If you’re a Mac-using lawyer, Apple’s recently released OS X Lion has a new feature that single-handedly makes the upgrade worth the $29 price of admission.

FileVault 2 enables whole-disk encryption for OS X Lion computers with just a few clicks of the mouse. Whole disk encryption ensures the contents of your drive are only readable when you provide a valid username / password combination to the operating system. This means your entire computer’s hard drive will be encrypted, and thus unreadable, should it fall into the wrong hands.

I consider whole disk encryption a best practice for all lawyers, . . . [more]

Back in May I wrote about two sets of proposals that may impact the adoption of cloud computing technology among lawyers.

The first set of proposals comes from the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, which has issued an initial set of draft proposals addressing lawyers’ confidentiality-related obligations when using technology. The second set of proposals comes from the North Carolina State Bar in the form of in Proposed 2011 Formal Ethics Opinion 6 – Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property.

Last week the comment periods for both proposals . . . [more]

Google’s new black navigation bar is the first outward-facing component of a massive social networking project the company’s been working on for over a year: Google+. I’ve been using Google+ during its “field test” (what we’d normally call a beta I think, but Google has forever ruined the public’s expectations of a beta), and I’ve come away impressed. It may be the first social networking tool I use, and enjoy using, on a daily basis.

While I have a personal Facebook and Twitter account, I find I rarely use them. Yes, Facebook’s endless privacy follies have given me cold . . . [more]

TED Curator Chris Anderson suggests that we help curb the proliferation of emails by subscribing to a Charter that he and fellow TEDer Jane Wulf have devised. He argues that in some sense we have all joined spammers in contributing to the modern “tragedy of the Commons” that our summed-up bad behaviours have produced. You’ll get a much better idea of what he means by reading the actual Charter, set out below. (It’s available as plain text and as a PDF, also, in case you want to pass it around the office — not by email.) . . . [more]

Outlook 2010, I love you, I think. Yesterday I attended an internal training class that introduced me to Outlook 2010. This is one of the beginning steps (from the user perspective) of a renovation, evolution, revamp, revision of our firms desktop software. From the perspective of our IT department, this is the mid-point in a long line of projects that will culminate in current Office Suite software for our firm’s users.

Since other Slawyers may be going down (moving up?) this particular software update road, I am sharing a couple of my Outlook 2010 experiences. Note that we jumped from . . . [more]

Last week I asked if Apple’s forthcoming iCloud service spells doom for Dropbox. My conclusion was no, iCloud does not pose a critical threat to Dropbox, but this week I’m worried about a new threat to Dropbox’s viability: Dropbox themselves.

Yesterday Dropbox disclosed a “bug” they’d introduced that allowed users to log into any Dropbox account using an arbitrary password. That is, if you have a Dropbox account, all a potential hacker would have to know was your e-mail address, and he would have unfettered access to your entire Dropbox.

Although the impact of the bug on users was . . . [more]

I’ve had an iPad for about a month now. I remain convinced that the tablet format is a game changer. There are pros and cons and fans and detractors for various devices. In the long run it will be interesting to see how the market shakes out. There is of course the iPad, various Android devices (the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 just coming out now is highly anticipated), and the Blackberry Playbook. And don’t count out Microsoft. They will be late to the game, but their Windows 8 concept may gain some traction.

I’ll give some examples of how I have . . . [more]

Last week Apple released iCloud, a new cloud-based service for syncing documents, calendars, e-mails, photos, music and more across your desktop, laptop, iPad, and iPhone.

iCloud represents one of the most important and risky strategic shifts Apple has ever taken. Prior to iCloud, Apple’s “digital hub” strategy promoted the PC as your central data store, with the various “spokes” of the digital hub – your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, etc. – synchronizing with your PC. With iCloud, the PC has been, in Jobs’ words, “demoted” to just another device – with the cloud taking its place.

The shift . . . [more]

At today’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple’s Steve Jobs announced a new set of cloud services, dubbed iCloud, that will integrate with iOS-based devices, such as the iPad and iPhone, and Mac OS X. The new services will bring tight cloud-based data synchronization to Apple’s desktop, laptop and mobile device lineup.

iCloud will allow you to store all of your documents, calendars, emails, photos, and more in the cloud, and will automatically synchronize this data to all of your devices. Additionally, iCloud will make your music available across all your devices.

Backup services will also be incorporated into iCloud. . . . [more]

This week’s Lawyer’s Weekly features an article by Luis Milan titled Experts Warn Cloud Computing Still Risky. The article cites recent data breaches at Sony Corp. and Epsilon Data Management as a catalyst for concern around cloud computing, and goes on to cite several experts on the potential privacy implications of these data breaches.

The only problem? Neither data breach, as the article’s title implies, has anything to do with cloud computing.

The Sony data breach, where personal information for millions of its Playstation Network users was compromised, was not the result of Sony’s cloud computing infrastructure being . . . [more]

The Google IO developer conference has just finished up, with one of the major announcements being the new Chrome OS laptops, such as the Samsung Series 5 seen in this Engadget video:

The feature list is intentionally short, but the prices are comparable to the sub-$450 laptop market — a little high, honestly, since the chromebook doesn’t look all that superior to current netbook trend. If you’ve used Google’s Chrome browser with apps, you already know about the user experience. The lack of the ability to install executable files has caused some speculation that the antivirus industry may be impacted . . . [more]

There have been two important and encouraging developments on the ethics of cloud computing over the last month.

First, the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 has issued an initial set of draft proposals addressing lawyers’ confidentiality-related obligations when using technology. The Commission’s draft report proposes:

• The development of a centralized, user-friendly website that contains continuously updated and detailed information about confidentiality-related ethics issues arising from lawyer’s use of technology, including the latest data security standards.
• Amendments to several Model Rules of Professional Conduct and their Comments to offer specific guidance and expectations relating to technology.

The amendments to the Model . . . [more]