PRODUCT SUGGESTION: Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Once again I find myself apologizing for the hiatus in blogging. I've been in depositions all over the place, dealing with massive document productions, and writing to the point of stupor. I've decided to add an additional topic that I've flirted with on this blog in the past. Specifically, I am going to mention (in short posts) some technology products that have made my life easier in different ways or are of notable quality (I'm not going to try to do comprehensive product reviews - plenty of people do that online). Some products will be nothing more than a $10 accessory, and some will be like this one, a full computer.

The product:  The Surface Pro 3 from Microsoft.

The good:  The digital pen is extremely accurate.  When you couple the Surface Pro 3 with OneNote (which I am realizing is an awesome tool) and the digital pen, you get exceedingly good handwriting recognition and a great note-taking device for hearings.  Convert your written notes to text with the accurate OCR in OneNote. The device is a full PC that is very portable, attractive, and very well built.

Where to find it: Microsoft Store or other retailers

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for any positive comments about this product, and I was not asked to review this product.

The Complex Litigator is now updated under the hood

I'm sure you missed me immensely.  All five of you.  Between the demands of work and some under the hood adjustments, I haven't had an opportunity to post anything since September.  I am pleased (or just relieved) to report that I have moved safely to SquareSpace hosting platform 7 without any major glitches thus far.  I took the opportunity to fiddle with site design to make things ever so slightly cleaner to look at and easier to read.  I may do more in the design area, but, for now, the plumbing overhaul is done.

Oh, and there are some cases begging for some special attention.  I will take care of that forthwith.

Tech Tip: Office 365 server connectivity

If you just moved to Office 365, but use Outlook on premises, or if you just bought a new computer that will run Outlook and connect to Office 365, this quick tip might be for you.  If things work during initial setup, but you lose connectivity later and can't get it back, IPv6 may be the culprit.  Office 365 does not play nicely with some IPv6 implementations (depends on the ISP, apparently).

In Network Connections, right click and choose Properties.  On the dialog that opens, scroll down in the protocols list and look for check marks by both IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) and IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6).  Uncheck IPv6 and see if Outlook instantly connects.  Hope this saves a few people from migraines.  Note: you can find Network Connections by right-clicking the windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen in Windows 8.1.  I think you can also find it by hitting the start button in Windows 7, but it's been a while since I had a Windows 7 machine.

Word 2013: Revisiting pleading alignment issues

First, let me apologize to regular visitors for the drought this last month.  A new firm to attend two, back to back colds, and an appellate argument had me running on fumes.  I intend to remedy the silence this week.  Before getting back to law, however, I need to revisit an issue I touched on once before - the exciting topic of line alignment in pleadings in Word.  See this prior post, explaining how to fix a problem I see all the time.

It turns out that my solution for fixing the problem does not work in Word 2013 (which I am using exclusively as a result of selecting Office 365 as the delivery mechanism for Office - and I highly recommend it, for the most part).  More specifically, Word 2013, when using the most current document format (docx, without the compatibility option enabled at the time you save), does not even incorporate the setting described in my post linked above.  Those settings are "deprecated."  It seems that Microsoft, in all its wisdom, thought a new layout engine for Word was in order.  I couldn't find a way to control text alignment with line numbering at the top of documents.  But Microsoft must surely have a way to do this that I just can't find, right?  Sooooo, no.

If you don't believe it, check out the thread I opened on Microsoft's technet site.  Now, to be clear, I am still not 100% convinced that what I am trying to do can't be done in Word 2013, using the current document format without the compatibility mode active.  The not-so-informative response I received is not filling me with confidence.

I may try to contact the Office team directly and see if they can suggest something.  If I have any luck, I will let you know.  Until then, I will keep cringing at Word pleadings that are misaligned on the first page.

Two tips for for resolving networking errors caused by Windows 8.1

I tend to stay fairly close to the bleeding edge when it comes to personal technology.  For instance, while it seems to freak people out, I have been using Windows 8 since it was in public beta release more than a year ago.

When the 8.1 update to was released last week, I naturally installed it the very first day on three different computers.  Personally, the installs were trouble-free on all three machines, though I set them to automatically download and install Windows updates, which made made that installation easier for me than it could have been (there are Windows updates that must be installed prior to the 8.1 update, and the 8.1 update will now show up for you if you don't do that step first). 

Last night, however, I did encounter a networking issue related to Windows 8.1, which appears to be a fairly wide-spread issue (lots of talk about it online already in forums, so many people are seeing similar issues).   I noticed that, after I woke my machine from sleep, it almost immediately lost internet connectivity (actually, network connectivity of all types, since it couldn't even see the local network printers).  I temporarily regained access by disabling the network card and connecting via wifi, but that was erratic as well.  I had to disable and enable network cards several times to get enough online search time to troubleshoot.  Here are my two suggestions for how to deal with this.

First, roll back the driver on your network card to an earlier version.  For many, just reading that was probably very terrifying.  Here's how to do it: 

You can do this by going to device manager, right click on your network adapter, go to update driver, then "browse my computer for driver software, then"let me pick from a list of...." , uncheck the "show compatible hardware" checkbox and finally select the older version of current driver (if you dont know which, just use trial and error).

