SEC may fine Morgan Stanley $10 million for not keeping email

News.com SEC may fine Morgan Stanley $10 million over e-mail

The Securities and Exchange Commission is threatening to fine Morgan Stanley more than $10 million for failing to keep e-mails in a number of cases the agency brought against the brokerage firm.

The fine, if levied, would be one of the biggest monetary penalties ever paid by a Wall Street brokerage firm for failing to preserve records, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Via beSpacific

Google group on law blogging

Alex Scoble: Google group on law blogging

Today I received an email from Geoffrey Gussis, a lawyer who blogs and also happened to start up a Google Group specifically for people in the legal industry who blog as well.

Blawg of the Day

Anonymous Lawyer

Slashdot | WinFS Beta 1 Released Early

Slashdot reports WinFS Beta 1 has been released via MSDN.

Electronic filling difficulties

Here's an example of how electronic filling is changing the practice of law: "Plaintiff's failed attempts to electronically file a motion to remand before applicable, non-waivable deadline did not require federal district court to retain lawsuit defectively removed from state court"

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a ruling holding that a plaintiff's motion to remand -- untimely filed due to difficulties with the district court's electronic case filing system -- authorized the district court to send the case back to state court, even though the jurisdictional deadline for such remand motions had passed before plaintiff achieved the successful electronic filing of the motion.

Via How Appealing

The return of WinFS?

Microsoft Readying WinFS Beta Bits?

Scoble says, "I can neither confirm nor deny any rumor to that effect. At least not today. Tomorrow? Well, come back then. ;-)"

That sounds like a nondenial denial if I've ever heard one.

How to win friends and influence people with RSS

Scobleizer: Influence people with RSS

I was over at Alex Barnett's blog this morning and saw he linked to a survey that said that 87% of influencers use RSS. This is PRECISELY why I've been telling everyone to get RSS feeds and why they should be full text. If no one else in society uses them, this is enough reason.

Kevin Case of the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog answers the question: "Why does Exchange use dynamic ports for the Information Store, et cetera?"

Blogger Sued for Comments on Blog

Nothing like chilling free speech. I'm not sure I like the idea of being responsible for other people's comments.

Via Darren

Electronic filling and tigher federal building security

I attended electronic filling training for the Southern District of West Virginia yesterday. The training itself wasn’t too hard. The shock was the tightened security.

They took my cell phone and kept it until I left the building. I ended up having to remove my belt and shoes. I hadn’t been to the federal courthouse for about a year and a half, and I was unprepared for security screening as tight as airport security. I was told I could keep my phone if I were a lawyer.

Electronic filing is coming fast. It is mandatory in the Northern District of West Virginia. It is optional in the Southern District of WV for now.

I look for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to move to electronic filling in the near future and mandate a timetable for the local courts to move to electronic filling.

U.S. agencies cyber attacked via China

The Washington Post and CNN are reporting hackers are heavily using computers located in China to target the networks of U.S. agencies and U.S. analysts are divided about if the attacks are the work of the Chinese government, or the work of others located outside China, who are using Chinese computers to disguise the origins of the attacks.

I wonder if this activity is the result of thousands, if not millions, of pirated and unpatched copies of infected Windows computers.

Proactive antivirus software

This stuff is the wave of the future.

the [non]billable hour: Marketing 101 - There are Five Benefits, Pick One

the [non]billable hour blawg quotes our local blogging buddy Skip Lineberg at Maple Creative in Marketing 101 - There are Five Benefits, and asks "So, what benefits do lawyers offer?"

Desktop search engines linked to Exchange problems

With Google's release of Google's Desktop Search Beta 2 today, comes the scary news that some desktop search products can cause performance problems on Exchange servers.

There is an KB article on the subject here: 905184 Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 performance.

Too bad they don't list the desktop search products by names.

Visitor log for Law Firm IT

gVisit is a free tool to map your visitors using Google Maps. Click the link to view the Visitor log for Law Firm IT

Blog Glossary

Confused by words used by bloggers? Blog Glossary to the rescue.

Like all internet formats, weblogs, also known as 'blogs', have developed many terms which may baffle newcomers. The Blogging glossary is a resource for people who want to decode and demystify the jargon they may encounter whilst cruising through the blogosphere.

Fighting spam blogs and comment spam

Blogger has added word verification for comments. I don't receive a lot of comment spam, so I will not be turning on word verification for comments.

Infocon Yellow

This afternoon SANS - Internet Storm Center changed their Infocon warning system from green to yellow.

