I’ve always thought that a battery was a battery, but do you want to trust your laptop to something that might destroy it?  Computer World looks at the aftermarket and suggest you may wish to, also.

I’ve never recommended an upgrade to Vista, and have suggested that folks buying a new PC, these days should try to get a “downgrade” to XP.  And I Guess I’m not the only one.  This sort of thing happens to Microsoft from time to time. (Anyone remember Windows Millenium Edition, aka Windows ME?)  But it shouldn’t.  All that wasted time and money learning how to use and optimize Vista, and of course the money wasted in Redmond.  Isn’t Private Industry always wonderful!

The number of legal jobs is steadily declining, according to new employment figures from the U.S. Department of Labor.

The law sector saw jobs shrink by 2,000 in September — the fifth consecutive month of losses.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal workforce of 1,165,100 is down by 1.15 percent from one year ago, when the industry employed 1,178,600 people.

The drop-off is even steeper since May 2007, when legal employment peaked at 1,180,700.

Of course, all of this was prior to the passage of the “bailout” plan which, all by itself, may solve any transient lawyer employment problem for quite a while.  I assume from the wording that the 1,178,600 figure includes a lot of non-lawyer support staff.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see the number of secretaries dropping, although I’ll bet that Vista, alone, required substantial increases in computer support personnel.

I didn’t think much of it when a Teleflip I sent the other day returned a “delayed” message; email systems are sometimes just not working.  I didn’t need it much with my recent SmartPhone acquisition and “all you can eat” talk - data - text phone contract. When I got a follow delay message and couldn’t access the Teleflip web site, I took out the trusty Google, and learned that Teleflip had discontinued its (free) email to sms service mid August.  The company was working with other services, which apparently didn’t sell very well and the money ran out.  And, of course, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t need the service any more.

There’s a lot of that going around in the Tech sector these days.

David Kalmick, President/CEO of CompuLaw LLC, publisher of calendar/docket matter management software with built-in court rules databases, announces the release of calendaring rules for attorneys that utilize the Rules of Practice and Procedure for U.S. Customs Trademark Recordation. CompuLaw?s database package now includes court rules for recording trademarks with the U.S. Customs & Border Protection Office, allowing attorneys to efficiently monitor their cases and keep track of all related deadlines.

The U.S. Customs Trademark Recordation rule sets also take advantage of CompuLaw Vision?s most advanced software features. Vision?s Case Summary feature allows for quick and easy calendaring and tracking of all relevant trademark data, including goods covered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office registration and specific products entitled to U.S. Customs protection. In addition, the rule sets include Jurisdiction Summary Reports, which list U.S. Customs filing/renewal requirements and include convenient links to the U.S. Customs Web site.

?CompuLaw?s Intellectual Property calendaring databases already include rules for U.S. Patent and Trademarks, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, Madrid Protocol and state trademark rules for all 50 states,? said Kalmick. ?We are pleased to now offer law firms the U.S. Customs Trademark rules to help legal professionals monitor their filing and renewal deadlines. Our rules are written, edited, tested and maintained by a department of expert in-house attorneys ? so we set the standard for accuracy and reliability. CompuLaw offers the largest national court rules database available today, and our packages are designed to make tracking critical dates and deadlines simple.

. . . .

For more information about CompuLaw, CompuLaw Vision, CompuLaw Rules or other CompuLaw products, call (800) 444-0020 or visit www.compulaw.com.

I am not sure when it happened, but when I looked at LexisOne this morning, it had expanded its database to TEN years. It still doesn’t have, notably the United States District Courts, and some specialized federal courts, and some other state courts — did you know that Arizona has a Tax Court? Well…those cases aren’t in LexisOne —  but if you need something fast and don’t have a paid CALR site at hand, LexisOne is obviously a good deal.

The URL, of course, is www.lexisone.com. Reigster once, and you’ll be able to access the site even years later.

Mr Witness….On January 3, 2007 did you write a post on your blog saying…..

Anyway, catch the whole article here. 
And read down to the very end where I get quoted.
And be careful what you write. Never know when you may want to be an expert witness.

I’ve left this message on the Google Maps forMobile HELP forum, and someone
thee ought to have more specialized knowledge than readers here, but then
lawyes are very resourceful.

Here’s the problem, as I presented it to the Google hangers on.  If you know the answer
or have had a similar problem with your Windows Miobiile 6.1 Smart Phone, please let me know.

After a month of working beautifully, I suddenly get the following
message when I try to launch Google Mpas on my Q9c with MW 6.1

ALERT
 ——————————————-
Access denied.  The program cannot start
because it is not digitally signed with a
trusted certificate. 

There is a watermark showing a large yellow circle and a “!” in the
side of the message.
The only change I made before this happening was to attempt to install
the latest Skyfie.
It seemed to install, but wouldn’t launch with the same error message.

Any idea of how to fix this> (short of a hard reset which both
Motorola and Sprint suggested.)

I really don’t want to do a master reset and re-install everything.

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This is the URL that the SAVE NOW button in my e-mail links.

If you need one of their excellent treatises, this may be a good time to buy.

But there was a “giveaway”.

The subject heading, as above was:

Evaluate IT Distributors — Get a Gas Card

And the publication agreed to give a genuine $10 gas card to 200, selected at random, of the people answering the e-mail.

 I haven’t looked up the circulation of the publication, but I assume at least 10s of thousands, probably more.  Assuming only 10 percent of the 10,000 mailing list respond, that would be 1000 responses to compete for the 200 gas cards. Let’s see….that’s a 20 percent chance on a $10 card — expected value $2 — for 15 minutes time, or $8 per hour.  (Didn’t the minimum wage just go up?)  IF they receive only 1000 responses.

Now the publication is a good one, the goal worthy, and had I something to say I would answer it they weren’t offering the gas card.  But how many people would do it because the company offered them a full 2-1/2 gallons of gas, if they gave a card for each answer?  Few, I’d guess. And fewer on a chance to win 2-1/2 gallons of gas.

Of course, times are tough, and every little bit helps. (I wonder if they’ll send the winners 1099s?  Nah!)
This is, I suppose, like the dollar bill that is sometimes inserted into requests to take a written survey.  The theory is that some have the dollar in hand and may feel obigated to take the survey, thereby increasing the “yield” of the mailing. If it works, I suppose it is worth it.