August 2006

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Blog comings and goings

14 August 2006 in Law blogs

Joy London’s Excited Utterances KM blog is no more. She has joined forces with Sean Hocking of Practice Sourceand Excited Utterances will be delivered “direct to desktop” with Law Librarian Newsto subscribers in PDF.

The Practice Source site has had a facelift and hosts bothSean’s House of Butter blog of law publishing news and a new blog Tab”law”oid, which, as it names suggests, covers legal stuff making the tabloid headlines.

Struan Robertson, Editor of Out-Law.com is now blogging on the Times Law Weblog.

James Purnell, Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions is blogging on the DWP Pensions Reform Blog.

Gun-toting law student fires off a few rounds

10 August 2006 in Law blogs | 2 comments

In the spirit of back-scratching that we adopt in the blogosphere, I’m pleased to point you to The Twenty-Something, the blog of law student, TAand aspiring barrister Miss H.

I’m guessing there must be thousands of law students blogging, and I’m not about to start tracking all their rants and ramblings, but Miss H standsout in that she’sincluded Binary Law (and most other serious UK law blogs) in her blogroll – even seems to visit them – andit looks likeshe keep her finger on the pulse of political debate and developments in lawand justice.

If you’re over 20-something you’ll need special glasses (not supplied) to view the site.

Culture vulture

10 August 2006 in Government, Miscellany

You learn something every day on the web en passant. Well numerous things in fact.

I set out to check out the website revamp at DCMSwho nowglory under the domain name culture.gov.uk.On this voyage I discovered:

1)Firefox resolves URLs in strange ways:

DCMS is now producing RSS feeds of news and FoI requests. Top marks for that. However, they’re erroneosly omitting their domain name from the links, thus:
http://reference_library/FOI_requests/archive_2006/case_47859.htm
Instead of
http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/…

Click the erroneous links in Firefox and you’ll be taken to:
http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Reference_Library/Aich/index.html
the Canadian Heritage Information Network’s Artists in Canada Page.

Weird and spooky.

2) The Government Art Collection website:

The Government Art Collection (GAC) places works of art in major Government buildings in the UK and around the world to promote British art, culture and history.

Works are displayed in several hundred locations, including Downing Street, ministerial offices and reception areas in Whitehall, Regional Government Offices in the UK, and diplomatic posts in locations as diverse as Paris, Buenos Aires, Washington and Beijing.

Dating from 1898, the GAC now holds approximately 13,000 works of art by British artists in a variety of media, including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, textiles and video works, from the sixteenth century to the present day.

SCL site revamp

9 August 2006 in Feeds, Law sites

The Society for Computers and Law has quietly released a redesigned site, with the full PRrazzmatazz to follow, presumably when members are back fromhols. (I understand this is called a”soft” launch in marketing circles.)

I prefer the cleaner, more conventional look and feel of the new site, thoughI have not investigated very far as yet.

There is also an RSS feed. It looks like this lists just forthcomoing events, though items are not dated, nor are event dates given. Sorry chaps, if you must soft launch, then expect picky types like me to spot the bits that aren’t ready.

Possession Claim Online

8 August 2006 in Justice

The HMCS Possession Claim Online service has commenced live service in the seven proving courts within the South Wales area- Aberdare, Bridgend, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, Neath & Port Talbot, Pontypridd & Swansea County Courts.

Claimants who register with the PCOL service can issue and manage claims online through these courts, and defendantscan reply and view progress of their claims online.

Statute Law Database – timetable

8 August 2006 in Statute Law Database | 2 comments

We are in Phase 2 of the public pilot for the SLD, which runs till 8 September. I am a Phase 2 trial user.

As to the remaining timetable, Tony Hopkins, head of the SPO, reports:

The last phase (3) of the pilot is scheduled to be completed by the end of October 2006. This will be followed by a formal Evaluation process which takes around three weeks to complete. Providing no other issues arise, then we could be live by the end of November or the beginning of December.

We are working on the commercial strategy at the moment and it will be a couple of months before we have a clear cut business model.

I’m happy for you to discuss the system with others but it would be nice if you could let us have your comments first before you go public with them. We really do value the comments that you will have and the pilot gives us an opportunity to get early feedback. If you have specific people in mind, then I’d be interested in learning whether or not they would be willing to become pilot users for the third phase.

So, it finally, finally looks like you will have the SLD by Christmas. There are issues concerning the completeness of the data and the consolidation of 2006 amendments to primary legislation. There will also be many aspects of the interface which we would like to see improved or otherwise changed. However, these need not delay the project and can be addressed once the SLD is released for public consumption. Meantime, if you are keen to see the SLD and contribute to its development, email tony.hopkins [at] dca.gsi.gov.uk to request you be addedas aPhase 3 user. Some supporting credentials would probably help.

New legislation feeds

4 August 2006 in Feeds, Legislation

At long last OPSIis producing RSS feeds of latest legislation. The feeds only include legislation added to the sitein the last 3 days, which is fine if you’re collecting and aggregating the data in your feed reader or otherwise, butnot much useif youare viewing the feed unaggregated.

Google’s steps towards world domination (3)

2 August 2006 in Search

John Naughton on the launch of Google Checkout:

The trouble with IT is that there’s always someone whose business plan involves world domination. … The latest contender for Supreme Ruler is Google, which until recently was a cheeky startup run by guys claiming the freehold of the Higher Moral Ground, but is now a grubby corporation just like the rest.

…

We have been here before. Years ago, Microsoft launched its ‘Hailstorm’ service, which was designed to hold users’ details and give them one-click access to all kinds of goodies and take the hassle of multiple registering with websites.

And guess what? Hailstorm bombed and was quietly buried. It failed because people were unwilling to trust Microsoft with their personal data. With Checkout, Google is betting that we will trust it with some of the same kinds of data. My bet is that people won’t. And Google will eventually withdraw from that arena, just as Microsoft did, and for exactly the same reason – which is that only fools put their trust in corporations.

First peek at the Statute Law Database

2 August 2006 in Statute Law Database

I now have access to the SLD for Phase 2 of the Public Pilot which runs from today for 5 weeks. Phase 3 will extend the public user base to over 100 but there’s no indication how long this will last, norof the timetable for the final evaluation, modifications and publication.

Will keep you posted as things progress.

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