We have now posted the links for the 2005 edition of "60 Sites in 60 Minutes" at the ABA TECHSHOW site. In keeping with tradition, we have posted not only the links to the sites we showed, but also to those that we had in reserve, but didn’t have time to show. So there are actually more than 120 links─ more than enough sites to significantly impact your billable hours this week. They are divided into serious links and those more "off-beat." For those of you who do your own Internet research presentations, we know you’ll find something to steal. Thanks to my co-presenters Bob Ambrogi and Jeff Flax.

In the early days of computers, we used to customize things, including event sounds. Most of us think we’re too busy to do that now (or maybe it just got old.) Today some of the places where you can find interesting sounds to download are now pop-up, spyware and adware-installer havens. Then, of course, one wonders whether the sound they downloaded is actually – er – legal to use. Enter The Freesound Project. "The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, … released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License," according to the site. So here’s a place to legally obtain sounds and music for your web site, your podcast, your PowerPoint presentations and many other uses.

Do you have a Downloads folder? I thought everyone did. But several attorneys recently told me that they had never heard of this concept. Every time I get a new computer, I right click on the Desktop and make a new folder called Downloads. Everytime I download a file from the Net, it goes into the Downloads folder. Then I can move it elsewhere or, more likely, run it to install a new program. There are many reasons for this.

  1. It is quick. Since the files always go to the same folder, the default location is that folder.
  2. I don’t have to hunt for files I may have downloaded quite some time ago, but not yet used. I have heard from more than a few lawyers when they downloaded a file and then didn’t know where to locate it. This could be a big problem if you paid for the download!
  3. It’s easy to clean up unneeded files. After I download and install a program, I generally do not need the downloaded file anymore. But if it is located in some random place, it may never be deleted. This way one can purge the folder of unneeded files periodically, or failing that, when the hard drive gets full, you have a good place to check to free up a lot of disk space.

By the way, my download of the day was the free (for now) Onfolio. It is an RSS Newsreader and online information management tool, that lets you save copies of Webpages and search them. Matt Homann mentioned that he liked this and it seems to have a lot of potential.

In March the OBA Law Office Management and Technology Section held its 2005 Spring Retreat. It was held at the Bunkhouse at Western Hills Lodge in eastern Oklahoma. Judge Charles Hogshead and Doug Loudenback served as official photographers, but that didn’t seem to keep them from being in many of the photos. The evidence can be located in this photo album. You may have to scroll down to see the Enter Gallery link.

We got a lot of work done despite the distraction of being in a great natural setting. We were visited by deer in the early evening. We will leave it to your imagination what we were trying to do with all that equipment in pictures 18 and 18. Membership in the LOMT section is limited to OBA members and provides many benefits, such as the section e-newsletter with much practical advice.

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The Cleveland County Bar Association invited me to the guest speaker at their April Meeting. I live in Norman and used to practice there, so they are certainly my "home" bar. My program was called "From Law Tech to High Tech: Improve Your Practice." Near the end we went into fast mode to cover a few things I brought back from ABA TECHSHOW the week before.Ccba_1_0405 Ccba_2_0405_1

This county bar is very active. They recently established their county bar foundation. In fact they keep track of the number of times they have won the award for Best County Bar and often pass out "koozies" at OBA Annual Meeting with the award years noted. CCBE President Paul Austin is shown introducing me. Click on the thumbnails within this message (not at right) to see pictures in larger size.

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At ABA TECHSHOW’s "60 Sites in 60 Minutes," the site I showed that got the most crowd reaction was the Baby NameVoyager. It is a graphic representation of all of the common names given to babies from 1900 to 2003. Try several of your friend’s names and see how names gain and lose popularity over the years. The display is somewhat mesmerizing. Thanks to my co-presenters, Bob Ambrogi and Jeff Flax, for what I thought was an entertaining and informative session. (At least we were entertained doing it.)

