New wireless network for UH?

Apparently. You might have skipped over this e-mail message from Bill Ashley at IT:

The University of Houston’s wireless network, Tsunami, will be retired on Tuesday, January 2, 2007.

The UHWireless network, which provides UH with greater security and enhanced services, has been operational for the past six months and will continue to provide wireless access for the campus.

Once you’ve selected the UHWireless network, launching a browser will automatically bring up a login window to access the network using your CougarNet username and password.

Visitors to the campus will be able to log in to access Web pages using the new Guest account. The username is UHGuest and the password is UHGuest (case sensitive.)

Go to http://www.uh.edu/uhwireless for information on UHWireless and instructions on how to connect to the network.

From what I can see, it's not up and running at the law center yet. At least, UHWireless is not among the wireless networks that show up on my adapter. I still see only Tsunami. Be aware that not all things run smoothly during a transition, even when the transition is allegedly complete already.

If you come back from break and you can't connect to the Internet, the switch to a new network is the likely culprit. If there's a problem, check your wireless utility (in the lower right hand corner) and make sure you've switched over to the new network.

Scratching the surface of Web 2.0

NOTE: This article appears in today's paper edition of Legalese.

From recent stories in Time Magazine and on NPR , you may be familiar with the term "Web 2.0" as used to describe the wave of new Internet start-ups rushing to share in the success Myspace and YouTube. Myspace, purchased by Fox for $580 million, and YouTube, acquired last month by Google for $1.6 billion, made their founders very, very rich. But the two sites are also the face of a second dot-com boom -- an explosion that is quickly transforming the Internet before our very browsers.

There are disagreements over exactly what Web 2.0 means (some argue whether the term should be used at all), but essentially Web 2.0 describes the upgraded, new-and-improved Web sites that have lately begun taking over the Net. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Fox are buying startups like crazy, and internet entrepreneurs are scrambling to build the next Flickr or Facebook. Web 2.0 is the sequel the dot-com boom of the 90s. The gold rush is on again.

With this excitement in mind, I thought I'd discuss a few of my favorite Web 2.0 sites. There are plenty of good ideas out there searching for money and fame. Here are a some that truly deserve your attention.

Meebo.com
Almost everyone has an instant messaging account. Many people use more than one service. But who wants to install two or three separate programs just so you can chat with all your pals? With Meebo, there's no software to install and you can talk to anyone and everyone, no matter what chat service they use. Just go to meebo, log in using your existing AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google, or Livejournal account, and start chatting. You don't have to register with Meebo, but if you do, you'll be able to log in to all your chat accounts at once using a single sign on. Perhaps the best feature is the new "meebo me" widget. Cut and paste the code into your Myspace page, or another web page, and your friends can see whether you're online and even send you a message, without ever leaving the page. Meebo is messaging that is truly instant.

Zoho.com
Imagine if Microsoft Office was completely free and you didn't need software or a hard drive to use it. Well, that's the idea behind Zoho, a suite of productivity software that lives entirely on the Web and doesn't charge individuals (corporations can pay for a more powerful version). Zoho offers a word processor, spreadsheet, and Powerpoint-style presentation program. It also offers email, calendar, and planning software. None of these programs are as powerful as Office, but that's not really the point. Zoho gives you the essentials, and quite a bit more, for free. And because it's Web based, you can access your documents from any computer (Mac, Linux, or PC) and even share them with your friends. Also, you can import and export documents for use in Office or another program. You can even print to PDF. Google's Docs and Spreadsheets service is simlar to Zoho, but not quite as full-featured. Microsoft will eventually offer its own version. But for now, nobody does Web Office better than Zoho.

Yourminis.com , Pageflakes.com , Netvibes.com
Yahoo remains the most popular home page on the planet, but a number of Web sites are rethinking the start page. Like Yahoo and MSN, they try to bring you the best of the Web on one page, but the upstarts have added some powerful features you can't find on Yahoo or MSN. Pageflakes, Yourminis, and Netvibes each allow you to easily add "widgets" that import content from Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and a ton of other sites. You can personalize each widget to give you only the content you want. Other widgets include digital clocks, calendars, and local weather. You can even check your email or play games. The key advantage is flexibility. Yahoo only gives you access to Yahoo's mail and calendar programs; these new start pages don't tie you down. Add your Google calendar, check your Hotmail account, monitor your Ebay auctions. My favorite of these is Yourminis.com because it does a great job with Web games. But all three options are swell. You might also try out similar sites offered by Microsoft and Google.

