Progressive Business Technology Training

Three Reasons Microsoft Should Be Thankful

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:44:45 +0000

By Shane O’Neill

Tue, November 24, 2009 — CIO — This is the time of year to be thankful for the good things in your life: family, friends, health, a job, a smartphone, a virus-free computer.

What should the software soldiers in Redmond be thankful for? Well, Microsoft has certainly had a topsy-turvy year. But despite layoffs, dismal revenue reports and great difficulty getting anyone to take Windows Mobile seriously, the software giant has much to be thankful for as we head into Turkey Day.

[ For complete coverage on Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system -- including hands-on reviews, video tutorials and advice on enterprise rollouts -- see CIO.com's Windows 7 Bible. ]

Here are a few reasons why Microsoft should stay resilient against its many rivals through the holidays and beyond.

Windows 7 Is Not Vista

It’s a safe bet that Windows 7 will not end up like its embattled predecessor, Vista. The new version of Windows, launched on Oct. 22 in a modest fashion compared to Vista’s garish debut three years ago, has received mostly positive reviews, its early sales exceed those of XP and Vista in a comparable time frame, and its market share for last weekend passed 5 percent, according to Web metrics company Net Applications.

Slideshow: Windows 7 in Pictures: The Coolest New Hardware

Windows 7 still faces roadblocks. Those clever Apple TV ads will continue to taint perceptions of the Windows brand, but Windows 7′s true enemy is the economy. The upcoming holiday season is ripe for new PC purchases, but the sour economy could prevent buyers from opening their wallets. Also, on the consumer side, if fairly new PCs running Vista ain’t broke why fix ‘em? And then you have cash-strapped businesses content to run the competent Windows XP into the ground.

Nevertheless, Windows 7 has silenced the Vista stigma — an important accomplishment. Also, its frequently-aired TV ads are lively and engaging, and with Gartner forecasting that PC sales will actually make modest gains this year, Windows 7, now running on everything from netbooks to all-in-one touchscreen PCs, is in an ideal position for when consumers and businesses start spending again.

Office Still Owns the Enterprise

It’s hard to deny the lure of cheap, Web-based productivity suites such as Google Apps, OpenOffice and offerings from Zoho and IBM. But the fact remains that enterprises still choose Microsoft Office desktop tools more frequently than any other suite.

A recent survey of 2,000 IT decision-makers by research firm Forrester shows that 80 percent of companies surveyed support some version of Microsoft Office, and 78 percent have no plans for implementing an alternative to Microsoft Office.

The main reasons for Office satisfaction are that businesses are comfortable with it and Office is compatible with Microsoft’s ubiquitous Sharepoint enterprise collaboration software, as well as other business applications.

Microsoft Office 2010: Three Helpful New Collaboration Features
Microsoft Office 2010: a Simple FAQ

On the other hand, Web-based e-mail and productivity tools, though much less expensive than Office, require that IT managers retrain workers who are old hat with Microsoft Office. Also, storing company data on someone else’s servers in a cloud environment remains a sticking point with many businesses.

But with cloud computing becoming more prevalent, enterprises won’t resist Web-based apps forever. Microsoft knows this, and will include Web versions of Office 2010 apps when the software launches in the first half of next year.

Bing Is Holding Its Own

When Bing, Microsoft’s “decision engine,” launched back in June, nobody knew what to expect. Could Bing actually compete with Google search?

Well, Bing has not revolutionized the search engine world, but it has been surprisingly successful. Putting photos of exotic locations on its main page brought visual flair to search, and its categorized search results, hover preview feature and enhanced video search provided streamlined results in a way that made Google look both disorganized and boring.

Bing vs. Google: The Feature War Begins
Slideshow: 10 Cool Things You Didn’t Know About Google

Bing’s U.S. market share has increased to 9.9 percent, which is almost two percentage points higher than when it launched, according to October data from online market tracker comScore. Yet Bing has hardly taken any share from Google’s comfortable 65.4 percent. Bing’s share gains have come at the expense of Yahoo, not Google.

But Microsoft is committed to Bing growth, dedicating close to $100 million for marketing and advertising. Also, this month Microsoft unveiled new features in Bing.

The latest updates include Facebook previews, full-page weather reports, expanded hover preview showing a snapshot of the Web site you want to go to, and the integration of Wolfram Alpha, a computational technology that returns deeper search queries such as a person’s body mass index or how many grams of sugar are in a banana.