Hat tip to Technet.   Let me elaborate.  Right click in the lower left hand corner of your screen, where the new Windows start screen icon now sits.  This brings up the power user menu.  Click on Device Manager.  Expand the portion of the device list showing "Network adapters."  My machine has several, including an ethernet card and a wi-fi adapter.  Right click on the adapter giving you trouble.  Select update driver.  Follow the instructions above (browse my computer for driver...then choose let me pick from a list).  In my case, I had 3 drivers, one labelled a "Microsoft" driver and two from the card manufacturer.  I selected one from the manufacturer and installed that one.  The installation of a manufacturer driver has fixed my problem for the last day.

Now, for a more robust solution, when you are in the Device manager, take note of the name of your network adapter (including any model number) for ethernet and/or wifi.  Search online (if you can get there) for that manufacturer's website.  Look for a support/downloads menu option and try to find current downloads.  I found drivers updated for Windows 8.1 for both of my adapters that way (I haven't installed them yet, since my rollback fix is working for now and I have work to finish).  The newest manufacturer drivers should replace any glitchy drivers added during setup.

As an aside, this seems to be something that manufacturers knew was coming, since Dell pulled all of the BIOS files for my computer about a week ago and then released an updated BIOS a few days ago that had unspecified changes to networking compatibility in its change log.  Interesting...  I installed the updated BIOS and so far everything is behaving. 

If you stumble on this post while pulling your hair out over networking problems, I hope it helps. 

Squarespace tip of the day (at least for this day): Code injection

Don't do what I did.  Don't accidentally copy curly quotes when pasting some html code into a code injection area (a little under-the-hood work for authorship signals).  Even basic html hyperlinks don't behave so well when you use curly quotes.   Just sayin'.

Ninth Circuit notices that we still have some constitutional rights, holding that rights exist at border crossings

I was concerned when United States v. Cotterman ​was originally decided by the Ninth Circuit in 2011.  In that decision, the panel held that personal property, such as laptops and other digital storage devices, could be transported to a secondary site for a thorough inspection, even with no reason for suspicion.  En banc review was granted in 2012.  On March 8, 2013, in United States v. Cotterman ​(9th Cir. 2013), the Court, en banc, modified that terrible holding.

​The Court observed:

Every day more than a million people cross American borders, from the physical borders with Mexico and Canada to functional borders at airports such as Los Angeles (LAX), Honolulu (HNL), New York (JFK, LGA), and Chicago (ORD, MDW). As denizens of a digital world, they carry with them laptop computers, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Kindles,​ Nooks, Surfaces, tablets, Blackberries, cell phones, digital cameras, and more. These devices often contain private and sensitive information ranging from personal, financial, and medical data to corporate trade secrets. And, in the case of Howard Cotterman, child pornography.

Slip op., at 5-6.​  Framing the issue, the Court continued:

Although courts have long recognized that border searches constitute a “historically recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment’s general principle that a warrant be obtained,” United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 621 (1977), reasonableness remains the touchstone for a warrantless search. Even at the border, we have rejected an “anything goes” approach. See United States v. Seljan, 547 F.3d 993, 1000 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc).​

Slip op., at 7.​  The Court recognized that a search of electronic devices must be reasonable, even at the border, given the character of digital information:

​Electronic devices often retain sensitive and confidential information far beyond the perceived point of erasure, notably in the form of browsing histories and records of deleted files. This quality makes it impractical, if not impossible, for individuals to make meaningful decisions regarding what digital content to expose to the scrutiny that accompanies international travel. A person’s digital life ought not be hijacked simply by crossing a border. When packing traditional luggage, one is accustomed to deciding what papers to take and what to leave behind. When carrying a laptop, tablet or other device, however, removing files unnecessary to an impending trip is an impractical solution given the volume and often intermingled nature of the files. It is also a time-consuming task that may not even effectively erase the files.

Slip op., at 22.​   "This is not to say that simply because electronic devices house sensitive, private information they are off limits at the border. The relevant inquiry, as always, is one of reasonableness. But that reasonableness determination must account for differences in property."  Slip op., at 24.

In this case, the majority concluded that, under the circumstances of the case, the search was reasonable.​  Regardless, I am encouraged that, as of now, the mere use of a password to protect data does not provide a reasonable basis for detailed inspection of a computer.

A note on the Class Re-Action Podcast

I have received some feedback on the sound quality, and I want anyone who has listened to the premier episode to know that the sound quality isn't where I want it either, but it will get there.  I had to process out a lot of background noise coming in from one of the connections, and heavy noise removal causes other issues.  In the long run, I will likely provide better microphones to repeat guests.  There simply is no comparison between a good microphone and the built-in microphone that comes with many laptops or webcams.  Anyhow, thanks to all the people that have given the show a first listen.

Podcasts are coming to The Complex Litigator...

as soon as I figure out how to wire up the pile of audio equipment I just ordered and get my first discussion panel lined up.

Dear Congress: Get your grubby paws off the internet - I'm looking at you, SOPA and PIPA

In case my opinion isn't entirely clear, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are junk.  The laws display a catastrophic ignorance about how the Internet actually works, are so poorly written as to invite abuse, will most certainly be abused (based on how the MPAA and RIAA have conducted themselves in the past), and will move the United States uncomfortably down the road towards a fragmented, censored Internet.

If you aren't all that technical and want an idea of what's wrong with these laws, reddit has a good post on the topic.