Showing posts with label CTC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CTC. Show all posts

Friday, September 18, 2009

We - well, I do - forget how quickly technological developments are changing the way we live. In 2001, with CTC in Baltimore, Wim and I did a camping tour along the East coast of the U.S. We read our email in the local public libraries, a great free service. Eight years later, we travel with our notebook computers and have free wifi in all motels. We still go camping, and then we just park near a motel for wifi service. Clearly, we do not make electronic payments over open wireless, but otherwise it is very handy. There will be free wifi at CTC in Denver too.
Wim keeps track of his photo sales, and I have composed my presentation for CTC while we were in Yellowstone National Park which does not provide any kind of connectivity whatsoever. But I sat in a lobby with a view of Old Faithful Geyser for a couple of hours and moved and pasted my slides. As I closed my notebook, Old Faithful gracefully erupted. Awesome.
We also bought a satellite navigation system (a tom-tom) to experiment with while driving. It was $ 129 at WalMart. And as things go, the function we use most is not the one it was designed for, but something else: that of keeping track of maximum speed. It shows you the maximum speed and beeps when you drive too fast. It also finds us hotels and restaurants. We will bring it home and download the European maps. However, we still have lots of paper maps and would not know how to travel without them.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

CTC

The 2009 Court Technology Conference will be held in Denver, Colorado September 22-24. Check out the program here.
I attended CTC for the first time in 1999, in Los Angeles, and have attended all of them (five in all) since then. They are organized by the National Center for State Courts in the U.S., and they are always an interesting mix of experience sharing, highlighting new issues and reactions to present-day problems.
This year's program focuses on keeping things going in difficult times, but it also has Ari Shapiro National Public Radio's justice expert in the opening keynote. There is always the election of the best court web site. I meet friends and colleagues at the special interest group for judges. Another of my favorite items is Fred Lederer's court technology lab.
My plan is to do a blog on the conference every day. My twitterpage @doryontour will announce the program items during the course of the day. So, keep coming back here, and also let me know what you think by sending comments.