Cool Simple Software

I received an e-mail today from a company that makes a little piece of utility software called Snapture that looked really useful. Snapture runs on your PC or Laptop. With a push of a button the software captures what you have highlighted and automatically sends it into your Palm or Pocket PC (of course, one must have their Palm or Pocket PC plugged into it's cradle). This would be great for capturing driving directions, notes, or things to read later.

The Future of IT

ComputerWorld magazine has posted an interesting series of articles this week on The Future of IT: The Views Ahead. For you ancient IT professionals, there is a sidebar interview with Gordon Bell who is known as the father of the Digital VAX minicomputer, now with Microsoft.

US Department of Justice Sticks with WordPerfect

The other announcement today via Federal Computer Week was that US-DOJ decided to stay with WordPerfect as their word processor of choice.

But what most of us missed was that Corel (WordPerfect's parent company) had announced in late January an aggressive pricing strategy to hang on to the lawyers by offering WordPerfect Suite's at a discounted price of $115.

US Department of Justice to Begin Data Sharing Program

Federal Computer Week (FCW) reports that the US Department of Justice in beginning a FBI-led effort to share electronic information between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The program is part of the department's Law Enforcement Information Sharing Program (LEISP).

For more information, read DOJ readies regional exchange.

Information about LEISP is available as a PDF report.

CTC9: September 13-15

Don't forget to start planning to attend the Ninth Court Technology Conference in Seattle, Washington in September. The CTC9 website is up and running at: www.ctc9.org

A Little Bit About Wi-Fi Wireless Networking

1. What is Wi-Fi?

According to my favorite techno-dictionary, Webopedia, it stands for Wireless-Fidelity. Wi-Fi is equipment and software that use several radio and computer standards allowing, say a laptop computer, to wirelessly connect to a computer network. There is a Wireless Access Point that is a radio transceiver (send and receive) station. This station is normally connected to the wired computer network. The user then has their Wi-Fi capability either built into their laptop or can add a PC Card or USB device on their side of the Wi-Fi network to make the connection. So, bottom line is that once a place like a hotel or courthouse has what is called a "Hotspot", computer users can connect to the Internet without plugging in.

2. How would it benefit courthouses specifically?

Wi-Fi provides computer network services to attorneys and even the public who may be called for jury service and want to access their e-mail or even connect back to their home computers or office computer servers. For example, when I travel to Sarajevo, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, I am able to connect to the Internet using my laptop equipped with a Wi-Fi PC Card, then using my VPN (virtual private network) account I am able to access computer servers back in the office where I have stored documents. An attorney could do the same thing in the courthouse. We do recommend that the Wi-Fi services in the courthouse be installed as a separate computer network from internal court network so as to avoid security and performance problems.

The Bernalillo County Courthouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico has also used Wi-Fi for attorneys in the courthouse for voice telephone service.

3. What are the security issues that courthouses can possibly face by using Wi-Fi?

There are unfortunately several security issues. Recently a new piece of software was released that allows persons with their own Wi-Fi laptop to watch the messages being sent in their vicinity on the Wi-Fi network. Simply using encryption technology can overcome this. However, many Wi-Fi networks do not have even the built-in, low-level security enabled. So, for now, the normal Wi-Fi user has to be careful not to send information like credit card numbers through the wireless connection.

4. What can a courthouse do to protect itself from hackers and other security breeches when using Wi-Fi?

I would suggest first that the Wi-Fi network be a physically separate network from the internal government network. Second, that courts perhaps contract with a public wireless service provider so that they do not have to undertake the support cost. This is a similar approach to what airports have done to provide Wi-Fi services to the public. And third, I would investigate the implementation of strong wireless security on the court's network. The Wi-Fi Alliance has information on the security standards that have and are being developed.

Wireless Network Technology Use in the Petersen Case

An article on Law.com highlights the use and potential problems in installing wireless networking (Wi-Fi) in the courthouse. In this instance reporters covering the Scott Petersen murder trial in San Mateo County, California were able to send continual text updates from within the courtroom. Read Peterson Case Puts Courtroom Wi-Fi Use on Trial.

E-Courts 2004 Conference Presentations Available

As an FYI, the presentation slides from the E-Courts 2004 conference are now available at the www.e-courts.org website. It was a great conference with over 500 persons attending.

Just Think About IT

Since it is the beginning of the year, a recent article in ComputerWorld magazine is appropriate to pass along. In this article, the author asks us to reflect on the following points regarding information technology management:

• What did I learn this year?
• What did my staff learn this year?
• Is what you've learned compatible?

Read Just Think About IT.

Florida Supreme Court Recognized

We missed this earlier but the Florida Supreme Court was honored by InfoWorld Magazine by naming them a member of their InfoWorld 100 list for 2004. The court was recognized for innovation in database integration and for their search portal. The Florida Supreme Court's website is located at: www.flcourts.org Congratulations!