A a partner at my firm said someing that surprised me today:
“That is a lot of change.”.
Putting things in perspective, this partner, like many at my firm, is very capable with technology.

We have some major IT projects happening this year at my firm. Hardware, software, training. These along with regular additions of new lateral hires, minor renovations to add more places for people to work, new students, new legislation, new governments, and as Yul Brynner would say, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

How much change is TOO much? Is there a maximum capacity for learning . . . [more]

One of the interesting elements of Google’s StreetView program was that its camera crews picked up and recorded the location of wireless hotspots that were not secured. This information was not, so far as I recall, published by Google, but its collection made some news. It seems to me, however, that one hears less often about ‘war-driving’ and other forms of cruising about looking for unsecured wireless signals in order to piggyback onto the Internet with them. Is that because there are so many public wireless access spots available nowadays, or because broadband access has become so cheap that one . . . [more]

For the record, I don’t support the NDP, and their fiscal policies are plain scary. But that doesn’t mean that their viewpoints on everything ought to be ignored. The NDP tech policies on issues such as net neutrality, usage based billing, and copyright are in many ways more compelling than the Conservative policies. Now that the Conservatives have a majority and don’t have to fight for their existence every day – lets hope they take a step back, take a deep breath, and take a fresh approach to tech issues.

The prosperous future of Canada is to a great extent . . . [more]

Are law school rankings legitimate? Play Indiana U's Law School Ranking Game

Sony responded today to the theft of data from Playstations in a press release today.

The breach earlier this month was one of the largest in history, and involved names, addresses, and potentially credit card information for up to 77 million users. Sony claims any credit card information would have been encrypted, limiting the use of the sensitive data to the hackers.

A number of governments are already inquiring into the breach, and there is talk of civil actions as well. Users were particularly upset that they were not informed of the breach immediately.

Sony thanked customers for their loyalty, . . . [more]

Following the first phase announcement of mandatory e-filing for certain BC land title documents that came on March 11th, Dye & Durham has developed and issued a new white paper discussing many of the issues to be faced by BC lawyers and notaries during the upcoming transition period.

The paper outlines the planning background behind the LTSA’s move toward mandatory e-filing, current usage rates of the EFS, training received by BC lawyers (only 4 in 10 surveyed), and the evolving digital role for BC Registry Agents.

As the author of the paper (and full disclosure, a client of ours), Dye . . . [more]

For those who were fans of  the office suite: NeoOffice (for the Mac) or OpenOffice (for Windows), being free open source office productivity suites originally created by Sun Microsystems, you may be downhearted to hear that OpenOffice (and NeoOffice) are now officially dead. However, this is truly a case of "The King is Dead - Long Live the King!".  OpenOffice and NeoOffice live on - being open source software -  in a new incarnation.  LibreOffice. For one, those of us who were fans can now refer to this new suite by one name - rather than two! This new suite will run under Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, ...).  It is also is available in more than 30 languages.

Last week Amazon’s popular AWS cloud computing service suffered an unprecedented multi-day outage. The outage brought down thousands of websites, including popular websites such as Quora, Reddit and FourSquare, and generated coverage from mainstream publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

While many are quick to point to the outage as a sign that cloud computing is unreliable and not ready for mission-critical applications, the outage has simply brought a reality of both on-premise and cloud computing to light: systems fail, and mission critical applications need to be designed to expect failure.

The media . . . [more]

It’s been a month since the Google Books settlement was rejected, as reported to Slaw here, and a number of themes have emerged in the online discussuion.

Some of the most cogent comments come from Robert Danton, Harvard’s University Librarian, an opponent of the settlement: Six Reasons Google Books Failed (New York Review of Books).

Perhaps the most balanced and detailed guide to the decision itself comes from the Association of Research Libraries:

• A Guide For the Perplexed Part IV: The Rejection of the Google Books Settlement

. . . [more]

As those who read me will know, I’m a big fan of Apple products, the proud user of an iPhone. And I think Dropbox is a cloud with silver on the outside and on the lining. In the last couple of days I’ve learned about vulnerabilities for each that make me realize again how exposed my data are and make me more determined to learn about — and use — encryption.

About a month ago I wrote about a German politician who was alarmed at the detailed nature and the duration of the data kept by his service provider ( . . . [more]

Several of us on Slaw are convinced that tablet computers are game changers.

Apple clearly has the lead with the iPad – with sales of the first version of around 15 million in the first year. While the iPad is the device that is setting the bar, and that all others are compared to, it is not perfect. Critics point, for example, to its lack of flash support and lack of usb connectivity. Others are scrambling trying to get into the market. As an indication of just how competitive the field is, consider the following recent developments.

The Blackberry Playbook . . . [more]

The explosion in the tablet world combined with the movement to cloud computing is a game changer in legal technology as demonstrated at ABA TECHSHOW 2011.