How to add an Outlook 2003 icon to your desktop

Alex Scoble: Add Outlook 2003 desktop icon

ambivalent imbroglio: Blawg Review #25

Blawg Review #25, the protest edition, is up over at ambivalent imbroglio.

Office 2003 Service Pack 2 now available

Office 2003 Service Pack 2 Released

Via The Lazyadmin.com and Alex Scoble.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

More on ProLaw Version 11

I’ve confirmed this morning that existing ProLaw customers can download the ProLaw Version 11 update from ProLaw Client Portal Login

PC Law is purchased by LexisNexis

Robert Ambrogi reports PC Law was purchased by LexisNexis on Thursday. He points out LexisNexis already owns Time Matters.

Massachusetts Finalizes Plans to Move to XML Based Document Format

PCWorld.com is reporting Massachusetts has finalizes plans to phase out Microsoft Office and move to a nonpropretary format for office documents.

Massachusetts released a final version of its Enterprise Technical Reference Model on the state's Web site Wednesday. According to the site, the new version, which became effective that day, "incorporates a new discipline for data formats within the information domain." As part of this new discipline, the state, going forward, will support the newly ratified Open Document Format for Office Applications, or OpenDocument, as the standard for its office documents.

Developed within the standards body OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), OpenDocument is a file format based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) and covers the features required by text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents.

There are several office suites that support xml, OpenDocument format, including OpenOffice, which is free as in free beer, Sun's StarOffice, KOffice, which only runs with KDE in Linux or BSD, and IBM Workplace.

Microsoft Office Word 2003 does have some XML support, but not out of the box support for saving all you Word documents as xml. It appears Mircosoft is moving toward builing XML, OpenDocument standards into the next release, but it's not soon enough for Massachusetts.

ProLaw Version 11 released?

I got word late last week to expect the release of ProLaw Version 11 yesterday (Saturday, September 24th). I never found any word of the new release. Today I notice the Thomson ProLaw website has moved Version 11 to the top of the page. I can only assume this means Version 11 has been released.

Yet Version 9.6 is the software they continue to offer for evaluation.

Version 11 screenshots, as I reported last week, can be found here.

ProLaw Version 11 sports a brand new beautiful and polished interface, integration with the Microsoft’s Office suite of products, including Outlook and Word, and web access. It appears firms currently using Prolaw and holding an up-to-date maintenance agreement are entitled to a free upgrade.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the new version.

Blawgs: A primer LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe

LexBlog Blog : Blawgs : What are they? How do they work?

How do blawgs work? Lawyers publish short posts of content focused on a niche area of the law on an easy to use Web publishing tool. The result is that the content is easily found on the search engines when Internet users in the lawyer's target audience are looking for legal information and/or a lawyer. Better yet, good content on blawgs (I hate that word) is written about on other blogs having the obvious effect of identifying the lawyer as an expert in a particular area of law or in a particular locale.

Open Source Document Management with KnowledgeTree

KnowledgeTree is an open source document management system for the enterprise. The software is released under the GPL and you can download it for free. There is also an online demo.

KnowledgeTree features central content repository, a workflow and routing of content engine, user-extensible document metadata, and of course search and indexing technology.

Software Requirements:
* PHP 4.3.0 or above, but below PHP 5.0
* MySQL Server, Client, and PHP libraries, version 4.0 or above
* Apache 1.2 or above
* MySQL

Server Requirements:
* Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 Server
* FreeBSD
* Linux
* Sun Solaris

Test Drive Open Source CMS Software

OpenSourceCMS is a great site that allows visitors to review and test drive open source CMS software.

Blawg Review #24

Blawg Review #24 is up at Jaybeas Corpus.

Digital Medical Records

N.Y. Times: "Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said the chaos wreaked by Katrina 'powerfully demonstrated the need for electronic health records.'"  It shouldn't take a disaster for people to realize that the cost of dealing with paper is too high; making key information digital should be a priority of most businesses.  Sadly, most will wait for a disaster to prioritize.

