Daily Archives: June 15, 2010

Jun 15 2010

ADA Code. For iDevice.

Bracketing today with two legal i-Apps, the open bracket being Court Room Objections for the iPhone, I present you with the closing bracket – the ADA Code for iPhone and iPad! I am all about brackets during the World Cup.

I was browsing the App store for interesting new releases and stumbled on these. The iPhone version was released on June 5, and the iPad version was released yesterday.

ADA iPhone App Screen Shot

The apps are simple enough: there is a searchable version of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended in 2008, becoming effective January 1, 2009. And nothing more. The iPhone version costs $.99, while the iPad version weighs in at $1.99. Probably because the latter application offers a split screen view, with the sequential section headings in the left column and specific section text in the right.

ADA iPad App Screen Shot

Again, while these apps certainly are specialized, I can think of more than one practice area that could benefit from quick access to the ADA.

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Jun 15 2010

Quick Free OCR? Check out OCR Online

Need your scanned docs rendered search-friendly? Check out OCR Online (link here), a service that converts your scanned documents into text files for searching and editing. OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition and OCR Online does it for free. There are limitations – OCR Online only permits uploading 100 documents per day, so it probably won’t do for that big class action lawsuit with massive discovery requests. But, it does allow you to load multiple images at once.

Simply set your language, choose your output (MS Word, PDF, Rich Text format or Text), attach and upload. And, as an added bonus, OCR Online gives links to other cool free sites:

Convert Files – a free online file converter that can convert between most of the common file types.

Video Toolbox – a free online video editor beats the feature set of many desktop commercial products.

Audio Expert – a free and simple online audio editor, file converter and sound recorder.

Text To Links – a tool to turn text into links that you easily follow.

Go get it done!

Jun 15 2010

Looking for a GReader Alternative? Try Good Noows

Although I am a die-hard Google Reader fan, it is always nice to welcome a new RSS news reader to the fold and expand the options. Good Noows (link here), a web-based reader, has the slick look of Feedly with lots of customization tools  and social sharing buttons. Interestingly, you cannot sign up for Good Noows directly. Instead, you use your social log-ins from Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo or LinkedIn.

Be aware that, unlike Feedly, Good Noows is not tied to your Google Reader subscriptions. You must select your topics and sources within the application. Your news options do vary based on your location. In addition to the offered choices, you can insert custom feeds from your own favorite sources. Make sure you de-select the default options that you are not interested in, as Good Noows automatically subscribes you to recommended sources, just to get your started.

There are nine different formatting options for your news blurbs, all of which are nicely laid out and easy to navigate. I like the auto-translate feature – click a button to translate your entire page into another language. As with other readers, clicking on the item ultimately sends you through to the original article.

There is searching and filtering within streams for specific terms, which are called “labels” and can be added as buttons for quick access to your desired content.  In addition to the usual sharing options, you can share links from Good Noows in a chat format, powered by Meebo.

If you are a chat junkie, this last feature may make Good Noows a first place choice. For the rest of us, Good Noows might offer a different view of the news and may fit your needs better than the old standby.

Jun 15 2010

Court Room Objections On Your iPhone

Saw this interesting app reviewed over at Jeffrey Richardson’s excellent iPhone JD blog (link here) and thought I would share it directly with Studio readers. It’s called Courtroom Objections, and is the creation of Texas attorney Anthony Shorter. The app, which sells for $2.99, lists the types of objections one might find oneself needing at trial, broken down by those as to admissibility and those as to form. The lists of specific objections are fairly lengthy. When you click on an objection, the app offers suggested objection wording and background explanation as to why you can make the objection.

While it may not be the most comprehensive option out there, I have to applaud Attorney Shorter for packaging his work in such a user-friendly, portable package. We are seeing more and more detailed and specific legal applications, leaving no doubt in my mind that smart phones are more than just a tech diversion for lawyers.

Hit the link above for more detail and screenshots.