The Infocon status is now yellow, due to the MSDDS.DLL exploit now available. We moved to Yellow as we feel widespread malicious use of this vulnerability is imminent, and the workarounds shown here provide sufficient countermeasures to be applied quickly. We expect to move back to green by the end of the day or early tomorrow.

This afternoon Microsoft released a security advisory regarding the MSDDS.DLL exploit.

Cost Wall

Robert Ambrogi's LawSites: ABA releases annual legal technology survey

For the small sum of $2,225 you can purchase the five-volume set. The executive summary in PDF is only $150.

The ABA is as bad as other organizations of thinking of law firms as an endless stream of cash.

BuzzWords: Tips for blawggers

Strategic Legal Technology :: KM as Capturing Best Practices

I tried to read this post, but I keep tripping over buzzwords and the writing. Take if from a former journalist. Most people read on a 6th grade reading level. While you target audience might be attorneys, writing at 12th grade reading level makes content difficult and trying.

* Write like Hemmingway. Keep it short and to the point.
* Don't complicate your message.
* Use the KISS principle - Keep it simple stupid.
* Use conversational tones. Markets are conversations.

Remember you are not writing a report to a client. You are talking to another human being. Blawgs and blogs in general are not a place to exercise you vocabulary. Readers will not be impressed.

On branding

Adam Smith, Esq.: How Attractive is Your Firm's Brand on the "Supply Side?"

While your firm is not Coke, it is a brand that needs to be cared for.

Realize that your firm has an image, a perception, dare I say a "brand" in the marketplace for recruits—distinct from the market for clients. Think of your firm's brand image to clients as its "demand side" brand and its brand image to recruits as its "supply side" brand.

It is not a good idea to brand your first-year associates, because it can hurt. (Note: I'm trying to be funny.)

SANS Zotob Update

The SANS - Internet Storm Center has updated information on Zotob.

CAUTION: We do observe a large variety of Bots taking advantage of MS05-039. Not all of them are characterized as Zotob, and some may escape AV detection all together. Do not assume that you are "safe" if you don't find Zotob, but if you are vulnerable to the PNP exploit. Some of the other bots match generic SDBot or RBot signatures.

Zotob.A

Executable size: 22,528 bytes
Executable Name: botzor.exe
Ports: TCP – 445,8080,33333

Aliases: Zotob.A [F-Secure], W32/Zotob.worm [McAfee], W32/Zotob-A [Sophos], WORM_ZOTOB.A [Trend] Other details – Opens FTP server on port 33333, copies 2pac.txt and haha.exe to the system directory, adds itself to the run and run services in the registry. Modifies the hosts file to prevent updating of antivirus and security programs from updating.

Zotob.B
Executable size: 27,648 bytes
Executable Name: csm.exe
Ports: TCP – 445,8080,33333

Aliases: Zotob.B [F-Secure] W32/Zotob.worm.b [McAfee] W32/Zotob-B [Sophos] WORM_ZOTOB.B [Trend Micro]

Other details – Opens FTP server on port 33333, copies 2pac.txt and haha.exe to the system directory, adds itself to the run and run services in the registry. Modifies the hosts file to prevent updating of antivirus and security programs from updating.

Zotob.C

Executable size: 41,984 bytes
Executable Name: per.exe
Ports: TCP – 445,8080,33333

Other details – Mass-mailing worm uses a predefined list of recipient names appending the domain names that it gathers from an infected computer. Contains its own SMTP engine to email to the addresses that it finds. Opens FTP server on port 33333, adds itself to the run and run services in the registry. Modifies the hosts file to prevent updating of antivirus and security programs from updating.

Zotob.D

Executable size: 51,326 bytes
Executable name: windrg32.exe
Ports: TCP – 6667,1117,445

Other details – Opens FTP server on port 11173, attempts to end a variety of processes , Modifies the registry and deletes a variety of registry entries, and deletes a variety of files from the system and program files directories, adds itself to the run and run services in the registry. Modifies the hosts file to prevent updating of antivirus and security programs from updating.

Zotob.E

Executable size: 10,366 bytes
Executable Name: wintbp.exe
Ports: TCP – 8594,8080,445, UDP - 69
Aliases: WORM_RBOT.CBQ [Trend Micro]

Other details – Opens TFTP server on port UDP 69, Connects to IRC server at 72.20.27.115 on TCP port 8080 to listen for update instructions, adds itself to the run in the registry.

