Law Office Computing

Winton Woods

April 2003

Questions I Get and the Answers I Give

One of my editors recently suggested that I do a column now and then on questions I get from my readers. I thought it was a great idea and so this is first of those columns. The first issue is how to establish the best salutation. “Dear Maven” does not seem appropriate. My baby daughter, now 21 and bearing the burden of being the last of five children of a geek, brought me a broken toy when she was around two. It had lost a screw or something and I fixed right away. She was amazed and after that used to say when something broke around the house, “That OK! Daddy ficket!”. So I thought “Dear Daddy Ficket” would be pretty cool as I wander off into the stratosphere of Medicare and Social Security. Then, what is left of my judgment in old age said “No, Woody, for g-d’s sake NO!!!”  Maybe “Hey Woody” is best and that is what I think I will use. Here goes!!

Hey Woody!!

I am doing a lot of video now, particularly with video depositions, which I think is the best way to go in this technological age. I love the ability to bring up the actual deposition testimony on cross-examination. Talk about “magic moments”, this is the best! I also have many Gigabytes of office files that I need to back up on a regular basis. I have followed your advice and I have purchased a Western Digital FireWire 200 GB drive for my video and backup. The problem is that when I try to capture video or when I try to back up my files I get an error message that stops the process before it is done. It seems that there is some kind of hidden limit on video capture or backup that stops the process when the file size exceeds about 4 Gigabytes. What’s up??

Sleepless in Flagstaff

Dear Sleepless:

This is the result of the not well documented fact that only in the last few years have operating systems allowed files sizes to exceed 4 gigabytes. Video capture files and backup files now exceed that limit on a routine basis. The problem is that your new hard drive is formatted to accept files in the old FAT format, which is where the limitation comes from. Modern computers (Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and yes, the MAC)) now allow the use of the NTFS (NT File System) format which does not limit the size of the files. The following advice applies only if you are installing a new drive on a computer that is running the Windows 2000 or XP operating system and have experienced this problem. If you are trying to record to an existing drive where you have stored other data this does not apply (see below for more information).

What you need to do with your new drive is to reformat the new hard drive to the NTFS format. If your computer has Windows 2K or XP this is easy (remember that reformatting will erase all of the files on the existing drive). To reformat your new drive go to “My Computer”, right click on the drive and select “Format” and then select “NTFS” as the file system which will format that drive in the new system.  There are ways that you can convert any drive to NTFS without erasing the existing files but that process is something that is beyond the scope of this column. You can read Microsoft Knowledge Base Article – 214579 for details and cautions. You can access the Microsoft Knowledge Base by article number at http://support.microsoft.com.  The process is called “converting” the drive partition and it is reasonably easy to do.  If you do that you need to back up your existing data. Once you have a NTFS drive in place, however, you will experience no practical limitation on file size. My standard back up file is about 40 GB and growing! If you are still suffering from the Windows 98 blues you will have to learn to live with the 4 GB limit.

Hey Woody!!

My kids and the young lawyers in my office think I am way behind the times because I have not gone to a wireless network. They talk about how great it is to just walk into an airport computer lounge or a Starbucks and hook up to their home office computers. It sounds just great to me and I would like to access the Internet while I am watching TV.  Are there problems I should think about? My husband says he has heard horror stories about hackers getting into wireless networks.

In the Air and on the Road

Dear In the Air and on the Road:

The big problem is that you are a lawyer and your computer system has a lot of stuff on it that you probably do not want to share. Much of it may be privileged client information or work product material where you need to maintain tight control access. Wireless networks can be made reasonably secure but never as secure as you can make your standard hard wired network. There is even a game called war driving which is defined by one computer dictionary as “ n. A computer cracking technique that involves driving through a neighborhood with a wireless-enabled notebook computer and mapping houses and businesses that have wireless access points.” It is the rage in New York and San Francisco. Go to http://www.wordspy.com/words/wardriving.asp for more of the frightening details. The technique for making your system secure can be found at http://www.linksys.com/Products/befw11s4_sec_add.pdf or by going to the Intel site: http://www.intel.com/eBusiness/pdf/it/wp021306.pdf . The bottom line is that you cannot just set up the wireless system without changing the default settings that allow “War Driving” escapades or worse. It is a complicated process but necessary. There are so many issues that the Administrative Office of United States Courts has issued an advisory against local rollouts of wireless networking in the Federal Court system pending development of adequate security measures.

But if you are not concerned about having some random hacker or slacker like Stephen the Dell Drip, gain access to your network or (best choice) you have implemented top-level security, the new wireless access is very good. The latest standard is called 802.11g (know as the G standard) and it is four to five times as fast as the older standard called 802.11b (knows as the B standard). Make sure you get the G standard which is only a few bucks more. All you want to know and more is available at http://80211b.weblogger.com/about. The wireless router acts as the interface between your network and the Internet so that if you have a high-speed connection it can be shared by all of the computers on the network. Any of the standard routers from companies like Linksys or NetGear will serve. You can find high quality gear for under $100 for the older, slower system and around $130 for the new “G” routers such as Linksys Wireless G 54MBPS CABLE/DSL Router that serve as a four-port network hub as well as the router interface to the Internet. The new G standard routers are backward compatible with the older 802.11b standards. You can make your entire network wireless by buying wireless cards for each computer. The G level cards run around $70 and the B level cards are around $30.

We have installed a wireless access system at the Law College and it works very well. Indeed, some would say it works too well because it allows students to surf the Internet during class! It goes without saying that no new technology is free from criticism and wireless network technology is no exception. BTW, giving your notebook computer wireless capabilities is easy. All you need is a wireless PCMCIA antenna or the USB equivalent. Plug and Pray, as they say!! Just watch out for keyboard coffee spills in those airport lounges!