All-In-One PCs Cut Power Consumption

The fact that many court clerks offices and chambers are cramped for space does not come as a surprise to those who suffer in those conditions every day.  The addition of a full sized desktop computer, especially when full sized CRT displays were used did not help the situation. But during the past year a new form factor for standard PCs has been introduced by the manufacturers, the All-In-One computer.  Of course this is not new for Apple iMac users, but for the rest of us, this is a good development.

What is meant by an All-In-One computer?  Simply it means that the parts of the computer; the hard disk, DVD/CD drive, processor, and memory are placed behind the display screen resulting in one compact package.  In addition, many All-In-One computers have touch-screen capability that could potentially help to speed data entry with the proper programming.

But why else am I writing about this?  It is because the All-In-One computer format is also a green machine in that it uses much less electrical power than the standard desktop computer.  The All-In-Ones I looked at used a 65 watt or lower power supply.  In contrast, a survey of currently available desktop PCs showed they used from a low of 220, to a high of 450 watts of power each.  Multiply this by 25, 50, or 100 computers this turns into a significant amount of power and heat.

If you are interested in more detailed information; I found the following review article for this style of machine from last fall on the Computer Shopper website.  It provides a quick overview of the All-In-One machines that were available at the time.

http://www.computershopper.com/back-to-school/2009/reviewed-nine-all-in-one-desktop-pcs-for-students

US Federal Courts Update Public Access Policies

The March, 2010 edition of The Third Branch Federal Court newsletter contains an interesting article: Judicial Conference Approves Steps to Improve Public Access.  The article describes several actions to decrease the cost of using their PACER public access system and to make digital audio recordings available. The article also noted that in 2009:

"PACER received more than 360 million requests for electronic access to information from the over 33 million federal cases that have documents online."

More PDF Security Problems

On top of previous warnings, Adobe and FoxIt have announced actions that users should implement to prevent malicious programs from being automatically launched when opening an infected PDF file.  An excellent article on the subject was posted on the ZDNet blog Zero Day by Ryan Naraine and Dancho Danchev at:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=6028&tag=nl.e550



Program security updates are expected to be released during the week of April 12, 2010.

e-Courts Conference Agendas Posted

Earlier this week the conference agendas for both the e-Courts East Tampa, Florida - Sept 13-15 and e-Courts West Las Vegas, Nevada - December 13-15 were posted on the conference website.  And additional information regarding the vendor exposition has also been listed.  The conferences are really coming together with many new ideas being shared for the first time.

This and that on April Fools Day

We've been collecting a few items of interest over the past few weeks.  The first is the BlackBox Wireless Video Presentation System.  This small box connects to a prjector or flat panel via their VGA interface and allows one to connect your laptop via Wi-Fi to display your presentations and video.  Further, it lets up to 254 users share and swap the connection and allows for a 4-to-1 screen-split projection.

Second, we participated in one of the series of Law.gov project seminars at Cornell University.  The first of many project goals are to develop "detailed technical specifications for markup, authentication, bulk access, and other aspects of a distributed registry" for legal materials.  The project's website is: http://resource.org/law.gov/  A list of upcoming events can be viewed at:
http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/law-gov-upcoming-events-updated/


Third, we had the honor to visit to the Fayette County, Pennsylvania courthouse.  Courtroom Number 1 literally brings the phrase "Temple of Justice" to mind.  Interestingly in the courthouse law library was a display for local crafts-people who had made book bags from... recycled law books.  To see what we mean visit their website at: http://www.bookbags.us.com/

Some Courts Are Using E-Mail for E-Filing

During some recent research we ran across several courts that are allowing E-mail as a method for electronic filing of court documents.  The North Dakota Supreme Court order providing guidance for e-filing using e-mail can be viewed at:

http://www.ndcourts.com/court/rules/Administrative/AO14.htm

Similarly the UK Courts Service guidance for using e-mail to submit documents can be seen at:
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/email_guidance/email_guidance_general.htm

And last, in an earlier CTB article we discovered that Israel is also using e-mail as part of their system.

Justice Reference Architecture Implementation Competition Announced

The National Center for State Courts and SEARCH Group — on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance BJA — are pleased to announce that they are seeking proposals to design and implement information sharing solutions that utilize the Justice Reference Architecture JRA. The JRA applies principles of Service Oriented Architecture SOA across the justice and public safety communities to improve information sharing capabilities.