What’s next for Bing? You can expect Bing and Google to try to one-up each other with new search features in the coming months, and Bing will experience a market share jump as it gets rolled into Yahoo when the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal is finalized.

Shane O’Neill is a senior writer at CIO.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/smoneill. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter at twitter.com/CIOonline.

LinkedIn Opens APIs, Clearing Way for New Apps

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:36:44 +0000

By Kristin Burnham

LinkedIn has tradionally been cast as the conservative choice among social networking apps, so it may develop a different kind of application ecosystem than Facebook’s quizzes and games, for example.

LinkedIn has also announced that an interface redesign is pending, though mum’s the word on timing.

Beginning today, developers can register at developer.linkedin.com to receive a unique key that allows access to discussion boards, sample code, provisioning code and more, says Adam Nash, VP of search and platform at LinkedIn.

Several developers helped test the platform, including developers from the poplular Twitter utility TweetDeck, which is announcing full support for the LinkedIn platform in its next version, according to Nash. These developers helped to provide feedback, which allowed the LinkedIn Platform to become “so easy to maneuver that developers will be able to get going in minutes,” Nash says. Iain Dodsworth, founder and CIO of TweetDeck, says that his team was able to “request a key and actually write functioning code in less than 15 minutes.”

Thousands of developer requests prompted LinkedIn to consider releasing its APIs, Nash says. Originally, requests to use LinkedIn APIs were evaluated on a case-by-case basis, where priority was given to “integrations that provide the most value to the greatest number of LinkedIn users,” according to its former policy. The LinkedIn Platform now allows that access to everyone.

“I think what end users will be excited about is the idea that they’ll be able to use LinkedIn everywhere,” Nash says. “There will be that awareness, trust and value that is placed on LinkedIn when it’s leveraged on all the apps people value.”

Kristin Burnham covers consumer Web and social technologies for CIO.com. She writes frequently on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. You can follow her on Twitter: @kmburnham.

Installing VMware vCenter prerequisites on Windows Server 2008 R2

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:31:38 +0000

Author: Scott Lowe
Date: November 24th, 2009

With Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft has finally abandoned the 32-bit world in server land in favor of a 64-bit only operating system. While this is a very good step in the right direction toward solving the 32-bit/64-bit selection dilemma, it can present some installation challenges.
I recently encountered this issue when our organization installed VMware vCenter Server on Windows Server 2008 R2. With older versions of Windows, there is a 32-bit option, so vCenter has no trouble installing; however, once things move in the 64-bit direction, there are two items that you’ll need to address before the vCenter installation will be successful:
The need for the .NET Framework 3.5.1.The need for a 32-bit Database Source Name (DSN)/ODBC connection pointing to the vCenter database.
I’ll outline tips that will help you with the installation process.

Important notes

Before we proceed, you should be aware of these important product and article notes:
Although VMware indicates that small organizations can safely run vCenter on a 32-bit OS, it recommends that administrators consider 64-bits for all new installations.If you’re installing vCenter on a virtual machine running under vSphere/ESX 4, you should know that support for Windows Server 2008 R2 is currently experimental. Even though everything will probably work just fine, VMware won’t provide support if you have problems.This article assumes that you have already followed VMware’s guidance as outlined in the documentation and created a database and database user for vCenter. For my purposes, I created a database named VCDB and a SQL Server account named vcenteruser.

.NET Framework 3.5.1

To install the .NET Framework 3.5.1 on Windows Server 2008 R2, follow these steps:
Open Server Manager.Select the Features navigation item.On the Feature Summary page, click Add Features.When you get to the Select Features page of the wizard, expand the .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features option.Select the .NET Framework 3.5.1 item. (Do not choose to install both the .NET Framework 3.5.1 and WCF Activation together — doing so will force the installation of IIS 7.5, which will interfere with vCenter’s Web services.) Figure A shows you the Select Features window.Click the Next button.On the Confirm Installation Selections page, click the Install button to complete the process.
Figure A

32-bit DSN to the vCenter database

When you create a DSN on an out-of-the-box Windows Server 2008 R2 system, the DSN is created as a 64-bit object, whereas the vCenter installer will only be looking for 32-bit DSNs. In order to create a 32-bit DSN on your 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 server, you need to download and install the SQL Server Native Client on your server and use the new client’s utilities to create the DSN. For this article, I’m using SQL Server 2005 because that is what we’re using in production at Westminster College.
The SQL Server Native Client is included as a part of the SQL Server 2005 Feature Pack. From the Feature Pack download page, download the X64 package under the SQL Server 2005 Native Client option. Although you’re installing the 64-bit package, this is only because you’re installing the tool to a 64-bit operating system; the package includes a method to create 32-bit DSNs. Once you download the package, install it.
Next, go to Start and, in the Search box, type odbcad32. Select the odbcad32 option under the Programs heading to run this utility.
Figure B

