This is a test posting via the 'webmaster' account. This test will demonstrate how blogs from other users appear on the site. Testing. Testing.

This is the place to learn about the usability of this site and ask questions about the usage.

Whoops ... it is possible that you reached this point because (a) you attempted to reach a page that does not exist or (b) you did a web search that brought you to this page but you are not an authorized user (or you are, but have not logged in).

An interactive site for the legal community of the 33rd Judicial District of Texas. This is a 24/7 rolling bench-bar conference. The general public can see only the weblinks and files list.

33rd & 424th Judicial District Courts Privacy & Security Policy Notice
The 33rd & 424th Judicial District Courts maintain the this site as a public service. The following is the privacy policy for this site (all pages starting with www.dcourt.org ("Court" site) ) and pertains to non-District Court employees* only.

Collection of Information

Cookies
We do not use cookies to collect information on the main "Court" site (i.e. www.dcourt.org). However, cookies are used on the "Calendar" (www.dcourt.org/webcal) and "Forum" (www.dcourt.org/forum) sites for keeping track of your authorized login session and pages visited. These are "session" cookies that expire when you log out or close your browser. Note: A cookie file contains unique information a web site can use to track such things as passwords, lists of pages you've visited, and the date when you last looked at a specific page or to identify your session at a particular web site.

Email
If you send us an electronic mail message with a question or comment that contains personally identifying information, or fill out a form on-line that e-mails us this information, we will only use the personally-identifiable information to respond to your request and analyze trends. Please note that under the Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code, commonly known as the "Open Records Act", information sent to the 33rd or 424th Judicial District Courts in an email may or may not be subject to disclosure. Public Access to Judicial Records is governed by Rule 12 of the Rules of Judicial Administration found in the Texas Government Code, Title 2, Subtitle F. Appendix as promulgated pursuant to Section 74.024 of the Government Code. For additional information please reference the Attorney General's "Open Records Act".

Site Management
For site management functions, information is collected for analysis and statistical purposes. This information is not reported or used in any manner that would reveal personally identifiable information, and will not be released to any outside parties unless legally required to do so in connection with law enforcement investigations or other legal proceedings. We use Log analysis tools to create summary statistics, which are used for purposes such as assessing what information is of most interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas. The following information may be collected for this analysis:
User Client hostname - The hostname (or IP address if DNS is disabled) of the user/client requesting access.
HTTP header, "user-agent" - The user-agent information includes the type of browser, its version, and the operating system it's running on.
HTTP header, "referer" - The referer specifies the page from which the client accessed the current page.
System date - The date and time of the user/client request.
Full request - The exact request the user/client made.
Status - The status code the server returned to the user/client.
Content length - The content length, in bytes, of the document sent to the user/client.
Method - The request method used.
Universal Resource Identifier (URI) - The location of a resource on the server.
Query string of the URI - Anything after the question mark in a URI.
Protocol - The transport protocol and version used.

Disclosure of Information
If you submit information to us electronically, by fax or through the mail, the information will be disclosed to staff to assist the Courts in fulfilling its official duties. The information may also be sent to other governmental agencies, litigants or their attorneys involved in a case pending before the Courts or in the administration or enforcement of the matter. The information will not be disclosed to third parties, unless we receive an Open Records Request and we disclose the information pursuant to the "Open Records Act". The rules regarding the release of public information received online are the same rules that apply to disclosure of information that we receive in a paper format. We will not market any information that we collect. If you have a question or concern about a matter that you have submitted to us, please contact the Court Administrator.

Security, Intrusion, Detection Language
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with the Rules of Judicial Administration.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Texas Penal Code Chapters 33 (Computer Crimes) or 33A (Telecommunications Crimes).

You can unsubscribe yourself at any time and if you are having any difficulty, then email the Webmaster (see bottom left column this page) and request to be dropped from the list.

Please do note that when you post an item of content or make a comment to an item, your "username" is displayed.

Some Conventions:
You will see a number of terms with a glossary_link description. They are flagged with a symbol that looks like the small blue question mark icon you see after the word "glossary" in this sentence. Click on the icon to see a definition.

SHIFT-click on a link at you'll open a new web browser page. This helps you to not lose track of where you were before you clicked that link. When done, just close the new browser window. A number of the links open a new window anyway but not all of them do.