I’m biased, but ABA TECHSHOW 2005 has been great. I had correctly assumed that I wouldn’t have time to blog from TECHSHOW. But I’m going to multi-task during the program by David Masters and Ernie the Attorney on the Trial Lawyer’s Laptop. Former Oklahoma Bar President and Poteau attorney Doug "Dougal" Sanders is sitting in the row behind me. So he can help me if I miss anything.

We’ve had a significant increase in attendance this year. We’ve had a lot of happy people thanking me for their TECHSHOW thumbdrives. Feedback has been extremely positive, with lawyers stopping me in the halls, the elevator and, yes, even the rest room, to tell me how great the programming has been. At the end of today I will officially become a former ABA TECHSHOW Chair and that’s fine with me. Cowboys may like riding bucking brochos, but it is still a relief when the whistle blows! I’ve been on the ABA TECHSHOW planning board for four years now and it’s time for someone else to take my place.

Highlights: Meeting many bloggers at BlawgConnect (see report.) The Annual Consultants and Technologists Dinner, which is now simply known as The Dinner in the industry. This year’s version was held in the Shedd Aquarium. What a great event! We drank, ate and then watched a diver feed the fish. 60 Tips in 60 Minutes played to a packed house. Larry Bodine blogged many of the tips. 60 Sites in 60 Minutes. (OK, I was a presenter, but I thought it was great. The sites will be posted to the TECHSHOW web site soon.) Dinner last night with most of my fellow practice management advisors, hosted by Ixio.

Lowlights: Not getting enough sleep (hence the title "live – sorta.") Getting to spend only five minutes talking to people I’d like to talk to for an hour and may not get to see again until next year. Being torn between which presentation to attend many hours.

Opps–time to move to the next presentation.

It is TECHSHOW Eve. I admit that this is not as well-known or widely-anticipated as Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve. But for some of us, it is a significant day. Tonight I get to attend BlawgConnect 2005, which is said to be the largest gathering of law-related bloggers ever. There will be lots of "famous" bloggers there, like Ernie the Attorney. I already know many of them, but am looking forward to meeting many more.

If you are in the Chicago area and your big case that was going to occupy the rest of the week just settled, there’s still time to attend ABA TECHSHOW. We do have walk-in registrations available.

I’m not sure how much live blogging I will do from ABA TECHSHOW. The Chair’s to do list looks pretty long. But several bloggers have promised reports and others have done so in the past, so I’m sure those who cannot come can read about TECHSHOW on the web. We do have a wireless cloud (sponsored by Intel) for all attendees, so it may be so easy that I just have to blog some. But don’t depend on second-hand information. You have to attend to really appreciate ABA TECHSHOW.

If you have any interest in the subject of podcasting for lawyers, then visit Blawgcast.com. They intend to provide a one-stop shop for the lawyer who wishes to podcast or at least learn about it. I’m far from the first to note their new site. Podcasting (placing sound files online emulating a radio broadcast format which one can download and listen to via an iPod or other MP3 player) is getting a lot of media coverage right now and we’ll likely see an explosion of podcasters. Podcasting is easy and inexpensive. I also think there will be a boom-bust cycle just like the dot com explosion.

For the practicing lawyer, who has no time to podcast (or some days even to breath it seems,) I have two points:

  1. Just like books on tape allow you to "read" a book while driving, lengthy podcasts on subjects of interest may appear and there are several ways to play them over your automobile stereo, thus making drive time more useful.
  2. While narrating a regular weekly podcast radio show may be an impossible drain on a lawyer’s time, we will soon see podcasts placed on law firm websites. I would suggest that these be timeless and useful for potential clients. Here are some podcast titles people might like to download: What Everyone Should Know about Buying a New Home, Myths about Family Law Court Proceedings, or Small Claims Proceedings in Oklahoma. These could be produced and then left on your firm’s website for anyone to download for months.

An iPod and headset may not interest you, but millions use them and many more are sold each day. This new method of communication will do a good job of reaching a certain group. Wouldn’t you like for your firm’s marketing message to be available to this group at relatively little expense?