Zotob.F

Executable size: 10,878 bytes
Executable name: wintbpx.exe Portls: TCP –445

Other details – Opens multiple TCP ports. Connects to IRC server at 72.20.41.139 to listen for update instructions, adds itself to the run in the registry, creates a file named %Temp%\[NUMBER] which if successful contains TFTP scripts to download additional files.

Zotob.G

Executable size: 73,728 bytes
Executable name: windrg32.exe
Ports: TCP –445,6667,1171
Aliases: W32.Drudebot.A Other details – Attempts to connect IRC servers on port 6667, Opens a TFTP server on port 1171, attempts to end a variety of processes , Modifies the registry and deletes a variety of registry entries, and deletes a variety of files from the system and program files directories, adds itself to the run and run services in the registry, creates a file named %Temp%\[NUMBER] which if successful contains TFTP scripts to download additional files. Modifies the hosts file to prevent updating of antivirus and security programs from updating.

Damage report and update

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Metro -- Worm crashes 12,000 county desktops

An Internet worm that crashed computer systems nationwide wreaked havoc on the county government's network yesterday, shutting down 12,000 desktops and forcing thousands of employees to work the old-fashioned way: manually.

W32/IRCbot worm beats Sasser record - Personal Computer World

According to McAfee's AVERT antivirus team, the IRCbot.worm!MS05-039 worm has emerged in the wild seven days following the initial announcement of the Microsoft vulnerability, demonstrating the fastest time between the announcement of a vulnerability and the success of a mass propagating exploit - even faster than Sasser, which took 14 days.

Windows Server Update Services Download

This service from Microsoft used to be called SUS, but is now called WSUS. WSUS is a patch and update component of Windows Server that keeps yours Windows network up-to-date. You can download WSUS here: Windows Server Update Services Download

The download and use of the software is free, as in free beer. With W32.Zotob.E, AKA the CNN worm, in the news yesterday and today, I wanted to share this little known Microsoft service with my readers.

Just type it in Word

Blogger: Download Blogger for Word

Blogger has released a Blogger add-in and a Blogger toolbar for Word. The download requires Windows XP or 2000 and Word 2000 or higher.

I played with it this morning and it works very well.

The Worm That Swallowed CNN

mediabistro: TVNewser

CNN spent an hour in "breaking news" mode when a worm infected its computers in New York and Atlanta. (Leading to the real question: Why does CNN still have computers running Windows 2000?)

CNN worm-The morning after

There is not much new news on the CNN worm. It remains unclear if this worm if this version of Zotob continues to spread. A look at the overnight trends on port 445 shows no large increase in activity.

News outlets have continued to update this story, but there is no new news.

The total effects remains to be seen as it is a little after 8 a.m. on the east coast and most people haven't booted their computers this morning. The biggest issue remains the large number of point of sale systems that run Windows 2000.

Using Pastpush to install VNC flavors to multiple systems

Alex Scoble over at A Law Firm IT Manager Blog shows us a tool for pushing VNC to multiple systems: Using Pastpush to install VNC flavors to multiple systems

Over at my Computerworld blog, I've just posted about using FastPush to deploy many of the available VNC flavors to multiple systems on your network automatically.

CNN Worm update #2

SANS - Internet Storm Center has released an other updated statement on the CNN worm:

This is an IRC bot worm, and will scan for TCP port 445, and for file shares. McAfee reports in it's bulletin that systems not patched for MS05-039 will continually reboot.

It appears this is a new worm, W32.Zotob.E. Symatec has release info here. McAfee released information as well, calling it W32/IRCbot.worm. McAfee has rated the risk assessment as high.

CNN worm coverage round-up

Computer worms strike media outlets - Spam, Scams & Viruses - MSNBC.com is the best and most balanced of the mainstream stories about the worm.

Washington Post: A Media Worm?

Windows worms knocking out computers | CNET News.com:

The multiple worms are hitting individual organizations rather than computer users at large, said Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Institute, an Internet security training and research outfit.

"These worms are not having an impact on the Internet," Ullrich said. "They do have a substantial effect on organizations running Windows 2000 without last week's Microsoft patch installed.

Trend Micro alerts on virus exploit- The Economic Times:

" What makes the new worm, WORM_ZOTOB, so notable is its exploit of Microsoft Security hole and this 'exploitation' is believed to be the fastest in the history of malware creation, a statement said.

The new worm drops a copy of itself into the Windows system folder as Botzor.exe and it modifies system's Host files in the infected user’s computer so as to prevent the user from getting online assistance from certain antivirus websites.