Last.fm
Last.fm brings the social networking features of Myspace and Facebook to the world of music. But instead of telling other people what you're listening to, Last.fm actually monitors the songs you play in iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media Player and uploads that information to your profile in real time. You can also upload track info from your iPod. For example, say you're jamming the new "Weird" Al Yankovic on your laptop. A small program uploads the track information for each song as it's played, and your pals will see what you're listening to while you're listening to it. Last.fm also keeps weekly charts of your most played tracks, and a list of your all-time faves. It's your own personal Top 40. You can share these lists on your blog or Myspace profile. Oh, and if you don't want anyone to know you like "Weird" Al, you can edit your track history retroactively, so that no one will ever know.

UH IT says to wait a bit before installing IE 7.

In the latest issue of Legalese, I reviewed Microsoft's upgraded Internet Explorer 7.0. Today, Bill Ashley, from UH's Information Technology department sent an e-mail to everyone on campus recommending that students and faculty delay installing the new IE 7.0 until the spring semester.

Information Technology recommends that UH students, faculty, and staff delay installing Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) until the semester break because of incompatibility issues between the new software and certain important UH applications, including WebCT and PeopleSoft.

IT is testing IE7 against all enterprise UH applications to identify software incompatibilities or installation issues that may arise as a result of upgrading to the new browser.

The e-mail also advised that IE 7 was due to be released November 1 (today). Actually, it was released on October 19, so a good many people may have already installed the browser. Also, Microsoft has scheduled the browser to roll out automatically to Windows XP users on November 14. But, as you can see here, you can opt out of the upgrade by simply choosing "Don't Install" when you're prompted. If you decide to give it a try, you can uninstall it later if there's a problem. This kind of user choice is a nice change for Microsoft. In the past, the software maker has made it difficult for users to roll back to previous versions after upgrading.

Should you avoid installing the upgrade? IT issued the following caution:

If you choose to proceed with the upgrade, please be aware of these known issues:

• Incompatibility with the WebCT Vista email editor
• Additional configurations that are required for PeopleSoft

I've been running it since the Beta was released, and had no problems at all. But, like most students, I don't use WebCT or Peoplesoft. If you do, then I'd probably steer clear. If you have additional questions or concerns UH IT asks that you visit this page for more information.

Also new in Internet Explorer: one-stop search

My review of Internet Explorer 7.0 and Firefox 2.0 (in the latest print edition of Legalese) left out an important common feature of both browsers. Both IE and Firefox include a search box on the right side of the toolbar that can be customized to access numerous search engines in addition to Google or Yahoo. For example, you can query Wikipedia, USA Today, eBay, or Amazon directly from your browser simply by installing the plug-ins for those sites.

To add search additional engines to your browser, click on the links below:

• for Internet Explorer 7.0
  
• for Firefox 2.0

Please note: Firefox has always had this feature, but if you use Internet Explorer, you will need to install the new version. The search plug-ins do not work with earlier versions of IE.

Building a virtual community

Welcome to the virtual home of Legalese, student newspaper for the University of Houston Law Center. Our editor, Emily Gelman, will give you a more formal welcome later, when we launch the blog officially. For now, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Marshall Preddy, a 3L at UH Law School. I write about tech/web issues for Legalese. With blessings from Emily and our associate editor, James Caruthers, I've spearheaded this new project, the Legalese Blog.

It only took us about 10 minutes to the site up and running using Blogger.com, but the real effort is going to come later, as we begin supplementing our coverage in the print edition of Legalese. Because printing a single issue of the paper can get pretty expensive, Legalese only comes out 5 times per year. We have to be pretty smart about how we spend our modest organizational stipend from UH. But the blog, well, we can post here as much as we want and it's free. The hope is that we can bring you more content more often, and more quickly.

Another advantage of our new blog is that it's a two way street. Unlike our print version, you can respond to our posts with your own comments. We hope to start a conversation with our readers, and eventually build a community for our fellow law students that can survive from year to year, no matter who's in charge of the paper.

Soon, Emily, James, and all our staff writers will join me in updating the blog on a regular basis. We hope you check back with us often.

Finally, I'd like to thank Gina Alsdorf, a Washington State lawyer with her own blog. She previously had the legalese.blogspot.com address, and was kind enough to let us have it, no questions asked. That's an awfully good way to start.