LAWTECH GURU BLOG by Jeff Beard

New Yahoo! Widgets 4 Upgrades XP & 2000 Desktops

From Wired's Monkey Bites: If you're feeling a bit left out that you're still running Windows 2000 or XP at home, don't worry. Yahoo! just released their new desktop Widgets 4 software to add Vista-like gadgets and sidebars. Want a preview? If you prefer the stability and compatibility of XP, but crave some of the desktop coolness of Vista, this could be the interim cure.

Is Palm Getting Palmed Off?

Treo owners take note: Palm is contending with rumors of a buyer for their aging platform. This is nothing new, yet this time around, the latest round of rumors have an unusual amount of detail per News.com -- "It's crunch time for Palm".

Critics are quick to cite that the Palm OS has not been updated in years, still mired in Palm OS 5 (n/k/a Garnet OS). Palm recently retired the LifeDrive, their foray into the hard-drive based media player/organizer market, and seem to be relying on the Treo as their cash cow. To be fair, Palm has been incorporating the Windows Mobile OS in newer Treo devices. But how far can it carry them? The Treo product itself is relatively old, and the design has not changed substantially since September 2003 with the Treo 600, per Gartner.

"...that's a bad thing in a fast-moving industry like this where we've moved to thinner and cheaper devices. The Treo is looking fat, heavy and expensive." -- Todd Kort, Gartner analyst

While the Treo is a fine device and still useful, it needs to overcome a strong "last year's model" showing. Perhaps getting bought up wouldn't be such a bad thing, if it will infuse more resources into updating the platform.

Good Resources on Word's Track Changes

As usual, Law Practice Today has a helpful piece offering a number of useful Track Changes resources. We all know (or should know) the benefits and risks posed by using Track Changes. Despite all the debate, it's still a useful tool used widely throughout the legal profession, particularly on document collaboration. The linked tips should help users understand it better, as well as the links to other redlining and document comparison tools.

Burney on Word 2007

My friend and colleague Brett Burney has an enthusiastic review of the new Microsoft Word 2007 improvements, with a definite eye for legal use. He does a great job of extolling its new features while linking to some very useful Microsoft resources, including the "Interactive: Word 2003 to Word 2007 command reference guide" and the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack". I have to say that I like what I've seen so far of Office 2007, and the ribbon interface is very compelling in its usability.

It's probably too soon to tell whether the new legal blackline and Document Inspector features are robust enough to warrant not using third party programs such as DeltaView and metadata scrubbers. For example, Microsoft's site states that when it comes to using Track Changes, one should keep two versions of the document -- a public copy for distribution, and another one for private use with track changes. Sounds pretty similar to what the legal market has been doing for some time. However, anything that makes it easier to manage these tasks and documents are welcome features.