Exchange Fixes Might Break Blackberry Services

The Microsoft Exchange Team Blog reports: New Exchange fixes may disrupt Blackberry, Goodlink and other services.

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Law Firm IT, Blackberry, Exchange

Mandatory Electronic Filling in the U.S. Southern District of WV

Bob Coffield points out that Monday is the deadline for mandatory electronic civil case filling for the U.S. District Court Southern District of West Virginia.

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West Virginia, WV, Electronic Filling

Are Certs worth the paper they are printed on?

eWeek reports certifications are not a sure way to a high paying IT job. My experience is IT certification tests measure how well a person takes a test and not much else.

You can follow the discussion here on Digg.

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Law Firm IT

Does working on a helpdesk constitute a mental health risk?

Mike McBride over at Out of the Frying Pan, and into the Cube asks, "does working on a helpdesk constitute a mental health risk?" While Mike says he's kidding, it can take a toll on you if you don't have good stress management skills.

After years of working in law firm IT, I think I have pretty good stress management skills, but some IT professions don't. If you don't know how to manage stress, and stress can be a killer, don't work in front line IT. And for goodness sake don't take it out on he users or you are going to have a short career.
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Law Firm IT

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More on the IT Value Matrix

Dennis Kennedy on the IT Value Matrix.

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Law Firm IT

West Virginia Record's RSS feed

Brian Peterson says "Every West Virginia practitioner should have the West Virginia Record's RSS feed in their news aggregator." I agree.

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West Virginia, WV, RSS

Macs and Lawyers

Denise Howell says of the Blog Law and Blogging for Lawyers conference, "...never, by the way, have I seen so many lawyers and so many Macs happily occupying the same space..."

My first law firm IT job was at a firm that used nothing but Macs. I don't see many being used by lawyers locally. I use an G4 iBook daily in my job, but I do keep a Windows desktop on my desk for things like ProLaw and Worldox.

I like the tools for network and system administration on the Mac. Applications like Apple's Remote Desktop and open source tools like Etherape makes life a whole lot easier.

And yes you can run MS Office applications on the Mac. I find Entourage superior to Outlook in many ways.

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Law Firm IT, Apple

The IT Value Matrix and Seven Keys to IT Leadership

I'm a little behind on my blawg reading. The Adam Smith, Esq blog always has wonderful post and here's one specific to IT.

IT staff, both in management or in front line tech support, need to remember they are part of the business process.

CIO Magazine has come up with the "IT Value Matrix," after 18 months of collaborative effort, as a tool to let IT stop being defensive about what it costs the firm and go on the offense by articulating the value it provides.

A poster-sized copy of the IT Value Matrix can be ordered for $14.99.

Along with the Matrix, the CIO executive council developed "Seven Keys to IT Leadership:

1] The primary goal of IT is to align with major enterprise objectives. Every initiative must be clearly tied in a provable way to business value.

2] Because all major business initiatives are dependent upon technology, the CIO must have a voice at the table at which key business decisions are made.

3] The CIO is responsible for understanding a business’s complexities, influencing peers and presenting technology strategy in terms the business can understand.

4] Technology leaders are agents of change. Transition is our stable state.

5] Communication and relationship building are as important to IT leadership as technology skills are.

6] Successful technology leadership must strike a balance between competing forces: short-term versus long-term, technology versus business focus, leading versus enabling.

7] The CIO is responsible for cultivating technology leadership at all levels.

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Law Firm IT

West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Electronic Filling Information

Earlier this month the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals picked LexisNexis File & Serve for electronic filling. The system is scheduled to go live before summer 2006.

In WV, the federal courts have already moved to electronic filling and they are busy training attorneys, paralegals, and IT staff. I've attended the Southern District's training.

It's unclear if or when there will be training, nor can I find any further information on the issue.

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Law Firm IT, West Virginia, WV

All the links I wanted to blog about but never found the time

I been very busy the past few weeks, so here are all the links I wanted to blog about but never found the time.

How to Prevent PowerPoint Overload

Summary of Da Vinci Code Reasons for Judgment

Morrison & Foerster's "AnswerBase" KM Initiative: Learning from Wal-Mart

New DHS Reports on IT and Intelligence Systems

Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006

Law firm websites below average : Internet Standards Assessment Report

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Law Firm IT, Blawgs

Email Is Still The Most Adopted Collaboration Tool

Email is still the killer app of most law firms.

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Law Firm IT

Great tips from the Lazyadmin.com

The Lazyadmin.com always has great stuff. Here are a couple that might be of some interest to law Firm IT folks: Configure Authentication for Sharepoint Sites and Reset Disaster Recovery Mode Password.

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Law Firm IT, Windows, SharePoint

More on RSS in Outlook 2007

Everything you wanted to know about RSS in Outlook 2007 but were afraid to ask, from Microsoft Outlook Program Manager Michael Affronti.

I got to play some with Outlook 2007. The beta is just too darn slow, at least on my desktop, for everyday use.

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RSS, Outlook 2007

I've been suffering from Continuous Partial Attention

Sorry for the lack of updates I've been suffering from Continuous Partial Attention for the past week. I spend two days at intensive Exchange training and the rest of the week trying to catch up after being out of the office for those two days.

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Blogging, Law Firm IT

Firm Site

Kevin O'Keefe points out that Findlaw's law firm blog product is not a blog at all.