Category Archives: Technology

Bullet Journaling For Attorneys

We here at the Law Office of Brett A. Burlison are pretty busy: we run two blogs – Legal Blog and San Francisco Injury Attorney Blog – and have a personal injury practice in two states. Thus, we got a bunch of junk to do . . . always.

Thus, we are always looking for ways to keep track of everything. We are huge fans of Evernote, TaskPaper, Dropbox, TrialPad, and iCal just to name a few of our favorite apps and we live mostly in the cloud (where work is concerned).

But every now and then something comes along so simple and yet useful that we have to find a way to incorporate it into our digital world and pass it along. Bullet Journaling is one of those things.

Bullet Journaling is a paper system of keeping track of your to do(s) or tasks and/or projects. It’s a self-made calendaring system of sorts that is so simple it’s incredibly effective. It also involves the use of a Moleskine notebook, which we adopted over yellow legal pads some time ago.

The system was devised by Ryder Carroll, a designer and art director in New York. We have adopted it with a few alterations and so far so good. If you want a full-on review of the Bullet Journal system click here for Lifehacker (one of our favorite sites) and their review. Or just enjoy the video.

Good luck!

Traumatic Brain Injury App – It’s Here

We here at Legal Blog try to provide readers, injury victims, and potential clients with as much useful information about traumatic brain injuries – both TBI and MTBI – as we can.

We are also big Apple/Mac fans. So when we heard that a new App dealing with traumatic brain injuries was out we had to give it a test drive and then a shout-out.

The App is made and developed by 6ps Media Group LTDA. It sells on the App Store for $4.99. The content or substance was developed by a team of neurosurgeons along with a host of other medical folks.

Its aim is to educate and provide helpful information for health care specialist who deal with head injuries regularly as well as the general public and traumatic brain injury attorneys (like us).

It covers topics like TBI physiopathology, classifications, causes, treatment, prognosis, as well as many more.

We found it to be useful and laid out in an easy to use format. Its design was fairly practical, even for non-medical types, and the interface was native for iPhone and iPad.

So, we give it a thumbs up and would recommend it if you are an attorney or health care professional who deals with traumatic brain injury patients.

Facebook & Privacy Concerns

The Wall Street Journal reported today that some of the most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting identification numbers for users and their friends to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies. The information transmitted can be used to ID a person – as in figure out their real name and other information.San Francisco Injury Attorney On Facebook Privacy Concerns

This was followed by a letter from U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) and Joe Barton (R., Texas).  The two congressmen are co-chairmen of the House Bipartisan Privacy Caucus.

The letter sent by Barton and Markey to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg expressed the concern that “third-party applications gathered and transmitted personally identifiable information about Facebook users and those users’ friends.”

This is the second privacy snafu committed in the last year by the young but giant internet social media company.

Google Accused Of Telecom Law Violation

SAN FRANCISCO – As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, AT&T Inc. has filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission asserting that Google Voice is violating telecommunications laws.

Google Voice is Google’s new phone service.  The service allows users to route or direct calls through a single number to multiple phones, a featured valued by many consumers.  AT&T is claiming that the service violates common carrier laws requiring operators to connect certain calls.

According to the San Francisco paper, however, Google’s telecom and media counsel, Richard Whitt, through his blog has defended Google’s service and argues that it doesn’t qualify as a phone operator.

Currently, Google Voice services a limited number of users.

Facebook Settles Privacy Class Action

200px-facebooksvgAccording to the San Jose Business Journal (September 19 edition), Facebook Inc. announced that it has settled a class-action lawsuit that alleged privacy violations by the social networking media company.  Facebook will shut down the “Beacon” service, which allegedly recorded and displayed the actions its users had taken elsewhere on the web.

The class action lawsuit alleged that Facebook had violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the California Computer Crime Law. Facebook will also contribute $9.5 million towards setting up a foundation that promotes online privacy.

Google “Flips” Out

250px-googleAccording to the San Francisco Chronicle, Google is offering up a new format (“Fast Flip”) that allows readers to flip through many different online publications just like you would a magazine. Ads will be placed around the articles but the revenue from the ads will be shared with publishers.

If you are a news junkie like me, this is great – now you can “flip” or scan through multiple papers and online magazines until something catches your eye.  And if you are a publisher, you can now earn revenue due to folks reading your paper on Google, which many of us do anyway (Google Reader, Google News etc.).

I’ve tried Fast Flip and it works well: you can easily scan numerous sources and you can quickly gain a sense of what is making news. Currently, Fast Flip only displays the first page of a news story.  If the reader could flip through the rest of the paper or publication without leaving the front page of Fast Flip this would be much more user friendly.  However, Fast Flip is a vast improvement over standard “reader” services or Google News.

Yahoo Microstoft Deal = Greater Privacy Rights?

201px-yahoo_logosvgAs the New York Times’ blog Gadgetwise (click here) points out, normally a merger between two Internet giants isn’t always a good thing for consumers.  However, in the last three years there has been a trend coming out of Silicon Valley to deliver better privacy protections to consumers.  And, the agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo to work together on Web search may re-vitalize it.

According to the Times, Jules Polonetsky, director of the research group Future Privacy Forum and formerly chief privacy officer at AOL and DoubleClick, believes the agreement could increase competition for the bragging rights to who has the best practices.

What’s driving this possibility is that Yahoo currently has the most stringent privacy policy. If Microsoft matches it due to their agreement, then Google could be forced to follow suit in order to stay competitive with consumers concerned about privacy.

Currently Yahoo retains search query data for three months, while Microsoft and Google retain such data for eighteen months.

Google CEO Resigns from Apple’s Board

225px-eric_e_schmidt_2005_looking_leftAs reported by the New York Times (click here),  Apple announced today that Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, was leaving its board because of “potential conflicts of interest.” Mr. Schmidt had been on Apple’s board since August 2006.

Google is developing its own operating system, Chrome, which strikes at the core of Apple’s business. And, 250px-googleaccording to the Times, Google’s Android mobile operating system also competes with Apple’s popular iPhone.

The Times also notes that Schmidt’s decision to leave “follows months of investigations by federal regulators into whether Apple and Google had violated antitrust laws by sharing two directors.”

Microsoft and Yahoo Reach Deal

201px-yahoo_logosvgAccording to the New York Times, Microsoft and Yahoo are joining forces in a partnership in Internet search and advertising.  The partnership is intended to create competition and rival Google.

As reported by the Times, the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership is a pragmatic division of duties between the two companies. It also presents the most serious challenge to Google’s 250px-microsoft_wordmarksvg1dominance in Internet search and advertising to date.