Lawyer's Guide to Internet - Rick's book is a great resource. Here's a gem that many lawyers who send E-mail could benefit from:
"Disclaimers. Most law firms include a disclaimer on every E-mail. Read yours carefully. Are twelve lines of warnings really necessary? Shorten the disclaimer so that it satisfies the basic concerns, but don't go overboard."
Twelve lines of warnings, heh. I often see disclaimers with more lines than that. Lawyers love to include boilerplate language that no one but an obsessed person would read. It conditions the reader to ignore that language. And, isn't that what writing is all about? Letting the reader know that you are ready to bamboozle her with drab overloaded prose?
Well, I'm sort of against that approach. Here's my short guide to the written language: try to write only things that people might be inclined to read. If you have trouble figuring out what people might be inclined to read, stop writing immediately. Unplug your computer, move it off the desk, and then put your phone in the space where the computer used to be. Wait for it to ring, pick up the headset and then dictate any disclaimers you feel are necessary into the mouthpiece. Ignore the click and the ensuing dial tone. You are a Great Communicator, and you should be proud.
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This internet transmission (and/or the attachments accompanying it) may contain confidential information belonging to the sender which is protected by the attorney-client privilege. The information is intended only for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. Any unauthorized interception of this transmission is illegal under the law. If you have received this transmission in error, please promptly notify the sender by reply e-mail, and then destroy all copies of the transmission.
3:22:48 PM
How to profit in the instant messaging business - first make your IM software widely available for free. Then, sell monitoring software to businesses so they can keep track of how their employees are using it. I'm sure this ploy will reap loads of cash; after all, didn't AOL hit a major home run with the Time-Warner merger? These guys know marketing.
1:24:28 PM
Funky Blawg - found this site in my referrer logs. Looks like a law student who is emphasizing "spice" in the Spice of Life. Go for it.
1:14:51 PM
Vigilant Voters - Check out VoteWatch (it's getting a lot of traffic today and so you might have trouble accessing the main page), a site that lets people report irregularities and other voting stuff. There's a forum organized by state, and I notice that Florida, Texas and Minnesota are grouped separately under a category called "hot zones." Ouch.
12:51:33 PM
Does this mean the Treo will become more widely available? RIM settled its lawsuit against Handspring. RIM claimed that keyboards on Handspring's Treo 180, 270 and 300 models violated its patents. I wonder if the little Palm and other keyboard add-ons also violate RIM's patents? I'm sure their lawyers would think so, but not until the add-on manufacturers start making enough money off of them to attract attention.
I have been hoping that Verizon would start offering Treo phones so I could get a new phone that replaces my palm and my phone. I'm sure that this lawsuit isn't the reason for Verizon not offering the phone (more likely it's an exclusivity deal with Sprint), but I'm sure that settling the lawsuit is a good thing for the proliferation of Treos. And that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.
10:59:31 AM
Take the ultimate political test - which founding father are you? Apparently, I'm John Adams, which basically means I'm hard-headed and think I'm right about everything. Oh well, who says these things are accurate?
10:37:32 AM
Louisiana Politics - Dave Winer quotes Huey Long, the populist governor of Louisiana: "When I die I want to be buried in Louisiana so I can stay active in politics."
That's a good one, but I like what his brother Earl said, after he was elected governor, in response to the claim that he would retaliate against those who opposed his election: "I'm here to tell you that whether you voted for me or not, you are all going to get good government. Of course, if you voted for me you're going to get better government."
And Governor Edwin Edwards, who recently was shipped off to jail, had a good one after his 1986 federal trial ended in a hung jury. At the press conference held right after the verdict a reporter asked him "governor what do you say to all those people who say you were guilty as hell, but the prosecution was just too inept to convict you?" He responded "well, I suppose they're half-right."