The backdoor capabilities of the worm enable it to connect to a specific Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servicer and allow hacker a remote control over affected system, which can be used to infect other machines in the network.

Hundreds of "infection reports" were sighted in US and Germany. "Since most of the users may not be aware of the newly announced security hole so as to install the necessary patch during last weekend, more infections in Asia Pacific and other regions are foreseen, it said. "

Trend Micro thinks this is a whole new worm, which is different from Zotob, and is spreading fast.

(IN)SECURE

(IN)SECURE is a free digital security magazine in PDF format. I'm not a fan of PDF newsletters or the PDF magazines. I'd like this see this as a blog with a nice RSS or Atom feed.

Update on the CNN worm

SANS - Internet Storm Center has updated its statement on the CNN worm: "CNN is heavily covering an outbreak of a worm in its own network. They are reporting that ABCNews and NYTimes are hit as well. All statements so far make this look like a Zotob variant, and Symantec just released info on the W32.Zotob.E variant here."

Microsoft upgraded this worm to 'moderate". They were calling it a "low impact" threat: What you should know about Zotob. Symantec has W32.Zotob.D removal instructions.

The biggest threat it appears is cash register, point of sale systems. I was in a Cingular Wireless store about an hour ago and they had been knocked offline.

The overall threat to unpatched enterprise systems remains to be seen, but you sys admins out there better put on a pot of coffee.

CNN hit by a Worm affecting Windows 2000 systems

Zotob.d has been around for a few days. Most people have patched by now, but this story became breaking news late this afternoon when unpatched Windows 2000 systems at CNN, ABC, and The New York Times began rebooting at will.

SANS-Internet Storm Center reports:

Likely this is an isolated event, which became newsworthy because CNN got infected. We do not see any new threats at this point. Zotob keeps mutating and finding new victims. As seen with prior TCP worms, it is reaching its peak around 3 days after the outbreak.

Blawg Review

Thanks to the attorneys at Patent Baristas for mentioning Law Firm IT: The view from the server room, in Blawg Review #19. They also link to my other blog: oncee@blogger. A big thank you goes to Bob Coffield at The Health Care Blog for sending my information to Blawg Review.

LawLibTech: Blawg.org's New Law Firm News & PR Feeds Category

LawLibTech: Blawg.org's New Law Firm News & PR Feeds Category

Blawg.org has started a new category for law firm feeds. It makes perfect sense for law firms to provide RSS feeds of at least their marketing materials...

Slashdot: How Much Bandwidth is Required to Aggregate Blogs?

Slashdot | How Much Bandwidth is Required to Aggregate Blogs?

Kevin Burton's Feed Blog: The Math around Posts Per Day

This is a rehash of the age old and geeky argument about the utility of rss aggregators vs http.

Blogs outperforms websites

Robert Scobleizer says:

The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business recently ran a bootcamp for 33 MBAs where they did a a fun study: they tried to see if the bootcamp's weblogs would outperform a small business's Web site on major search engines. Suprise, suprise, the bloggers kicked behind. "The bootcamp results demonstrate that with moderate but systematic effort bloggers can achieve search visibility that outperforms established local players for relevant searches."

Hill and Knowlton, a major PR firm, made a major jump into blogging recently.

End user's needs

LexBlog: LexBlog Blog : Law firm blog and Web design must be tailored for target audience, not law firm customer: "Law firm blog and Web design must be tailored for target audience"

And for the legal marketing professionals putting up with grief from lawyers on Web design and Internet marketing (I am not sure I can say it in public) but both the above study and Greg Storey found it may be the male ego driving the design that was screwing things up as far as the end user's needs.

Not saying all legal marketing professionals are women, but I regularly talk to some of the most talented and hard working marketing professionals you could ever find who happen to be women working in law firms. You wouldn't believe the politics many need to play to get design and Internet marketing projects approved by the (male?) powers that be. As I have said, there ought to be a special place in heaven for these marketing professionals.

RSS for Marketing

Prismlegal offers a look on how to use RSS for maketing: Marketing, Info Overload, and RSS

I have suggested that law firms should provide RSS [really simple syndication] feeds for their alerts and updates. This way, clients can pick and choose what they want to read, eliminate excess e-mail, and help reduce information overload. Yesterday, a Canadian law firm announced that its updates are available via RSS.

Vancouver-based Clark Wilson yesterday announced that the firm “is now offering topical RSS Feeds for our firm’s publications. By using RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) feeds, those with interests in specific legal subject matters will receive immediate notification as soon as alerts and articles that match their interests are posted on our website.”

