area on the 8th, you would probably do welTimeMapl to attend this conference. I have attended two all day seminars that were conducted by the CaseMap trainers. Both were excellant. Based on the information that I have seen on the this seminar, I would expect this one to be just as good.

    If your practice involves litigation and you are not using CaseMap, you should check it out. CaseMap is one of the most powerful programs that I have ever used. It works great at linking documents, issues, people, and facts together so that you can easily find out information that you need and the documentation to prove those facts.

    Ernie Svenson at PDF for Lawyers describes the seminar as “a truly unique learning opportunity.” I think he’s hit the nail on the head there.

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    RSS in Plain English

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    RSSI believe that RSS is a wonderful technology and that if more people actually understood what RSS was and how it worked, a lot more people would use it. I have planned for quite a while to do a blog post on RSS, what it is, and how it works. In this case, my procrastination has paid off.

    The Common Craft Show has a great short video that explains RSS in plain English. This is a great video to teach people about RSS.

    [flv width=”320″ height=”240″]http://www.blip.tv/file/205570/[/flv]

    Thanks to Kevin O’Keefe at Real Lawyers Have Bogs for the link to this video.

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    Full Text RSS Feeds

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    RSS FeedThere has been a recent flurry of posts about why bloggers should use full text rather than excerpts in their RSS feed. These discussions can be found at blogs such as Real Lawyers Have Blogs, Sunflower Media Concepts, Burning Questions, and DennisKennedy.com.

    I have always preferred full text feeds over excerpts. I figured that if a reader went through the trouble of setting up an aggregator or an RSS reader, that probably meant that the RSS reader was where they wanted to read the blog posts. I could be wrong about this, but I agree with the guys above that Full Text RSS feeds are the only way to go.

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    Google 411

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    Via Bonnie Shucha at WisBlawg I discovery another cool new offering from Google: Google Voice Local Search. Dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone (especially your cell phone). You can then search for any business in the city that you identify. You can search by either the business name or the business category.

    As described by Google:

    As part of our ongoing effort to make the world’s information universally accessible, we’re testing a free service called Google Voice Local Search. Using this service, you get fast access to the same local information you’d find on Google Maps. But you don’t need a computer, you don’t need an Internet connection, and you don’t even need to use your cell-phone keypad. It’s voice-activated, and you can access it from any phone (mobile or landline), in any location, at any time.

    As with Google’s other products, this one is free. Given that this is still in its experimental stage, I am sure that there are some kinks to be worked out. However, this looks like another great, simple and useful idea from Google.

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    How Much are Housing Values Like a Roller Coaster Ride?

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    Via the Freakonomics Blog is a nifty video that demonstrates how much housing values really are like a roller coaster ride. The Speculative Bubble Blog has taken real estate values from 1890 to the present (adjusted for inflation) and plotted them as a roller coaster.

    To see how housing values change over time, take the ride.

    The question I have is how can we use this technology to explain a complicated graph to a judge or jury?

    Watch for the year to flash in the bottom right hand corner. Unfortunately, on the You Tube video, its rights under the You Tube branding. You can clearly see the year on the Google Video site.

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    Google Broswer Sync

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    If you use multiple computers, you have likely been frustrated by the fact that your browser bookmarks aren’t the same or that two browsers are not set up the same way.

    Once again Google, has come to the rescue with Google Browser Sync. In Google’s own words:

    Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.

    I recently installed Browser Sync. Like most Google products, Browser Sync works simply and easily. Installation was a breeze and the sync process was seamless. After using this extension for only a short period of time, I am sold on it.