Digital Samurai

Fake Lawyer E-Mail Scam

Apparently there are a lot of people that aren’t totally honest and can’t resist clicking on something to see if they really are in trouble. It’s bad enough that lawyers have a bad reputation with the general public, but now there’s an e-mail scam that’s coming from “fake” lawyers.

US-CERT has announced another e-mail scam that appears to be coming from legitimate attorneys and their law firms claiming that a copyright lawsuit has been filed against the e-mail recipient. The message has either a malware attachment or a link to a malicious website. Either way, your computer gets infected with some nasty stuff. It tells you something about the character of the recipient if they open the attachment or follow the link.

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

PDF to Word Conversions

All too often we receive a PDF and want to edit it in Word. Of course you can always muck with it in Acrobat (assuming it isn’t locked down), but it gets pretty ugly real quick. Most of us want to use Word to edit the document and then convert it back to PDF if needed. So how do you do that?

Two of our favorite methods are to use Acrobat itself or a third party product like PDF Converter Pro. All you have to do is save the file as a Word .doc file within Acrobat. Just select ‘File, Save As…’ and pick Microsoft Word from the drop down list box. PDF Converter Pro from Nuance is specifically made to convert PDF files. It does a much better job of preserving the formatting over the internal ability of Acrobat, but it will cost you another $50 for the software. Either way, you’ll end up with a document that is much easier to edit than native PDF.

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

Apple iPhone 4.0 Software Revealed

There are many problems with the iPhone, too many to go into much detail. But by now, you should be familiar with the lack of security the iPhone provides to protect your data. We still recommend that lawyers avoid using this device until Apple properly secures it.

One of the other major complaints with the iPhone has been that users cannot run more than one third-party application at a time. The idea of multi-tasking or running programs concurrently was somehow missed during the last 3 generations of the iPhone. Finally, the new software update coming this summer will enable users to run third-party applications concurrently, with programs minimized continuing to run in the background.

Even with this update, almost 3 years after the inception of the iPhone, you still won’t catch us using one. There’s way too many evidence-rich iPhones in our lab. Great phone. Lousy security. No wonder so many law firms and corporation are mandating “BlackBerrys only.”

- John and Mike
(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

Office 2010 Technology Guarantee

Still haven’t upgraded to Office 2007? Not to worry. Microsoft is now offering the Office 2010 Technology Guarantee program, which allows those who purchase and activate Office 2007 between now and September 30, 2010 the ability to download Office 2010 for no additional cost when available. Microsoft says Office 2010 will be available in June. This is all you will need to take advantage of the program:

• Purchase Office 2007, or a new PC with Office 2007, and activate it between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010
• Have or create a Windows Live ID
• Redeem your Tech Guarantee before October 31, 2010 by visiting www.office.com/techg

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

The Future of Novell

Those that are a little older remember the battle involving video tapes. Would the winner be VHS or Betamax? History tells us that VHS won, but it is universally agreed that Betamax was technically superior. Novell used to be king of the server OS market only to be dethroned by Microsoft. Those of us that have been around the IT scene recall that you rarely had to reboot a Novell server. They just run. It is not uncommon to have a Novell server with an uptime of several years.

It may be that the final nail is ready to be driven into Novell’s coffin. Network World reports that a New York hedge fund has submitted a $2 billion unsolicited takeover bid for Novell. Financially, Novell has been in trouble for a long time. If you’re still running GroupWise, perhaps now is a good time to convert.

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com