Via Ernie the Attorney

Pacer Surpasses Half Million Users

beSpacific: Pacer Surpasses Half Million User Accounts

New Bagle Making the Rounds Update

I blogged about a new Beagle variant in the wild last Monday. SANS has posted an update today:

New Bagle Making the Rounds? (NEW)
Published: 2005-09-19,
Last Updated: 2005-09-19 16:13:56 UTC by Tom Liston (Version: 9(click to highlight changes))

It looks like there is a new Bagle variant making the rounds. The (preliminary) information that we have is:

* The file arrives as a zipped attachment with a filename including the word "price" (price.zip, price2.zip newprice.zip, 09_price.zip, etc...).
* Creates two files: C:\WINDOWS\system32\winshost.exe and C:\WINDOWS\system32\wiwshost.exe
* Launches winshost.exe from the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run key
* This has been classified (by at least one AV vendor) as: TROJ/BAGLEDL-U

While you're waiting for your AV signatures to catch up, you might want to try the following snort sig submitted by ISC reader Mark T (Thank you, Mark!):

alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET any -> $HOME_NET 25 (msg:"VIRUS Bagle.CJ SMTP Inbound"; flow:to_server,established; content:"UEsDBBQAAAA"; content:"EEkIAAAG"; distance:12; within:20; reference:url,isc.sans.org/diary.php?date=2005-09-19; classtype: trojan-activity; sid: 15239638; rev:1;)

An alternate snort rule (provided by the folks at Bleeding Edge):

alert tcp $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET 25 (msg: "BLEEDING-EDGE VIRUS Possible Bagle.AQ Worm Outbound"; flow: to_server,established; content:"filename="; nocase; pcre:"m/(price2|new_price|08_price|09_price|newprice|new_price|price_new|price|price_08).zip/"; classtype: trojan-activity; reference:url,securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.beagle.av@mm.html; sid: 2001065; rev:6; )

IM Resources for Lawyers

Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell cover Instant Messaging Resources in The Strongest Links in the September issue of Law Practice Today.

Contribute your data to DShield

Always wanted to do something with your firewall logs? Read this: How to contribute your data to DShield / ISC

The Internet Storm Center relies heavily on firewall data, to obtain an accurate measure of current Internet threats. It is in particular important to collect data from very diverse submitters, not just from a few large submitters. If you are not already submitting data, here a few tips on how to get started:

First of all: No submitter is too small. In particular cable modem / DSL user data is frequently the most interesting. We can always use more home users submitting data.

New Prolaw

A new version of Prolaw is set for release at the end of the month. The screenshots look great. The new version includes Outlook and Word intergration. I can't wait to see how it works.

Laptop PCs' negative impact on networks

Most lawyers use laptops these days. Quelling laptop PCs' negative impact on networks is a good read for anyone running a law firm network.

My firm uses policies to stop nasty software that might have been picked up in the wild from running on our network.

New Beagle variant

SANS reports there is a new Beagle variant in the wild. I've seen the beast attached as a new-price.zip file.

A few AV scanners detect it using various lables for it:

AntiVir 6.31.1.0 09.12.2005 DR/Bagle.P
Avast 4.6.695.0 09.12.2005 Win32:Beagle-DP
AVG 718 09.12.2005 I-Worm/Bagle.EP
Avira 6.31.1.0 09.12.2005 DR/Bagle.P
CAT-QuickHeal 8.00 09.12.2005 I-Worm.Bagle.cs
ClamAV devel-20050725 09.12.2005 Worm.Bagle.BB-gen
DrWeb 4.32b 09.12.2005 Win32.HLLM.Beagle.18848
F-Prot 3.16c 09.12.2005 security risk named W32/Mitglieder.FB
Kaspersky 4.0.2.24 09.12.2005 Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.cs
Norman 5.70.10 09.12.2005 W32/Bagle.CS
Panda 8.02.00 09.12.2005 W32/Bagle.EI.worm
Sophos 3.97.0 09.12.2005 Troj/Dropper-BB
TheHacker 5.8.2.104 09.12.2005 W32/Bagle.cs
(excerpt from results provided by Virustotal.com)

CNN: Law permits federal courts affected by hurricane to move

CNN.com - Courts face unique challenges - Sep 9, 2005

On Friday, President Bush signed into law the Federal Judiciary Emergency Special Sessions Act of 2005, which allows federal courts to operate outside their jurisdictions in the event of a disaster.