Word Redaction Tool

Jim Calloway over at Law Priactice Tips Blog points out the Microsoft Releases Word Redaction Tool.

Microsoft has released a new free add-in tool which allows redaction of MS Word 2003 Documents before distributing them. According to the download site, "The Microsoft Office Word 2003 Redaction Add-in makes it easy for you to mark sections of a document for redaction. You can then redact the document so that the sections you specified are blacked out. You can either print the redacted document or use it electronically. In the redacted version of the document, the redacted text is replaced with a black bar and cannot be converted back to text or retrieved.

Law Office Software for The Macintosh

I used to run an all Mac network at my first law firm job. This site, Law Office Software for The Macintosh, is a great resource. The site is great, but a blog would be better.

The smoking gun in the recycle bin

Microsoft says it has found the 'smoking gun' in their case against former executive Kai-Fu Lee, who left the software giant to join Google. According to court papers, the file was recovered from Lee's recycle bin on his computer.

The document indicates Google foresaw possible litigation in hiring Lee to head its China operations. It could bolster the software titan's claim that by taking his new job, Lee would be breaking a contract signed with Microsoft, and that Google has been encouraging Lee to violate that contract

Microsoft sued Lee and Google last month saying Lee had broken his one-year non-compete clause.

Findblog

LexBlog Blog, the leading turn-key solution for law blogs, responds to Findlaw's plans for entry into blog hosting.

* I am not aware of any blogs run by FindLaw employees. Assuming that is the case, how can they have expertise on blogs, RSS and building ones name and reputation on the blogosphere?
* FindLaw does a zillion different things, there will be no focus on blogs.
* FindLaw does not have a great name out there in the area of customer service nor quality products. At least that's what I hear when law firms contact LexBlog. Makes me question whether they are capable of doing a quality blog product.
* Thomson/West Publishing manages FindLaw. Thomson West is a dinosaur in the publishing industry. Innovation and attracting visionaries has not been their strong suit. Blogs, RSS/XML and developing technologies are the heart of future legal marketing. Not sure FindLaw is up to the task.
* Many lawyers blog because of their goal of contributing to the public good. I have never heard FindLaw say they want to do something for the greater public good.
* FindLaw appears driven not by developing a quality blog product but by selling something at a price point they think a significant percentage of their law firm customers will buy. Kind of says it all.

I'm calling this new Findlaw product Findblog. I have no idea what Findlaw plans to call it.

Thanks to Bob Coffield at Health Care Blog Law for pointing to the LexBlog post.

There's gold in 'em there blawgs

Hot on the heels of today's Blogging for Lawyers Webcast which was pretty good by the way, Dennis Kennedy links to an AP story published on Findlaw about a move in Congress to change and extend daylight savings time. If the law passes and is signed into law there really shouldn't be a lot of issues. Vendors will have to patch, but it should be as simple of downloading and installing new software.

Today's Blogging for Lawyers Webcast was a simple attempt to get lawyers on the cluetrain. Doc Searls and other have been saying, "Markets are conversations", since 1999.

From a Law Firm IT point of view, the only new information is that Findlaw will begin hosting law blogs, aka blawgs, the 4th quarter of this years. Findlaw sees money in 'em there blawgs.

Findlaw is a sister to Westlaw. Westlaw has been selling legal research materials, both offline and online, to lawyers for years. The question for the people running Law Firm IT is what is more cost effective. There are already paid and free hosting and software for blaws. Blogger already hosts a ton of lawyers who blog.

E-Filing and The Learning Curve

E-Filing and The Learning Curve Tom Mighell over at Between Lawyers takes a look at the pitfalls of e-filling.

Before a court system decides to go mandatory, they should offer e-filing as an option, with the notice that at some point in the future, e-filing will be the only option. At the same time, the court system should offer some sort of class to teach the basics of e-filing to lawyers and their staff. The classes can be online, at the courthouse, or in seminars through the bar association. I know some of the federal courts here in Texas require the attorney to take such a class before registering to e-file, but so far the state courts that have e-filing don't provide any obvious training...

