Think open source is unsophisticated? Think again. Take a look at the lengths the WordPress team went to in order to redesign the user interface.

To make sure users get a better interface, WordPress engaged the Ball State University’s Center for Media Design, Insight and Research (CMD, blessedly, for short).

CMD conducted eye-tracking studies, usability surveys, and other research to guide WordPress’s complete redesign of the user interface. You can even check out a detailed report of their findings (PDF).

Usability Testing Report: 2.5 and Crazyhorse | WordPress Blog

New versions of Ubuntu are released twice a year, and the second release of 2008 comes out today! (Watch the countdown at right to find out when the actual release is available.)

Since 8.04 was a stable, long-term service release, 8.10 includes a number of improvements. One of Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth’s goals is developing a user experience that matches Apple’s within two years. To that end, Canonical, the company that spearheads the Ubuntu program, has hired a handful of developers to coordinate Ubuntu development with the “upstream” projects it relies on.

Intrepid Ibex is the first step to an even better OS. Unlike Windows and OSX, Ubuntu move—and improves—quickly.

If you have not tried a Linux distro before, give Intrepid Ibex a try. It is released on LiveCDs. Just download the file and burn it to a CD. If you put it in your CD drive and restart, you can try Ubuntu without affecting anything on your computer. It just runs from the CD. (Be forewarned, running from a CD is slower than if you actually install Ubuntu, which is usually as fast or faster than Windows.)

Get it while its hot! (Or wait a couple of days, as the Canonical servers get hit pretty hard with any new release.)

A blog is probably the most effective way to drive potential clients to your (virtual) door. Well-written, attractive, and well-configured blogs consistently appear at the top of search engine results, and often result in earned media exposure for the blogger.

What is a blog?

A blog is just a frequently-updated website. It is a simple, easy way of publishing content to the web. Many of the websites you visit every day (CNN and the New York Times, for example) probably have the bones of a blog, but you may not even know it.

Earn great search engine results

Picture your ideal potential client. When faced with a legal problem or a need for legal advice, how will your potential ideal client find a lawyer?

Only a tiny percentage—11% or less—of middle-class Americans use the phone book. Most start with Google.

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Today, Microsoft announced Windows Azure, a “cloud” platform. You won’t run it on your computer, but rather use the internet to access software running on Azure.

Microsoft intends to compete directly with Google, Amazon, and other cloud services. In addition to Exchange, Microsoft plans to offer all its enterprise software as a service. It sounds, in part, like Microsoft intends to take its Live model and expand all its software with Live versions.

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There are two essential steps to any effective productivity system: (1) collecting everything you have to do; and (2) making sure you do it.

The first requires good, easy-to-use tools. If it takes work to collect tasks, you won’t do it. Tim Ferriss, author of the four-hour workweek, recently talked about how he does it.

Here are the tools he uses:

1. Evernote
2. Gmail
3. Google Calendar (Gcal)
4. Anxiety
5. Jott

Visit his article to see how he uses them to never forget anything again.

How to Never Forget Anything Again | Tim Ferriss (via Zen Habits)

Jay Foonberg reported that, as of 2006, only 22% of blue-collar Americans and 11% of middle-class Americans use the phone book to find a lawyer. And that was two years ago.

If you don’t market online, that means you are ignoring 80-90% of your potential future clients.

And not just the younger ones. According to the AARP, 52% of americans 62-71 are online, using search engines (59%), staying in touch (59%, presumably with social networking sites as well as email and IM).

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I have been using Ubuntu Linux exclusively for nearly a year now, with one abortive attempt to return to Windows. For me, the transition has been smooth. But to date, I have not exposed anyone new to Ubuntu.

But recently, I hired a law clerk to help me with a few projects, so I bought a new desktop computer for her. I went with a Dell computer with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed, and when my law clerk showed up on day one, I just showed her how to log in, where to find my client folders on the network, and not much else.

After a week using Ubuntu, she has not come to me with any problems or asked me how to do anything. I am sure it helps that most of my practice management software is online, but she had no issues getting up to speed with OpenOffice.org, the Evince PDF viewer, or anything else.

She says it feels like a mix of Windows and OSX, which is pretty much what I think about the default Ubuntu interface.

So for those who might want to try Ubuntu, give it a shot. It is easy to get oriented, and it just works. Plus, you can download a LiveCD and try Ubuntu without installing it or affecting your hard drive.

By now, everyone knows Sarah Palin’s email account was hacked a few weeks back. How? The clever interloper found her email address and used the forgotten password links plus a few well-known facts about Palin to reset her password. Piece of cake. Almost as easy as opening your physical mailbox to read your mail, in fact.

So take a lesson from Sarah Palin and change all your security questions to something less obvious. Instead of putting down your mother’s actual maiden name, use a different response you will remember. Something nobody will guess. Like the license plate number of your first car. Make a mental note of your response, and then use that same code for every security question.

(image: Huffington Post)

I have not decided just how I want to use Dropbox yet, but I will tell you what: this is one slick program. Dropbox is a very simple, easy-to-use program you install on all your computers, and it automatically syncs your files with a set of files in the cloud whenever you make changes, on whatever computer you have Dropbox install on.

Watch the video. Dropbox is really cool. I do not think it is ready, yet, to use for sensitive client documents, but I can think of a lot of other documents I want to have with me no matter what computer I am using.

Like Rocket Matter before it, Clio is a promising online practice management solution. Clio gave me a tour last Friday, so I have seen it in action and had the opportunity to ask the developers all kinds of questions.

For lawyers currently wrestling with Time Matters, Amicus, Abacus, and other clumsy practice management packages, Clio would be a breath of fresh air, and well worth the $49 per month for attorneys and $25 per month for staff. For lawyers like me whose practice management software is based on disparate webapps like Google’s online applications, Freshbooks, and Remember the Milk, Clio has no real advantage.

I like everything about Clio except the price. For me, Clio just does not pass the cost/benefit barrier.

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