♫ I close my eyes, then I drift away
Into the magic night, I softly say
A silent prayer like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Roy Orbison.

Well we are heading into the Canadian annual right of spring – the Victoria Day long-weekend.

With images of heading to the cottage, heading to the condo at Whistler or just kicking back and taking a few days to relax, I thought I would share my tip for the best music website that I have found to relax…or work ..to.…

The librarians in our firm library often have questions on topics that are outside our experience.  This is no big deal.  As well trained and experienced legal information specialists we know the steps to follow to gather information on whatever topic comes our way.

One of the things that we have to remind ourselves to do, most especially this decade, is to constantly reorient ourselves to texts and other commentary that we have access to in our constantly changing and growing web based research tools.  I am not talking about how Google grows or new tools like CanLII Connects, but …

Audacity is a free, multi-track audio recorder and editor that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to record live audio through your computer microphone, an external mic, mixer or other line in input. For example, you can also use it to convert your records or cassette tapes into digital recordings. Depending on your sound card, Audacity can also capture streaming audio. It will let you edit WAV, AIFF, MP2, MP3 and various other types of audio files. You can cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together and dub over existing tracks …

So, WalMart shoppers can now obtain $99 wills at four in-store kiosk locations in the Greater Toronto Area, with more to come:

Behind the plastic jugs of liquid Tide stacked near the entrance of a new Walmart in Markham is an innovation in discount retailing: Axess Law.

Founded by Toronto lawyers Lena Koke and Mark Morris, Axess Law provides fast and affordable legal services to time-pressed shoppers.

Simple wills are $99. Notarized documents are $25, plus $19 for each additional document.

This should come as no surprise to those of us who have been eyeing the tea leaves for some …

Whenever we give legal research training to law students one of the sources of valuable up-to-date commentary that we emphasize are papers from continuing legal education seminars. This type of material provides valuable local commentary, often on changes to the law, that is specific, succinct and to the point.

In Alberta, we are lucky that the cataloguers at the Alberta Law Libraries create a comprehensive search of the table of contents for material in their catalogue.  In addition to finding tools from the publishers of conference papers, a keyword search of the library catalogue will find the title or author …

Most smartphones now have an option called HDR, which is short for High Dynamic Range. When you take a picture in HDR, your smartphone camera actually shoots three pictures at three different exposures. Your phone then combines these photos to create one composite image that will be sharper and have more vivid colours.

Try HDR when are taking pictures of landscapes or when you are shooting into the sun or another bright light source. Don’t use HDR for any pictures where there is motion as moving objects will be blurred, unless you want this effect, say for instance when you …

♫ You may think I’m strong
and I can do no wrong
but I’m vulnerable
so vulnerable…♫

Music and lyrics by Pet Shop Boys.

Microsoft has reported a vulnerability in all versions of Internet Explorer.  While Microsoft has posted security workarounds and US-CERT has recommended that users implement them, they only work for the two most recent versions of IE (10 and 11).  Moreover, they are reported to be technically complex.

:

The IE vulnerability is a big deal, said Will Dormann, vulnerability analyst in the CERT Division of the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburgh, Pa.…

I have to confess that I am a reader.  Go figure! Being a reader is trait that has been particularly helpful in my practice as a non-lawyer legal researcher, and given the high volume of use in my law libraries text collection (both print and online), I am not alone in this.

Often texts used in the legal research process are simply skimmed. The index points you to a place of interest, you skim a few pages, and valuable footnotes or embedded citations lead you out of the text to other resources.

Today’s Tip – pick up a textbook and …

I’m just back from an ABA conference and am following up with some of the people I met. That might mean a phone call or an email with a link to an article, and in some cases, it means sending a LinkedIn connection request.

LinkedIn makes it very easy to send a connection invitation. After searching a name, a simple click on a button creates a standard message: “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” and a second click sends it on its way.

While virtually effortless, these generic invites are far from ideal, …

It may not be a giant step for mankind, but it’s at least a baby step toward the technological modernization of Ontario’s archaic court system.

On April 16, 2014, Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General  announced the launch of OntarioCourtDates.ca, an online service that lists daily dockets for all Ontario Court of Justice and Superior Court of Justice courtrooms throughout the province.

Searching the website by municipality and case name, you can access listings of the next day’s pending cases, court room numbers and scheduled hearing times.

The AG’s press release notes:

• The online daily court lists will