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ABA Site-tation: April 2005

Knowledge is Power! The Web's Lucky Charm Medspeak: Unveiling the Mystery End of Life Decisions Electronic Court Access: On the Rise!

Knowledge is Power! KnowledgePlex KnowledgePlex bills itself as “the affordable housing and community development resource for professionals,” “designed to support the efforts of practitioners, grantors, policy makers, scholars, investors, and others involved or interested in the fields of affordable housing and community development.” This information-rich site contains case studies, research, best practices and other documents related to affordable housing and community development, in addition to news and discussion forums. A weekly newsletter is available via e-mail subscription. The home page contains top news stories, as well as a link to the site registration (you must register to get to the discussion forums). The right-hand side of the page highlights upcoming programming, and tools for affiliates. You can embed a news feed on your website with the latest headlines about affordable housing issues and events. An RSS feed for news is also available to help with current awareness. A nifty calendar on the left navigation bar under the tools section gives you locations of upcoming events; just cover the location with your mouse to find out more, and click the link for even more information. This is a handy way of keeping track of events coming to your area. KnowledgePlex contains a vast amount of information and documents. The arrangement is topical; use the left navigation bar to choose your topic, among them Economic Revitalization, Personal Finance and Asset Creation, Land Use and Housing Planning, and many more. Each topic’s home page is then arranged by Most Relevant Documents, Most Relevant News, Related Discussions (links to recent forum posts), Upcoming Events and Related Multimedia. The left navigation bar shows which topic and subtopic your active document is in, a nice touch if you’ve searched and chosen a document from the results list, and want similar information. If you are working with housing and zoning issues, you owe yourself a visit to KnowledgePlex – it’s a great source of information and current awareness tools. Laura Ikens [Top] The Web's Lucky Charm del.icio.us In the early days of the Internet, luddite pundits used to liken the web to a library where all of the books were strewn across the floor. Search directories like Yahoo! came to the rescue, but savvy Internet users continue to look for tools that further tame and organize the World Wide Web. How about an easy-to-use, free tool that organizes your own personal web preferences? del.icio.us succeeds in doing just that, and throws in a few more tricks for good measure. del.icio.us styles itself as a "social bookmarks manager". It allows registered users to save and organize their Internet bookmarks so they can be accessed at any time, from any computer, regardless of make, model, and browser. If that concept sounds familiar, you might remember the previously profiled BackFlip, which provided a similar service. Unfortunately, BackFlip has recently been plagued by outages and extreme slowness. del.icio.us improves on BackFlip's model by being easier to use, quicker to access, and simple to customize. After completing the free registration, users are shown how to drag and drop a del.icio.us bookmarklet onto their browser's toolbar. Click on that link when you want to bookmark a website. You will be quickly taken to the del.icio.us posting form, where you will find your site's name and URL already filled out. Users can simply click the save button and be automatically directed back to their site. For those who demand link organization, subject headings can also be created in the tags field on the posting form. (Keep your subject headings to one word.) The subjects are stored on the right side of the page for easy access. del.icio.us is not only a useful tool; it is also an Internet popularity bellwether. When you save a site on del.icio.us, you can see how many other del.icio.us users have saved that same site. For example, I am one of sixty del.icio.us users who have bookmarked ChicagoTribune.com. Users also have the option of making their del.icio.us page public, so family, friends, and complete strangers can see what your essential sites are. As an added bonus, del.icio.us is RSS friendly. While you can have a feed for your personal links, more useful is the feed for the most popular sites indexed on del.icio.us. This timely information is conveniently sent and updated in your chosen RSS reader, and savvy Internet users are guaranteed they don't miss out on the next big thing. Molly Kilmer Flood [Top] Medspeak: Unveiling the Mystery Deciphering Medspeak You’ve got a document in front of you with medical terminology, but no medical dictionary handy? The Medical Library Association can help with its “Deciphering Medspeak” page, an alphabetical listing of commonly used medical terms, prefixes, suffixes and parts of speech. You can find information here about types of medication, e.g., beta blockers; clarification of abbreviations and acronyms like EEG and EKG; and simple definitions of illnesses or disorders, such as pertussis. Deciphering Medspeak also provides at every turn a link to National Library of Medicine’s dictionary and medical encyclopedia in case you don’t find what you’re looking for or would like further explanation. For simple plain-spoken definitions, Deciphering Medspeak is just what the doctor ordered! Laura Ikens [Top] End of Life Decisions ABA Lawinfo Estate Planning/End of Life Issue/Living Wills The ABA Division for Public Education has combined resources from around the American Bar Association to provide a tremendous amount of material designed to help with estate planning, end of life issues, and living wills. The resources can be found on the ABA Law Info website, designed for consumers and non-lawyers to present information on legal topics that pertain to family, finances, home, jobs, and more. The resource also provides information on how to hire a lawyer, and maps out the court system and criminal justice system. Recent events have brought to light the importance of end of life planning, and the Division pulled together resources from throughout the ABA to help provide guidance for these important decisions. The compilation provides links to topical overviews, worksheets, forms, FAQs, and a bibliography. Many of them are in PDF format, so they make printing and reading easy. Resources come from the Division, but also from the ABA Commission on Law and Aging, the ABA Commission on Legal Problems of the Elderly, and the ABA Section of Real Property Probate and Trust. Several entire book chapters are included, among them two chapters from the new ABA Guide to Wills and Estates and a chapter from the ABA Family Legal Guide. These advance planning resources are practical and useful for consumers. Even if you don’t practice family law or estate planning, this is a useful site to link to for your clients, your friends, and your family. These decisions are never easy, but it is best to be prepared. Catherine Sanders Reach [Top] Electronic Court Access: On the Rise! CM/ECF System Implementation Continues to Grow An April 19, 2005 press release on the U.S. Courts website proclaims the news: federal jurisdictions implementing the Case Management and Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system are on the rise. The press release contains statistics about the progress of the system implementation, as well as map graphics to click on that give the implementation status by jurisdiction. Look at the press release to see what’s going on in your jurisdiction. Be sure to also check the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center’s Electronic Filing Resource Page. This resource will give you information about state courts using electronic filing (currently, 13 states are using statewide electronic filing), a recap of federal jurisdictions using e-filing, as well as a new developments section, information about vendors, and other relevant links. Check here for the latest information about e-filing. Laura Ikens [Top]