This is a 32-bit version of the ODBC Data Source Administrator utility; in this utility, create a System DSN that points to your vCenter database. To do so, follow these steps:
Select the System DSN tab.Click the Add button.On the first page of the Create New Data Source wizard, choose SQL Native Client.When prompted, provide a name and description of the new System DSN and indicate on which SQL Server the vCenter database resides.For my example, I’ve used SQL Server authentication. On the authentication page, choose the authentication method most appropriate for your use. If you use SQL Server authentication, use the same login ID and password that you created as per the VMware documentation. This page is shown in Figure C.When prompted, test the data source to make sure it’s set up properly.
Figure C

When you’re done, you will see the vCenter DSN appear in the ODBC Data Source Administrator.

Summary

With these two items in place, your vCenter installation should proceed without interruption. The true test will come when you get to the installation step that asks you to provide the 32-bit DSN that you want to use for the vCenter database. If you’ve set the DSN up properly that DSN will be available to you; if it’s not set up properly, make sure that you didn’t accidentally create a 64-bit DSN.

Want to keep up with Scott Lowe’s posts on TechRepublic?

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Scott Lowe has spent 15 years in the IT world and is currently the Chief Information Officer for Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He is also a regular contributor to TechRepublic and has authored one book, Home Networking: The Missing Manual (O’Reilly), and coauthored the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Administrator’s Companion (MS Press). Read his full bio and profile.

How to centralize email and calendar data for optimum availability

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:28:31 +0000

Date: November 24th, 2009
Author: Brad Bird

How things have been done

I had a partial solution for awhile, leveraging Microsoft Exchange. I would save any meetings from my other mail systems as .ics files and import them into Outlook using the File | Import/Export menu in Outlook 2007.

Once this was done, I needed to make sure that the appointments copied over from the Personal Calendar that I imported were then synced to the Calendar folder hosted on the Exchange server. This process was still somewhat manual but the benefits made it tolerable.

However, I kept discovering new challenges in trying to access my Calendar and meeting appointments while on-the-go. If you travel a lot like I do, managing your bookings, hotel reservations, flights, and car rentals is a job in itself. It often required me to have a lot of paper on hand to keep it all straight.

My solution for this issue is a free Web site called Tripit.com. I created an account on Tripit and associated several email addresses with that account. From here, whenever I receive an email confirmation for flights, car rentals, or hotels, I forward them to a central email address: plans@tripit.com. Tripit (Figures A and B) assembles my details into individual trips based on the longest start and end dates (these usually correspond to my flight departure and arrival dates).

Figure A

I can edit the trip details.

Figure B

Keep it all in one place.

The best part about Tripit is that after customizing my trips, I can export all the details to an .ics file and import that into my Outlook, which will synchronize with my Mobile Device using Activesync. This has trimmed a lot of paper from my travels.

A major advantage of this when used with Exchange is that the data is centrally stored so if my phone has an issue and needs to be wiped, I reconfigure the Exchange server information with Activesync, and I am good to go!

I am similarly protected from Outlook issues on my laptop in this way.

Calendar-sharing: Last piece of the puzzle

In Outlook, I can configure users with whom I can share my Calendar as far as reading and writing capabilities. Only users in the Exchange organization have this ability, though, so it is limited.

Recently, I found myself no longer able to remain dedicated on one Exchange system. I am doing business with several partners. Using Activesync, I am not able to tie into more than one Exchange system. Outlook will also not allow more than one Exchange server to be configured at a time.

This brings me back to the problem of not having a single, central Calendar. I know that there are some Internet Calendar options but how will these work and will I be able to share my Calendar with potential clients to view my availability?

Solution

Google to the rescue! With Google Calendar, I can add all of my different Calendars and manage them centrally online (Figure C). Using Activesync, you can add the address of the Calendar on the Web. You’ll then have the ability to sync with your mobile device!

Figure C

Central Google Calendar

As a much needed addition, I can share my calendar(s) with whomever I choose. I can also allow read/write access to them individually. These features are part of the Google Calendar application itself.