The goal of this project is for award recipients hereinafter called project participants to employ JRA concepts in the definition of information exchange requirements and to demonstrate full-scale architecture design and implementation of JRA-conformant information exchanges within their environments or with external partners. Awards will be made to successful candidates as follows:

Maximum Award Amount: $100,000

Maximum Number of Awards: 2

No match is required; however, projects funded under this solicitation are expected to demonstrate long-term financial viability and may incur additional local costs.
It is the intent of this project to make one award to a State or Major Urban Area Fusion Center that is capable of implementing the JRA as described below. Priority consideration will be given to Fusion Center proposals that leverage existing Global products, standards, and initiatives.

The full announcement can be viewed at the SEARCH Group's website at:

http://www.search.org/programs/info/jra/

Federal Courts Report on Sealed Cases and Probation E-Filing

The February, 2010 edition of the US Federal Courts Newsletter, The Third Branch has two articles of interest.  The first article, FJC Report Focuses on Sealed Cases in Federal Courts reports that only .5 percent of cases were completely sealed.  This is of interested for electronic document automation because of the amount and type of technology that may need to be used.

The second article, Electronic Filing by Probation and Pretrial Services Speeds Up Court Process, Reduces Paper identifies many advantages to the use of E-Filing.  Specific benefits cited were the elimination of lost paperwork, easy certification of the record, and as part of their continuity of operations planning since the records would be available from anywhere they could set up a computer system with comunications.

Online Credit Card Security Standards

An important part of modern court operations is the ability to accept credit/debit card payment and if desired say in an E-filing system; be able to store the credit card number with the user account to make the system easier to use.  The Security Standards Council that was formed by the credit card industry has produced detailed standards “to enhance payment account data security”.  In particular courts should examine the PCI Data Security Standard PCI DSS as a core functional specification for their credit card systems.  As stated on the standards web page  the “core of the PCI is a group of principles and accompanying requirements” are:

Build and Maintain a Secure Network
Requirement 1: Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data
Requirement 2: Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters

Protect Cardholder Data
Requirement 3: Protect stored cardholder data
Requirement 4: Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks

Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program
Requirement 5: Use and regularly update anti-virus software
Requirement 6: Develop and maintain secure systems and applications

Implement Strong Access Control Measures
Requirement 7: Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know
Requirement 8: Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access
Requirement 9: Restrict physical access to cardholder data

Regularly Monitor and Test Networks
Requirement 10: Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data
Requirement 11: Regularly test security systems and processes

Maintain an Information Security Policy
Requirement 12: Maintain a policy that addresses information security

Court Costs and Electronic Discovery

The electronic transition continues. On February 1, 2010 Austin, Texas attorney Craig Ball published an interested article titled - Are We Just Makin' Copies? in Law Technology News.  In the article he argues that the Federal Court Rules of Civil Procedure must be updated to recognize new realities and to create a consistent approach to court cost recovery.

Florida State Courts Administrator Issues RFP for Governance Study

The Florida Office of State Courts Administrator, Strategic Planning Unity has recently issued a Request for Proposals for a Judicial Branch Governance Study.  The RFP is in concert with Florida Supreme Court Administrative Order AOSC09-43 issued in October, 2009 that:

Directs the Judicial Branch Governance Study Group to undertake an in-depth study of the current governance system of the judicial branch of Florida.  The study group is directed to submit a final report and recommendations to the court no later than December 31, 2010.

The order further directs that the report shall contain:

1  An examination of the structure and functions of the present governance system of the Florida judicial branch and an assessment of its efficacy and efficiency;
2  Recommendations of actions or activities that the study group concludes would advance improvement in the governance of the judicial branch; and,
3  Recommendations of any changes to the present governance system that the study group concludes would
improve the effective and efficient management of the Florida judicial branch.

A copy of the RFP in PDF form can be downloaded from:
http://www.flcourts.org/gen_public/purchasing/bin/RFP-10-001-BF.pdf

US Federal Courts Provide Guidance on Juror Smart Phone Use

On January 24th, the US Federal Courts Judicial Comittee on Court Administration and Case Management for the US District Courts issued instructions to be provided to jurors regarding the use of cell phones and computers during their service. 
A Network World article posted on February 2, 2010 titled - Courts move to ban juror use of Blackberry, iPhone, Twitter and Facebook provides a summary of this action. 
The court instructions can be downloaded in PDF at: http://www.uscourts.gov/newsroom/2010/DIR10-018.pdf

COSCA Whitepaper on Digital Recording

The Conference of State Court Administrators adopted the white paper titled - Digital Recording: Changing Times for Making the Record at their December, 2009 meeting.  The paper notes challenges to the current method listing the Decline in Court Reporter Resources and Efficient, Timely Transcript Production and Access to the Record.  The also note opportunities of Digital Recording including the Fundamentals of the technology, access, administrative control, integration of digital recordings with CMS and potential for cost savings.

