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Google+I love WordPress for its crazy flexibility and endlessly new plugins. I regularly take advantage of this to tweak and change my own site–and you can too! So what have I been doing lately with my favorite platform? Some of these are easy–just install a plugin–while some require more advanced knowledge to implement—but all of them will supercharge your WordPress installation.
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The irrelevance of blog advertisements: a publisher’s lament
After running a (horribly unscientific) poll on my law & technology blog for several months, I discovered that less than 15% of people voting found any of the Google-served advertisements to be relevant (not unwanted… irrelevant). This is a problem.
How I use a blog in my research and writing
As someone who does not blog to earn money (I like to pay my hosting fees, but that’s only because I’m a poor grad student), I thought I’d run through how and why I blog, and why I find it a critical part of my “real” work of academic research and writing.
Six more of the best WordPress plugins
I admit it. I’m a WordPress plugin junkie. I’m continually updating, adding, removing, and adjusting the list of plugins I have running this site. Here are six of my current favorites.
Is the future of scholarship social? Should it be?
Reflecting on the release of Apple’s iPad, David Weinberger suggests that it is a device focused on consuming content and not producing it, and argues that the true future of reading is to become more social. Jim Milles questions scholars’ desire for this vision of the future.
Want clients? Be helpful and do good
“Be helpful and do good” is a deceptively simple strategy: just go out and help people, and clients will find you. (Just don’t forget to make it easy to be found!)
How to write attributions for the Creative Commons licensed images you use on your blog
I’ve found that pictures shared under a Creative Commons (CC) license (of all flavors) are a great resource for bloggers who want artwork to accompany their posts. I’ve also realized that not everyone, myself included, has always done an adequate job of meeting the attribution requirements of CC licenses. To help remedy this, here are my recommendations for doing this properly in a blog.
Why can the TSA subpoena bloggers to get at their sources?
The TSA issued a directive aimed at instituting new security measures. After two bloggers published it, the TSA issued subpoenas that sought to compel them to reveal their sources. Why did the TSA think they could do this, and did they have the power to enforce their request?
Finding the diamonds in the rough in the "blogosphere"
I’ve been giving a lot of thought over the weekend to the problem of finding good content buried amidst all the noise on the Internet, especially when it comes to blog articles from lesser-known sources. (This is true for readers looking for quality content, but it’s also true for authors seeking readers.)
Law school vs. graduate school
Last May I finished my 3L year, and am now the proud possessor of a JD. On Thursday I began my first year program as a graduate student in the history of science. The experiences, perhaps unsurprisingly, have been strikingly different: law school is, ultimately, preparatory to practicing law as an attorney, and much of its emphasis is on tracking students in that direction. Graduate school in the humanities and social sciences, meanwhile, is about training future academics.
Five lesser-known — but great — WordPress plugins
Five great, although lesser-known, WordPress plugins: Login LockDown, SexyBookmarks, wp-Typography, WP Greet Box, and WP Minify.
Lawyers should leave their laptops at home when traveling abroad
There has always been an exception to search and seizure law at border crossings. In theory, this is nothing new — attorneys traveling with confidential paper files could also have them searched. But the ease of carrying vast numbers of confidential documents in electronic form raises the bar on this.
Google Books adds open-standard downloads
For anyone using any kind of electronic reader — including a regular computer — this addition to Google Books may well prove quite useful: EPUB as a download format.
What does it mean to be in the public domain? Thoughts about the AP licensing scheme.
The AP has begin trying to license content through a payment scheme. Some of the content — as recently demonstrated by James Grimmelmann “purchasing” a Thomas Jefferson quote — is in the public domain. Does the AP have the right to sell/license this public-domain content? What does it mean to be in the public domain?
Can Amazon’s Kindle disrupt the current textbook market?
BizOp News asks the question: “Is the Kindle DX: Amazon’s 9.7″ Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation) a disruptive device for the textbook market?”
Google responds to publishers
According to Rob Salkowitz of Internet Evolution, in the so-called Hamburg Declaration issued July 9, publishers argued that services like Google are “using the work of authors, publishers and broadcasters without paying for it.”