Being an online Calendar, I can easily integrate this into my existing Web site where I host my blog so the different partners I work with can get a Bird’s Eye view of my availability and get hold of me for work. This process would involve some coding unless there is a platform which will allow syncing the Calendar similarly to the way Activesync does in the Mobile phone.

I’ve found a solution that works for me and the platforms and applications that I use. Have you had to solve similar interoperability challenges with your own setup and devices? Which productivity suite is the best, in your opinion? If you’ve got all of this down pat, I would love to hear about your solutions.

Brad Bird is a Director of Security and Strategic Solutions for IGI. He lives in Ottawa, Canada. He specializes in Windows systems, security, and network administration. You can find more of Brad’s blogs at Rantings of an IT Pirate.

Making Outlook Work for You: Inbox and Calendar Essentials

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:25:54 +0000

SUMMARY

Everyday you’re flooded with loads of emails, appointments and tasks. Outlook has little-known organizational tools that can drastically help manage this mess. In this 60-minute webinar, Outlook expert Ben Schorr will help you unlock secrets of using Microsoft Outlook to tame your inbox and organize your professional life. Join us to see live demonstrations of:

Survival tips for e-mail overload – Get organized today
Calendar nuts & bolts necessary to use your Outlook efficiently
New Outlook techniques you can start using today to become even more efficient!
Ways to stay organized and on task with Outlook’s Tasks & to-do
Bonus: Pre-conference exercises to help you prepare

PROGRAM BENEFITS

In this live, 60-minute webinar for beginner to intermediate users, you will learn innovative ways to elevate your Microsoft Outlook 2007 skills to be more effective with new shortcuts, tips and techniques.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Essential Outlook Email Tips & Techniques That Save You Time
- Clean up your inbox: How to rescue yourself from e-mail avalanche
- Essential shortcuts to help you work faster and more efficiently
- Ways to create, modify, & remove Rules to manage e-mail messages
Surviving E-mail: Easy Outlook Strategies to Increase Your Productivity
- Keys to manage information & be organized with Calendar & Contacts
- Discover secrets for using e-mail & calendar together
- Little-known secrets to use Outlook as an all productivity manager
Outlook Calendar Shortcuts that Manage your Schedule
- Click and Drag techniques to create appointments, contacts & More!
- How to set up meetings & create appointments: Never be late!
- Rules Wizard, Search Folders & Other Vital Outlook Tools
Live Question & Answer Session – Get expert answers to your specific Outlook questions!

SPEAKER

Ben M. Schorr is a technologist with an expertise in Microsoft Outlook and Chief Executive Officer for Roland Schorr & Tower. His experience includes: Ben was named an MVP in Microsoft’s Outlook product group almost 10 years ago and he has been supporting Outlook, Exchange and most recently OneNote since.

Mr. Schorr was a contributing author for “Using Microsoft Office 2000″ by Que and has been a technical editor or contributor on a number of other books over the years including “The Lawyer’s Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007.”
He has been half of the “Ask the Exchange Pros” team for Windows Server System magazine.
Previously, Schorr was the Director of Information Services for Damon Key Leong Kupchak Haster.
In 2005 Schorr was named by the Pacific Technology Foundation as one of the Top 50 Technology Leaders in Hawaii. He is frequently sought as a writer, consultant, teacher and speaker.

Microsoft Project 2007: Tips & Tricks for Project Planning

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:20:50 +0000

SUMMARY

Managing your projects at work has become easier through Microsoft Project. Learn the basics of project management using the Microsoft Project 2007 for planning your important projects. In this session, author and instructor Teresa Stover will provide a guided tour of Microsoft Project and demonstrate the best ways to start a new project. Join us for this 90-minute Webinar, where you and your colleagues will discover:

How to create a new project plan- and manage it
Learn to enter and sequence new project plans and tasks
Ways to easily organize tasks into an outline
Steps to schedule to specific dates & set deadline reminders
How to create project milestones

PROGRAM BENEFITS

This practical 90-minute Webinar is packed full of solid concepts and practices that will give project managers a strong orientation to Microsoft Project 2007 and the foundation needed to successfully plan projects using this tool. Participants will come away from the program with a handy quick reference guide for getting started quickly with Microsoft Project.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Getting Started: Learning the Microsoft Project Workspace
- Understand project management processes
- How to navigate Microsoft Project’s menu and tool bars
- How to Facilitate your project with Microsoft Project
- Become familiar with the Gantt Chart default view
- Microsoft Project as a database and scheduling engine
Tips & Tricks for Creating and Managing New Projects
- Considerations before starting your new project plan
- Easy steps to creating a new project plan
- How to enter and sequence new tasks
Scheduling Tasks with Microsoft Project
- How to enter task durations
- Learn to establish task dependencies
- Discover how to schedule your project to specific dates
- Tricks to Setting and managing deadlines and reminders
- Discover how to create project milestones
Live question and answer session- Hear all your Microsoft Project questions answered!