The law allows a federal appeals court to hold sessions "at any place outside the circuit" if the chief judge or the next highest-ranking person available determines the court cannot operate in its jurisdiction due to "emergency circumstances."

"The court may transact any business at a special session outside the circuit that it might transact at a regular session," according to the law.

The law also applies to U.S. district courts and bankruptcy courts.

Disaster preparation for courts

Rory Perry's Weblog: Disaster preparation for courts

I will be attending the Ninth Annual Court Technology Conference CTC9 in Seattle next week. Some of the educational sessions will be webcast, including a session called "The Technology of Disasters: What you can learn about Court Emergency Preparedness from Hurricane Battered Florida". In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the National Center for State Courts has created a resource clearinghouse to "allow courts throughout the country to volunteer equipment, personnel, and other resources to the courts in the disaster area."

It's good to see Rory posting again.

Windows Vista will be released in seven versions

Windows Vista product editions revealed

First up, there's Starter Edition, which like XP Starter Edition, is a crippled (and lame) product aimed at the two-thirds world. It will limit users to three concurrent applications, and provide only basic TCP/IP networking, and won't be suitable for most games. The next step up is Home Basic Edition, which is really the sibling to today's Windows XP Home. However, as the name suggests, there's also Home Premium Edition, and this is where we start to split features like hairs and create a gaggle of products. HPE will build on the the Basic Edition by adding, most notably, the next-generation of Media Center capabilities, including support for HDTV, DVD authoring, and even DVD ripping backed up (of course) by Windows DRM. For non-corporate types, this is probably going to be the OS that most people use. It's similar to XP Pro in power, but with all of the added bells and whistles for entertainment. Well, most of them.

Windows Vista Professional Edition won't occupy the same spot that XP Pro occupies today, because this time it's truly aimed at businesses. It won't feature the MCE functionality that Home Premium Edition has, but it begins to provide the kind of functionality you'd expect in a business environment, such as support for non-Microsoft networking protocols and Domain support. But don't expect too many businesses to necessarily turn to PE. Microsoft is also planning both a Small Business Edition and an Enterprise Edition, which build upon pro by adding (seemingly minor) features aimed at appealing to each market. SBE, for instance, includes a networked backup solution, while EE will include things like Virtual PC integration, and the ability to encrypt an entire volume of information.

Last but not least, there's Ultimate Edition...

Firefox flaw

CNET News.com: Unpatched Firefox flaw may expose users

It's still more secure than IE.

Exchange 12 will ship on DVD

You Had Me At EHLO... : Exchange 12 will ship on DVD

TextDrive

TextDrive: Lifetime hosting offers for a mere $400.

Metasearch The Blogosphere With Clusty

Clusty is the best meta and weblog/RSS search tool hands down.

Annoucement

Starting today, all Google and Amazon.com ad revenue from Law Firm IT and from my other blog, Oncee@Blogger, will be donated to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

Unlike other bloggers a do not make my living blogging. It's just extra money.

Please give to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

IT Blog of Note

John Roller's Tips, Tricks, and Technology for the Field has some great advanced Windows tips.

Health Care Law Blog: EMTALA, HIPAA and Katrina

Bob Coffield at Health Care Law Blog takes a look at EMTALA, HIPAA and Katrina

IT Help for Katrina victims

Have technical skills? What to help Katrina victims? Click this link: http://www.part-15.org/emergencyrelief/katrina.html

Part-15.org is working with the FCC and FEMA to reconstruct commmunications infrastructure. They have a need for systems integrators and network engineers.