E-Courts 2010 Date Correction

The E-Courts Conference West to be held in Las Vegas at the Red Rock Resort will be held from December 13-15, 2010.  The previously announced dates, December 6-8 were incorrect.  Many apologies for the mistake.  E-Courts Conference East will be held in Tampa, Florida from September 13-15, 2010 at the Marriott Waterside.

New Release of CAMeditor Available

From a press release issued on December 16, 2009:


A new release of CAMeditor v1.7 is now available with NIEM 2.1 and LEXS 3.1.4 support. CAMeditor is an XML Editor/Validation/Schema Designer. Implements OASIS CAM standard & NIEM IEPDs. Outline & expand from XML Component Dictionary. Build/Load XSD schema, make XML samples, HTML docs, detect NDR bugs; generate dictionary CCTS. Eclipse Java & XSLTSaxon.



For the CAMeditor significant changes include improvements to the Eclipse user interface and template structure display along with enhancing the top down designer and generation and handling of large dictionary structures. Also included is a new LEXS 3.1.4 dictionary with sample expander blueprint templates for LEXS messages and updates of the NIEM dictionary files to the NIEM 2.1 release. Various NIEM related enhancements have been made in support of better IEPD generation http://www.niem.gov . CAMeditor is built using Eclipse, Java, and Saxon xslt.

The CAMV validation engine is now a thread-safe implementation supporting deployment in middleware containers such as jBOSS or IBM Websphere MQ™. Validation of exchange structures now allows handling of very large XML instances with checking of a discreet subset of business content requirements. Also integration support for Java call methods SDOM has been implemented CAMV is developed in Java using Saxon, Xerces and XPath v2.0 support.

The project vision is to provide the leading open source toolset for implementing standards based information exchanges with XML, including the NIEM IEPD approach. Simplifying and speeding the development process and enhancing the quality of your resulting schema for superior XML exchanges. To date we have had over 15,500 downloads from Sourceforge.net http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camprocessor .

US Federal Courts Issue Long Range Plan

The US Federal Judiciary has shared their Long Range Plan for Information Technology, FY 2009 on the Internet.  The introduction of the plan states: " For judges and court staff, using information technology IT is no longer discretionary; rather, it is simply the way they do their work."

E-Courts 2010

Twice the information is coming next year.  The 2010 E-Courts conferences will be held East in Tampa, Florida from September 13-15, 2009 and West in Las Vegas, Nevada from December 6-8.  We are beginning development of the agenda for the conferences that will focus on technology opportunities to be more efficient with less resources as well as on developments in the Justice Reference Architecture and justice information sharing.  But not to fear, E-filing and the conversion to the paper on demand electronic records will still be a major focus.

The updated conference website should be up and running in the new year.  The website address as always is: http://www.e-courts.org/

Prison Inmates Can E-File in US Federal Court

The November, 2009 issue of The Third Branch newsletter for the US Federal Courts contains an article describing the E-filing system that has been established by the US District Court for the Central District of Illinois for prison inmates from the Pontiac Correctional Facility.  The project allows for scanned PDF documents to be submitted to the court.  The article notes:

Judge Harold Baker C.D. Ill. credits pro se law clerk Cynthia Diane Fears with first proposing the project. Baker said he and his pro se law clerks are very satisfied with its implementation. We’re delighted. Our court will accept e-filing with every other institution willing to work with us, he said.

This edition of the newsletter also contains an article: The 7th Circuit Pilot Program Provides a New Approach to E-Discovery.  The article begins:

Electronically stored information ESI touches all aspects of our lives, said Chief Judge James F. Holderman, Jr N.D. Ill., which means that, when it comes to discovery, it’s really electronic discovery. Yet we rely on the same paper discovery procedures we’ve used for the last century to work for e-discovery. They’re just outdated. We need a new approach.

NCSC and HHS Collaborate on NIEM Messages

The November, 2009 NIEM Newsletter contains an article on the joint NCSC and US Department of Health and Human services development of data exchange templates for:

• Juvenile Petition
• Adjudication Order
• Service Plan
• Court Report

The article notes that:

A field test in Vermont has revealed that the template can accommodate an overwhelming percentage of use cases without modification.