SPEAKER

Teresa Stover is the owner of Stover Writing Services, a technical communications consultancy. Since its founding in 1987, Teresa has been managing projects having to do with user assistance or instruction.

She specializes in project management and Microsoft Project, having worked with the Microsoft Project team for every release since Project 4.0 in the early 1990s.
Along with 12 other computer books, Teresa is the author of Microsoft Office Project 2007 Inside Out, published by Microsoft Press.
Clients have included Apple Computer, National Semiconductor, Boeing, MetLife, and various school districts and community colleges.
In addition to writing and managing projects, she has taught numerous computer and business courses and workshops throughout her career.

Adobe CS4 Product Integration for Design and Web

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:18:33 +0000

SUMMARY

Learn the incredible ways that Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Fireworks and Dreamweaver work together to cover your Design and Web needs! In this 90-minute webinar training you and your colleagues will learn how to use the products together to produce:

Vector Based/Resalable Artwork, Printed Brochures
PDF’s, Interactive Page Curl SWF
Pixel Based Artwork, Touch Ups,
Mockups for the web, and a website

PROGRAM BENEFITS

This 90 Minute demo is a way for you to sample our upcoming (January 2010) Adobe CS4 Create Suite applications, designed to solve your business design and web needs. All attendees will qualify for a credit on that program. There will be five 15 minutes segments broken as follows:

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

1:00-1:15pm: Explore Adobe Illustrator CS4 Software
- Delve into the world of scalable, vector graphics
- Logo creation demonstration
1:15-1:30pm: Explore Adobe Indesign CS4
- See how to create compelling print layouts
- Overview and a newsletter creation demonstration
- Bring in the Illustrator logo
1:30-1:45pm: Explore Adobe Photoshop CS4
- See the world class application
- Create powerful images and touchups
- Overview and photograph touch up techniques
1:45-2:00pm: Explore Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
- The industry’s leading web authoring tool
- Dreamweaver is ideal for web designers, web developers & visual designers
2:00-2:15pm: Overview & webpage layout CSS
- Bring in images from Illustrator & Photoshop
2:15-2:30pm: Live Question & Answer session with expert instructor Penny LaLiberte

Excel 2007 PivotTable Webinar: Crunch Data; Impress Colleagues & Clients

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:16:50 +0000

SUMMARY

Excel’s PivotTables feature is one of the most powerful, yet least used features in Excel. Join Excel expert Annette Marquis for this upcoming 60-minute webinar as she demonstrates numerous features and shortcuts that will save you time and allow you to make better, more informed decisions. Please join us to discover:

Crucial PivotTables Techniques: Save time & analyze data
Ways to format your PivotTable report to make effective decisions
Verify accuracy of your data & other essential Excel tools
Tricks to use PivotTables to validate business proposals & display vital statistics

PROGRAM BENEFITS

In this live, 60-minute webinar, you will learn powerful tricks to master Microsoft Excel PivotTables – saving you time and easing your analyses.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Top PivotTable Tools to Summarize Data
- Easy PivotTables shortcuts: Automate previously dreadful analyses
- Time-saving Pivot Report tips & tricks to create flawless reports
- Quickly customize & group items to fit your needs
PivotTables Tools You Can Use Immediately
- PivotTables settings: Fast shortcuts to be more efficient
- Verify accuracy of data fast with PivotTables & display details with drill-down feature
- Smooth steps to calculating average, minimum, maximum or custom settings
Professional PivotTable Skills that Save Time
- Various ways to present data in different formats instantaneously
- How to insert a chart into your PivotTable – Save time
- Using the PivotTable Wizard with ease for effective presentations
Live Question & Answer Session – Get expert answers to your specific Excel questions!

