Here’s a link to a story about a MacBook user using the Apple Back to My Mac feature to capture an image of the thief who stole her MacBook. The thief used the MacBok to do a little online shopping when an acquaintance of the victim called her to report she was being shown as online. Kait Duplaga logged into the Apple Back to My Mac service and captured a picture of the thief in the act. The victim’s friend recognized the thief and the victim turned over the picture and other information to the local police who arrested the perp. While this story has a happy ending, it also points out that Miss Duplaga had not password protected her system allowing anyone who had her MacBook to access its contents. Think about the potential damage that could have been done if this was a lawyer’s computer and contained confidential information – can you say put your malpractice carrier on notice?

If you are carrying sensitive information on your computer, albeit even if it’s just your own account information that you’ve saved in your browser, you need to take steps to protect yourself and your data from harm. Find an encryption program and use it. You can encrypt files, folders or disk partitions with Truecrypt (free) or use SecureDoc Personal (fee) to encrypt your entire hard drive. CMS Products has recently made their CE Secure Vault Edition encryption program available for here on Tucows to create encrypted vaults to hold data. I like Truecrupt as it allows for hidden volumes which is an encrypted volume hidden inside another encrypted volume. According to the Truecrypt site:

It may happen that you are forced by somebody to reveal the password to an encrypted volume. There are many situations where you cannot refuse to reveal the password (for example, due to extortion). Using a so-called hidden volume allows you to solve such situations without revealing the password to your volume.

The principle is that a TrueCrypt volume is created within another TrueCrypt volume (within the free space on the volume). Even when the outer volume is mounted, it is impossible to prove whether there is a hidden volume within it or not, because free space on any TrueCrypt volume is always filled with random data when the volume is created* and no part of the (dismounted) hidden volume can be distinguished from random data. Note that TrueCrypt does not modify the file system (information about free space, etc.) within the outer volume in any way.

What’s even nicer is that TrueCrypt works on both Windows and Mac systems. You can also use programs such as LoJack for Laptops from Absolute Software to help you locate and recover your computer if it is stolen.

The moral of this story is that there are steps you can take to protect yourself and you have an obligation to yourself and your clients (think Rules of Professional Conduct and safeguarding client information) to do so.

If you are looking for a USB flash drive, Office Max has the A-Data Classic 4 & 8GB flash drives on sale. A 4 GB drive is $24.99 and an 8GB drive is $47.99. WOW! They are available in store and on the OfficeMax website here and are enhanced for MS Windows Vista ReadyBoost use.

This is a great price, so don't miss it. 

Laptops – we love them and so do thieves.  You can protect your critical data with a few simple precautions such as those from Security Hacks recent post titled 5 Essential laptop security tips.

The article mentions Truecrypt which is a great free encryption product, but for softwar to locate your laptop if its been stolen, I would choose Lojack For Laptops which has a solid company behind it.

Tired of the same old computer bags? Looking for a back pack computer bag, but don’t want it to look like a backpack? If your answer to these questions was yes, then you should check out BBP bags (Bum Back Pack) site .

BBP provides “urbanomic” back packs that don’t look like backpacks: they look like messenger bags or briefcases with the added benefit of easily converting from backpack to messenger style bag with really easy steps using their Bak2Pak™ carrying system. How easy? Check out the video on the homepage to see just how quick and easy you can convert these bags.

I first became aware of these bags when I went looking for a new computer bag last April and came across a review of these bags on the gadgeteer website here. I’ve used a Kennsington Contour ™Roller for a number of years and love the bag, but was looking for a carried bag when pulling a roller bag isn’t appropriate or will prove to be cumbersome. I also wanted a bag that wasn’t such a pain in the back. After spending some time checking out the review and this site, I then happened to run into a State Bar of Wisconsin member who had one of the bags with him while he was attending a seminar here at the State Bar Center. His experience was positive, so I ordered a Hampton model in Abyss Blue Tango to evaluate in actual use.

I’ve been living with this bag now since April and will be writing a long term use review in March 2008, but so far I like this bag and the good far outweighs the bad.There a number of well thought out features which are detailed here. One caveat I will give about these bags – if you are looking for a lightweight bag, then a BBP bag is probably not for you: the small bags start around 3lbs and the large bags top out at 5 lbs. What you get for all of that weight is good materials and great padding for your notebook and your body. These bags have been included in CNNMoney.com’s 4 must-have gadgets  post.

The folks at BBP are offering a 15% off coupon that can be shared so here are the instructions to take advantage of this before November 30, 2007:

coupon code = 15patiencereward

*use on the first page of the shopping cart *expires on 11/30/2007

While you will have to wait for my full, long term review, if you’re in the market for a bag to help ease your back problems or a unique Christmas present for someone, then you definitely want to look at these bags.

Scanners are becoming a part of every law office’s equipment, but finding the right scanner to fit your needs can often be difficult and confusing. For smaller offices, the first foray into the world of dedicated scanners is usually a small desktop or workgroup scanner such as models from Fujitsu  or from Visionner in the $400 to $600 price range and are dedicated sheet fed scanners. Ideally, any scanner that you add to your office should be able to output scanned files to PDF format. The better scanners in this category usually also include software for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and some type of image organization software such as PaperPort from Nuance.  

PCMagazine on its PCMag.com website has published Dynamite Desktop Document Scanners comparing several leading desktop document scanners. This article provides a review of each scanner as well as a comparison chart comparing all of them. It should be pointed out that Fujtisu has released the ScanSnap S510 which is a newer model than the model reviewed.

The article also does an adequate job of detailing some of the differences between the different methods of duplex scanning as well as other features that set these dedicated document scanners apart from your average photo scanner.

One major issue to be aware of is that the ScanSnap does not include a TWAIN driver. What is TWAIN? According to Sue Chastain from About.com “Twain is the interface standard for Windows and Macintosh that allows imaging hardware devices (such as scanners and digital cameras) to communicate with image processing software.” This means that you can’t control the ScanSnap from any other software other than its own, which scans directly into Adobe Acrobat. However, since it does scan directly into Acrobat, this is not as large of a negative as it could be. Furthermore, some popular legal software programs such as Time Matters places a Save to TimeMatters button directly in Adobe so you can save directly to TimeMatters.

Fujitsu personnel that I’ve spoken with state that by not including a TWAIN driver Fujitsu is able to keep the cost of the ScanSnap lower. Another thing not to overlook is the fact that Fujitsi almost always has a $50.00 off coupon for the ScanSnap making the final cost of the ScanSnap around $375.00. With the entrance of the Xerox Documate 152 and its doppelgänger, the Visioneer Patriot 430, you can get a scanner in this class that includes a TWAIN driver for around $150 more than the ScanSnap.

The Fujitsu fi-5120c compares favorably with both the Canon DR-2580 and the Documate 262 and is the scanner that sits on my desktop at work. While about twice the price of the ScanSnap, it is designed for a higher duty cycle and includes a TWAIN drive as well as Ultrasonic double feed detection and other features. 

If you are thinking of starting to scan documents in your office to improve your practice management, then you need to seriously consider a dedicated document scanner like those mentioned above.