More E-Reader News and Reviews

Because judges in particular spend inordinate amount of their time reading, we are following developments for E-Readers.  First, a couple of new tech readers/pads are being released.  The first example is the new Barnes and Noble “Nook” reader. Reviews have been posted first at Technologizer.com and later at Engaget.com

A second recent announcement regards the device formerly known as the CrunchPad.  It has been renamed the JooJoo magic.  Here is an article about the announcement with some pictures.  (1/11 note: this device ultimately did not enter the market)

And finally, an October, 2009 run-down of the various e-Reader options by Technologizer.com can be found at:
http://technologizer.com/2009/10/26/the-e-reader-explosion-a-cheat-sheet/



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Flash Cookies

Earlier this week I learned of another privacy issue of using your browser on the Internet.  They are generically called, Flash Cookies, but technically known as a Local Share Object. These Flash Cookies are not controlled by the browser cookie controls and will continue to build up in ones system.

Bruce Schneier explains: 

"Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie privacy controls in a browser. That means even if a user thinks they have cleared their computer of tracking objects, they most likely have not.

What’s even sneakier?

Several services even use the surreptitious data storage to reinstate traditional cookies that a user deleted, which is called re-spawning in homage to video games where zombies come back to life even after being "killed," the report found. So even if a user gets rid of a website’s tracking cookie, that cookie’s unique ID will be assigned back to a new cookie again using the Flash data as the "backup.""

For detailed information see The Electronic Privacy Information Center web page on the subject at:
http://epic.org/privacy/cookies/flash.html

I have been testing a program called, humourously enough, Cookinator. Seems to be doing a lot of cleaning when I use it and so far have not had any resulting system problems.

Information on the free free Cookienator program can be found at: http://codefromthe70s.org/cookienator.aspx

(January, 2011 note - we have had excellent success with the C-Cleaner program for this problem)

7th Conference on Privacy and Public Access to Court Records Announced

The Center for Legal and Court Technology and the NCSC with assistance from the Administrative Office of the US Courts announces the 7th Conference on Privacy and Public Access to Court Records.  The conference will be held on March 4 and 5, 2010 in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Announce agenda topics include:

• Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going:  A Decade of Court Public Access and Privacy Policy Development
• Court Public Access Policy Implementation:  Recent Developments
• Emerging Issues in E-filing and Privacy
• Bulk Data:  Latest Trends
• New Media in the Courtroom and at the Courthouse:  Texts, Tweets & Blogs, Oh My!
• Privacy and the Public Record:  The Big Picture Debate
• Public Electronic Access to Federal Court Records “PACER”:  New Initiatives, New Challenges

The conference fee is $225.00 with an optional conference dinner priced at $50.

For more information email medalt@wm.edu or ccvaug@wm.edu or phone the CLCT at: 757-221-2494

More iPods for Bailiffs and Lawyers too

Back on September 10th I posted an article here on the potential for equipping court bailiffs with iPods.  This week I received a catalog from the Creston company that supplies control systems used in many courtrooms.  I was pleasantly surprised to find an iPod/iPhone Crestron-Mobile-Pro app that lets one create an interface to the control system similar to their custom touch control units.  Click on the link to read more about the app and see screen examples.

And while I was on the subject I decided to do a search for iPhone apps for lawyers.  I found a great webpage titled Our Favorite iPhone Apps for Lawyers that was written following the Spring 2009 American Bar Association TechShow.

It is said that this is where all the technology action is currently.  This is evidence that it is now making an impact on the courts and legal system.

IJIS releases NIEM Conformance guidance for RFPs

On October 30, the IJIS institute announced the NIEM Conformance for RFPs.  The document states that:

"It is intended to be a resource for public safety practitioners who are making decisions with regard to procurement for public safety computer systems that have, or may in the future have, information sharing requirements with other systems. The goal is to help ensure RFPs meet federal grant requirements and national best practices for information sharing, and to provide help in understanding the technology standards and how they relate to product selection. The National Information Exchange Model NIEM, which is most often included in U.S. Department of Justice DOJ and U.S. Department of Homeland Security DHS grant requirements, is a national approach and common vocabulary for information exchange."

"NIEM Conformance for RFPs was developed by the IJIS Institute’s Public Safety Technical Standards Committee IPSTSC and is available online:

http://www.ijis.org/docs/NIEM_Conformance_for_RFP_20091028.pdf

Ergonomic Mouse Helps

Since early summer your CTB editor has been experiencing hand pain in the tendon connected to the index finger.  After trying different treatment methods including rest, massage, heat, cold, the pain always returned.  Finally today I decided that enough was enough and researched various ergonomic mouse options.  After some online research I narrowed the choices down to two, the Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 and the Logitech Performance Mouse MX   Both seemed to do the job of turning the wrist/finger position from a parallel to the table surfact to a more natural tilted position please see the two websites for photos to see what this means.  So off to the store to try them out and I came back with the Microsoft version.  And I must report that there was immediate pain relief.  Of course time will tell if this is a solution, but so far, so good.