SPEAKER

Annette Marquis has been a partner in TRIAD Consulting, a computer training and consulting firm, since 1995. Her experience includes:

She has co-authored of over 25 books on Microsoft Office, including Mastering Office XP and Mastering Office 2003 for Business Users, published by Sybex, Inc.
Ms. Marquis is a certified Microsoft Office Specialist and offers courses on all Microsoft office products including Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint and has extensive experience providing practical technological solutions to everyday business problems.
Annette has provided countless workshops at conventions, professional education conferences and district annual meetings. In addition to writing articles on Microsoft Office applications for the Microsoft website, she offered numerous webinars for Microsoft and other companies and is a co-presenter of the Microsoft Office BootCamp.

Dreamweaver Training

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:15:06 +0000

Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the industry’s leading web authoring tools for building world-class websites and applications. Cascading style sheets (CSS) are the modern standard for website presentation, controlling such things as borders, spacing between paragraphs, headings or images, control of font faces or font colors, background colors and images. Join us for this six session webinar training where you and your colleagues will discover how to:

Create rich, aesthetically compelling web designs in Dreamweaver
Drastically reduce the cost of building and maintaining your website
Analyze your code to ensure that it is done correctly and efficiently
Troubleshoot your specific problems – Live Demonstrations

PROGRAM BENEFITS

This six session webinar training will provide you and your colleagues with the necessary training to begin creating clean, semantically-correct, and valid XHTML and CSS in Adobe Dreamweaver.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Dreamweaver Foundations
- Dreamweaver Overview
- XHTML overview
- Building a website and web pages
- Building a site from a pre-built CSS Template
- Adding text and images
Working with Cascading Style Sheets
- CSS fundamentals
- Selectors
- Creating Style Sheets
- Embedding and linking styles
- Lists, tables, fonts and styles
Working with Images & Navigation
- Inserting images
- Background images
- Links (relative, external, anchor and email)
- Selectors (review and advanced techniques)
- Styles edits and creating new styles
CSS and Dreamweaver Templates (.dwt files)
- CSS in depth
- Creating Dreamweaver Templates (.dwt)
- Editable Regions
- Creating child pages based on a .dwt file
- Revising the .dwt file and web page synchronization
Interactivity
- Spry Widgets, Flash (.swf), Flash Video (.flv)
- Extending Dreamweaver using Extensions
- Behaviors & JavaScript
- XML Integration
- Forms
Publishing to the Web
- Hosting considerations and FTP
- Cloaking and testing
- The Check-Out and Check-In System
- Using the Files Panel to Upload and Download Files

SPEAKER

Penny LaLiberte is an independent website designer in Alpharetta, GA As the owner of Creative Website Solutions, which was founded in 1999, Penny has been able to offer professional website design to provide businesses with a competitive edge. Additionally, Penny’s experience includes:

An Adobe Certified Instructor where she teaches classes such as Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, Captivate and more.
Software consulting in a corporate setting as a team member working on large websites.
Program Developer, also in a corporate setting.

Lawyers can now grab your metadata

pbtechtraining — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:13:21 +0000

November 17, 2009 by Steve Hannaford

Posted in: Latest News & Views, Regulations & Compliance

Most companies now understand that all sorts of data on their servers is vulnerable to be dragged into court in the event of a lawsuit. But now it’s their metadata that’s under attack, and the change may mean more trouble yet.

What is metadata? It’s the digital information that gets attached to any email or text document that traces who created the document and when, what (if anything) it was based on, who modified it and when, and how it was routed inside and outside the company.

Think, for example, of a lawsuit that turns on the issue of whether a certain document was reviewed by a senior manager. Consider a fired employee who can demand not only confidential personnel files, but who wrote them and when.

The issue came up in a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court, which reversed a power court decision that ruled that metadata –- in this case included in public records — not being an intrinsic part of the document, could not be demanded by the plaintiffs along with the documents in question. The higher court stated that the hidden metadata was to be made as available as the regular data.

As one legal expert stated:

“Without knowing when something happened, or who was involved, electronic evidence is often useless –- thus, metadata is critical. Because of metadata’s critical nature, it is generally deemed to be part and parcel of the document it describes – if the document is relevant and must be divulged, then so must the metadata.”

What can and should companies do? The temptation might be to erase metadata in advance (there are tools in Microsoft Office that can). But at least one other case is pending where a company may be in hot water for doing this.

As emails including hastily written text messages become ever more interesting to plaintiffs, expect this whole area of metadata to become an ever-bigger issue. For more on metadata, you might want to check out this legally-oriented report.