LAW TECHNOLOGY NEWS SECOND ANNUAL TECHNOLOGY AWARDS PROGRAM

Here's how Law Techology News ranked them back in January:

Law Technology News subscribers selected winning companies/products in the following 13 categories: Case/Practice Management (over 50 attorneys): LexisNexis' Time Matters; Case/Practice Management (under 50 attorneys): Gavel & Gown Software Inc.'s Amicus Attorney; Docket/Calendar Software: Gavel & Gown Software Inc.'s Amicus Attorney; Document Management: World Software Corporation's WORLDOX; Electronic Data Discovery: Kroll Ontrack; Knowledge Management: CaseSoft's CaseMap; Litigation Support Services/Consultant: InData Corporation; Litigation Support Software: Summation Legal Technologies, Inc.'s iBlaze; Practice Tools: Westlaw; Product of the Year: Summation Legal Technologies, Inc.'s iBlaze; Time & Billing (over 50): Thomson Elite's Billing Manager; Time & Billing (under 50): Software Technology Inc.'s Tabs3; Wireless Technology: Research In Motion.

Notice Prolaw isn't anywhere in this list.

The Good Cable Guide

Cable management is a nightmare in most any environments. Data centers do the best job. Everything is in racks, and all the cables go under raised floors.

You won't find this sort of thing in law firm IT. If you are lucky, your equipment will be on racks, but most of the time equipment is placed on some sort of shelves or old desks.

loose wire: The Good Cable Guide is a good guide to getting your cables in order. Good cable management isn't just for the server room. It is important for everyone. When a legal assistant or lawyer or any other of the staff gets a new computer, check under the desk to make sure their computer and telephone cables are not in the way. One cable kicked or yanked will cause a great amount of work.

The Good Cable Guide says:
1. View Cable Management as an Important Safety Issue
2. Absorb Excess Cable Length
3. Keep Cables Separated
4. Eliminate Unused Cables
5. Avoid Mixing Data Cables With Electrical Cords
6. Throw Some Light On The Subject
7. Label Cables & Their Ports
8. Use Adhesive Cable Clips Liberally
9. Establish a Cable Flow

The most popular case management software on Download.com

When you think case management software, I always think of the big two, at least in my experience: Time Matters and Prolaw. But it looks like there is another contender I've never heard of according to Download.com: LawLog Professional Edition Legal Software.

There are others out there of course: Abacus, Tabs3, and Amicus have been around for years. I'm sure there are more I've never seen.

I've worked with Time Matter for a few years know. I spend about a year as a Time Matters consultant. Recently I've taken a job in a firm that uses Prolaw. While most all these packages have the same features, contacts, events, matters, and billing, and run on an SQL backend, none of them work in quite the same way. I've found with Prolaw that much of my Time Matters experience doesn't account for much. The search features do not work the same. Prolaw in more flexible, but Time Matters is more simple.

On the back-office IT side supporting these packages are about the same: Install SQL, install the server software, install the client software.

There seems to be no magic bullet when picking case management software. My advice, if you are new to case management software packages, is to trying them all and pick the one that you are the most comfortable.

Blogs for Lawyers Webinar on August 9

Between Lawyers reports:

Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy of Between Lawyers will be featured with Raza Hasan (FindLaw's Manager of Product Development) in a free one-hour webinar called "Blogs for Lawyers: Building an Audience to Build Your Practice," brought to you by the nice people at Thomson FindLaw.

The webinar is live twice on Tuesday, August 9. Here are the links:

August 9, 11:00 AM CDT

August 9, 3:00 PM CDT

A New Name For RSS

I've been telling people to watch what Microsoft does with RSS. It appears from the first beta release of IE7 that they have are calling RSS "web feeds".

I'm pretty sure we will see "web feeds" in the next release of Outlook, Exchange and MS server products.

Application to trademark "BLOG"

Boing Boing reports Marble Sportswear Inc., a sportswear company based in Beverly Hills is behind this trademark applicaiton.

Free Software for Help Desk, Asset Management, and IT Inventory

ilient Sys Aid is a great free (as in beer) program for Help Desk, Asset Management, and IT Inventory. The free version is limited to two administrators and a limited number of users, but should be of some use to those on a network of less than 100 users. The documentation is great.

The free version sports a build-in database, but it can be scaled to run on MS-SQL or MYSQL.

Administrators and users interface with the program via web browser.

There are a number of help desk software solutions out there. Many are free, but none come with an interface as slick as Sys Aid.

Features include:

* View the details (such as hardware, software, and manufacturer) of computers, printers, and other assets on your network.
* List, sort, and search through your network's computers, printers, and other assets.
* Remote control PCs on your network.
* Print reports on your network's PC inventory, hardware/software, catalog items, and more.
* Communicate with users via Email, SMS, and instant messages.
* Manage your organization's help desk.
* Receive free support and updates for six months.