You may be used to going to your favorite Web search engine and typing in a query, hitting the search button and looking at your results. The availability of Google Instant provides you with an alternative: you can now start to see whether your search query is finding anything. It may actually encourage you to slow down your typing to see what matches you get before you finish entering your search query. Continue reading
When I moved to the Incredible Start Page as my replacement home page, I found that my bookmarks bar was too cluttered to work well in this new layout. I moved most of my bookmarks into one of two folders, my primary folder and a utility folder. My primary folder appears on my Incredible Start Page so I have easy access to my most commonly used links, just like a speed dial home page. All of my bookmarklets went into the utility folder, where I can still get quick access to them and they don’t clutter up the bookmark bar.
I was not impressed, then, when I read the Lifehacker post on the Bookmarklet Combiner. It creates a folder-ish object (also a bookmarklet) that contains all of your bookmarklets. As far as that goes, it provides no more utility than creating your own folder and dropping your own bookmarklets in. Where the Bookmarklet Combiner has a bit more power, however, is that you can have it execute multiple bookmarklets as a set. So, for example, if you wanted to send the URL to one location but also send it to your read for later list, you could do that without two clicks.
This is a good example of the interesting solutions people develop to make their Web experience more efficient. This particular one does not fit into the way I work but if you like macros or rely heavily on bookmarklets, it may be a good one for you to add.
I mention more than a dozen extensions in the text that you can use to enhance your research using Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser. If you want a shortcut to add a bunch of useful extensions that (a) someone has identified for you and (b) that are bundled with other, relevant extensions, you want to look at Mozilla’s add on collections.
The obvious choice for lawyers and legal researchers is the Reference Desk bundle, although most of these will not improve your Web browser search experience. I’m biased, but I think you’ll get better mileage with the ones I mention in the text!!
Perhaps it helps to look at them in a different way. If you are a heavy Mozilla Firefox user, there are collections that will make your experience faster: shortcuts, utilities to zoom images and perform other custom actions. Take a look at the popular collections as well as the ones created by the editors. You will find more collections, and they include some add-ons you might not otherwise stumble upon.
Google Chrome users will need to search for the 10 best or favorite lists of Chrome extensions; they are not gathered together. Internet Explorer users will need to consider switching to Chrome or Firefox to really leverage extensions.
A constant time challenge when you are managing electronic files is how to move information quickly between two locations. Say you have your e-mail folders structured in a certain way and you also have your computer file folders organized in the same fashion, how do you quickly get content from one place to another.
Lawyer Lawrence King of Colorado posted a great tip to Technolawyer about how Microsoft Outlook users can use two utilities (one free, one US$40) from Techhit to make taking e-mail content and saving it electronically in your file system much easier. You can read his full post here (requires subscription to Technolawyer). In essence, he uses MessageSave to get the e-mail out of Outlook and QuickJump to locate the file folder into which it should be placed. Unlike normal browsing through folders, clicking down into each new one until you find the right folder, QuickJump allows you to start typing the folder name and it offers suggested folders. If you have organized your file system on your computer by client name and matter, this can be an easy way to get right to the appropriate folder.
You may already know about Techhit’s SimplyFile e-mail utility, which is mentioned in Finding and Managing Legal Information Online.