If you don't have an account, click on: Create new account

You'll be prompted for a username and a password. Suggestions for a username might take the form of: RichardRoe John.Doe Jimmy Jumpbucket JDoe jdoe

This takes you to a menu of categories of files. Read more about it here.

All new items and comments to items on the CMS site (that's this site) will be cross-posted to the 33rdCourt@yahoogroups.com email list. You won't get the whole item, just the title and the teaser and it will update every (for now) 3 hours. Why do this? To get the legal community more involved interactively. Call it a "cyber bench-bar conference" if you will. Some people on the email list will not be given full membership in the CMS site. It will be restricted to attorneys and officials with a real need to know. It is my hope that those who have not signed onto the CMS site may see something for which they'd like to join into the discussion and then will jump on in.

The whole idea of a Content Management System style of web site -- which this is -- is for users to be able to add content and comment on existing content. It is user-centric rather than webmaster-centric.

In sections above we've covered how to navigate about the site. Now you need to know how to view the content and then add comments, if you wish to get interactively involved.

Viewing: Each item of content is termed in the 'drupal world' as a node. Forget that. We'll call it an 'item' for clarity. Viewing an item varies slightly depending upon which theme format is being used on the site but this will be written for the default theme in use at the time this is written.

Locate an item you might want to read. It'll be in a box with a title at the top and some options at the bottom.

Find the title. It will be at the top of the item, in bold, and it's a standard web hyperlink. Just under the box surrounding the item will be a link to 'read more' if there is more content than is shown in the box. The material shown (if less than the whole item) is called a 'teaser' and is essentially an introduction.

Read the whole item by clicking either the title or the 'read more' link.

There are various optional links across the bottom of the item as follows:

The right-hand column is primarily for navigating specific content. Specific types of content will be listed including the active and new forum topics, and recent blogs.

Navigation is accomplished from the top of the page and down both left and right-hand columns for different purposes.

The main content appears in the center, wider column.

This section will discuss the basics of the navigational scheme.

(updated 2007-03-13) There are three ways to know of changes to any of the content on this site.

Every blog topic for which an entry has been made will be listed here. Click on a topic and the center column will list every blog entry tied to that topic.

The left-hand column is primarily for navigating according to types of content.

First about 'book navigation' which you will observe in the left-hand column right now as you are presently viewing a 'book' type of content. That menu appears only when you are viewing a book page. Thus, it takes over the primary navigation reference since it is assumed that you are presently mainly interested in plowing thru content that is organized as in book chapters.

There are four areas of navigation,

• the top of the page (three areas), and
• the left column

and on the

right-hand column of the page

you will find clues to the currently active sections. This chapter will provide only an overview of the ways to access different content and to navigate the site. Other chapters below will go into more detail.

On the top menu you will finds "calendar" and "settings" links. "Calendar" opens the court's master calendar in a new web page.

"Settings" opens (in a new web page) the book with documentation on the entire system of checking for setting availability on the calendar and requesting a setting via the online email form. That page will also lead you to the links to actually perform a setting reques

The bLAWgs menu item is legalese for BLOG. Read more about blogs here.

There are several routes to reading bLAWg content including topical areas listed in the left column menu and specific bLAWg titles in the right column menu. And if you click on "topics" on the top menu any bLAWg content within a topic will be listed there as well.

Properly classifying new content according to the topical areas provided is one of the more daunting challenges. The topical classification system is known in the Drupal system as "taxonomy" which is a term you'll recall from your biology course.

If you add content you'll need to supply a title and then choose from one or more taxonomies, or lists of topics. Some pointers:

Here is some more info about the various types of content on this site. The ones marked with &nbsp&nbsp X&nbsp&nbsp cannot be posted to by users, only by yours truly.

• personal blog entry

At least for now each user has the ability to post blogs here. "Blog" is short for weB LOG. A blog is a regularly updated journal made up of individual entries, often called posts, that are time stamped and typically arranged by the day, with the newest on top (a diary is the reverse). They tend to be quite personal, often containing links to things you've seen, or to editorials that you find interesting. Some blogs also contain original material written solely for the blog. Since a Blog is personal, you and only you have full control over what you publish. (But we get to comment!) The most interesting blog entries or those blog entries that fit the site's topic well might get promoted to the front page by the community or by users with the access do this.