From Alex Payne’s “rules for computing happiness,” here are two that every lawyer should consider when selecting office software:

• Use software that does one thing well.
• Do not use software that does many things poorly.

There are plenty more, and while you may disagree, they provide good food for thought.

I agree with most, although I think a Linux or Windows PC is perfectly fine for home computing. Windows is especially great if you enjoy a bloated operating system bogged down by anti-virus software.

al3x’s rules for computing happiness | al3x (Thanks Dave!)

I am a huge ThinkPad fan. The MacBook Pro may be sexier, but if you shot a ThinkPad and a MacBook Pro out of cannons at each other, the ThinkPad would destroy the MacBook Pro and still boot up the pre-installed SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (or Vista, I guess, if you swing that way) in a jiffy.

And just spotted on Lenovo’s website is the next-generation line of ThinkPad laptops.

The naming convention is new, the specs are beefy, and the form factor is pretty much the same black brick. Perfect.

My four-year-old T43 is still going strong, but I am awfully tempted by the ultra-portable X300.

At least, that seems to be the implication of its new “digital manners policy” patent, which would force your gadgets to receive “orders” from a digital Miss Manners overlord. For example, a movie theater could automatically switch all phone in the audience to vibrate when the movie starts.

Maybe that would be nice, but when I bought my phone, I did not do it on the assumption that it would be controlled by someone else. I bought it so that I could use it myself. Same goes for my laptop, which I do not really want anyone controlling, thank you very much.

First DRM, now DMP. Microsoft is no longer making software for its customers, but for people who want to control its customers. I will stick with software and hardware I can use how I want to, thank you very much.

One more reason I am happy I am no longer a Microsoft customer.

Microsoft patents “digital manners policy” | BoingBoing Gadgets

Imagine any of the following scenarios:

• You returned to your office this morning to find it had burned to the ground overnight. You cannot salvage anything but a few crispy bits of your pencil sharpener.
• Someone swiped your laptop on the train this morning while you were on your way to work. Nobody seems to have seen the person who did it.
• While working on a brief, you are just putting on the finishing touches when your computer’s hard drive stutters a few times, then dies completely.
• Last night, someone broke into your office and, realizing your clients’ personal information would sell for far more than your computer hardware, rifled through your files, making off with your client information sheets.

Now, ask yourself a few questions.

• Will you ever be able to recover your physical data? Unless it was protected in a fire-proof safe, few attorneys keep spare client files.
• How long will it take to recover your electronic data, and what will you have lost? In other words, how solid is your backup system, and do you have off-site backup?
• How much will it cost to purchase credit-monitoring for all of your past and present clients? If your laptop is stolen and your data is not encrypted, or a thief makes off with part of your paper files it seems only fair.
• How will you (a) prevent, or (b) mitigate the effects of each of these scenarios?

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A story of my love for my old laptop, an IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T43, and my disappointment with the “updated” version, the Lenovo T61

I bought my ThinkPad T43 in August 2005. I love this computer. It is thin, light, powerful, and tough as nails. It may not be as pretty as an iBook or MacBook, but in size and weight, it compares favorably. Until a few weeks ago, I only replaced a trackpad button (too many video games) and the optical drive. Both were replaced nearly instantaneously by Lenovo’s outstanding on-site support (I am not kidding, they are awesome, both then and now).

It came with Windows XP Pro, but I started using Ubuntu Linux with it about a year ago, as well, and it works nearly perfectly with both operating systems.

A few weeks ago, the motherboard on my T43 fizzled. I was certain my warranty had expired, so in a fit of impulsivity, I ordered a new ThinkPad T61 with all the bells and whistles. I was even thrilled to order it with SLED Linux pre-installed instead of Windows.

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My beloved ThinkPad died of USB-controller-induced vomiting last Thursday. One minute it was suspended, the next I tried to plug in a USB mouse and it went out like a light. It was four years old, though, so it has had a good life: coffee shops, courtrooms, the front porch . . .

The problem seems to be related to the Intel chipset, not the IBM/Lenovo hardware, so I fearlessly ordered a brand new ThinkPad T61. This time, I went with full-disk encryption so that my entire hard drive will be safe if I lose the computer.

Also, Lenovo offers Linux, so I bought a laptop with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. I’ll be throwing Ubuntu on there, as well, but I am looking forward to trying SUSE, as well. No more Windows for me!

Even though my old T43 was out of warranty, this seems to be related to a known defect, so I have some hope that Lenovo will replace the motherboard so I can squeeze some more life out of that laptop. In the past, I have experienced incredible customer service from Lenovo, so I have high hopes.

Holy cow, are those three 30″ Apple Cinema displays?

In the beginning, there was hardware. With early computers, operating systems were not really conceived separately from the hardware. Software was hard-coded into computing systems. Soon after, however, hardware became the means to run an operating system. All hardware was made to run with an operating system–usually Windows, after Microsoft became dominant. And the operating system, a type of software itself, ran software that made the computer useful. Hardware became secondary.

With time, the operating system has become secondary. We are moving into an age of standards, where only the file–the content–does not change. The hardware and software are irrelevant, because all will be able to access a file equally well. The Open Document Format is a huge step in this direction. But HTML, the backbone of every web page, began the move to standards. With the Internet, all computers needed to see the same things on the screen, whether Windows, Mac, or *nix. Then XML completed the form-content divorce. Content is all-important. Form–including the operating system presenting the content–is irrelevant.

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We recently mentioned encryption, but what do you do when it comes time to throw out a hard drive? Wipe it clean. Why go to the trouble? The same reason you should encrypt client data. As a lawyer, your computer is an identity thief’s dream. When you toss a hard drive with readable data on it, you might as well be handing your clients’ bank accounts over to the bad guys.

And remember there is no such thing as deleting files. Getting them back is a small freeware download away.

Fortunately, wiping a hard drive isn’t difficult. I have used Darik’s Boot and Nuke in the past. All you do it burn it to a CD, pop it in the CD drive, turn on your computer, and follow the prompts. Done.

Lifehacker also points to a ZDNet article about Secure Erase, a set of commands that has been embedded in most ATA hard drives since 2001. Get the Freeware Secure Erase Utility to use it.

In the end, Darik’s Boot and Nuke is probably easier and has broader application, but it never hurts to have options.