Today brings a number of thoughtful blog posts from around the Matrix. Each probably deserves some commentary—but since we can’t decide which—today we will just point you to them. Hint: Look for these topics in upcoming posts.

People Search for Yahoo using Google. Many users don’t know the difference between the browser address bar and the Google search box, so they get to Yahoo by typing it in Google’s search box and clicking on a result. This is emblematic of IT’s inattention to users work habits and failure to guide and instruct them properly.

Following up on that thought, little things make a big difference in people’s perceptions. Malcolm Gladwell first popularized the “Broken Windows” theory of crime enforcement, where importance was placed on cleaning up small details (like broken windows) before they contribute to larger ills and everything spirals out of control. This post equates that approach to web site and software development, and stresses the importance of momentum. We would suggest that in applying “broken windows” to IT, such as fixing quirks like slow login scripts that annoy users, is about improving user and management perception of performance. Not to cover up bad performance or quality, but combat negative perceptions when performance and quality are really quite good.

A grassroots movement of using personal e-mail and IM accounts like GMail and AIM rather than corporate accounts appears to be gaining momentum. The boon for the user, not having to learn new software or deal with bugs each time a new client or back-end server is changed, plus more storage.

Finally comes this report that small and medium enterprises down under are balking at the high price of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Evidently the Australians believe “they got all they really needed from earlier versions…” What say us Yanks?

All these links are saved on the del.icio.us/sagesol network open to all our readers.

The Thanksgiving Holiday brings out the Charlie Brown holiday specials, and “Pig Pen” makes his annual cameo in the cartoons. Pig Pen has the cloud of dirt and dust that follows him wherever he goes, but what if that cloud was information, instead?

Look no further than someone carrying a Blackberry or Treo and see a whole new generation of high-tech Pig Pens followed by a cloud of e-mails, contacts, documents and more. The new mobile workforce is no longer restricted by their own memory or brain power since they have access to tremendous information resources at the push of a button. Handheld computing and wireless technologies have untethered knowledge from bulky reference items like PCs, dictionaries, file cabinets, etc. Now add GPS, RSS feeds and web services like Del.icio.us or Google Notebook, and information is at the fingertips of anyone with a smartphone.

For example, Del.icio.us bookmarks can be an RSS feed, subscribed to through Google Reader, that has a mobile version accessible through any smartphone’s web browser. On the other hand, one SAGE employee visited a museum over the weekend where he ran into a person using his smartphone’s camera to photograph the plaque so they “could read them later.” With cameras on cell phone’s reaching 3 megapixels, each cell phone becomes a handheld scanner.

The challenge to IT in facilitating making all our workers like Pig Pen is thinking beyond secure VPN and Citrix, but how to use RSS and services to not only feed information, but also store and share with co-workers from practically anywhere.

Virtual computing environments are one of the most exciting developments in IT in years. Recently, SAGE hosted a seminar on virtual computing with the Capital Chapter of ALA.  The seminar was a big success, and now we are taking that seminar to you.

The session starts with an overview of the technology and its applications, and provide a survey of configurations, products, and platforms. We share our insights into the best applications for virtualization, and the various platforms and software currently in the market. The session delves into the costs and benefits of the technology, addressing the often touted myth of large cost savings. Based on our experience, We will also share the pitfalls to avoid when going virtual, and where virtual environments are heading in the near future.

The seminar covers:

• What is virtualization? Common configurations, products, hardware platforms and system requirements.
• Uses for virtualization, including development, consolidation, disaster recovery, etc.
• Pros and cons of virtual server environments.
• Maximizing performance in virtual computing.
• Myths and realities regarding the economics of virtualization.
• Real costs of going virtual for firms of various sizes.
• Complementary technologies for virtual server rooms like SANs, and remote power control.

If your firm is interested in learning more virtual computing, please contact Karin Magness at SAGE and we will bring the roadshow to your company.

This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) added full-text searching to public company financial disclosures going back the last four years in their EDGAR database. They have gone all Google with a single search box with results appearing below.  But that's about where the comparison ends.  Simple searches will yield thousands of results, quickly sending you the "Advanced Search" link to narrow down the list.  While it appears the search engine will need some honing, I imagine having full-text search capability will be a huge boon to lawyers, paralegals, accounts, and financial professionals dealing with SEC filings.

For more detail, check out the FAQ page for SEC's EDGAR full text search.

What do you think of our new home page? For now, beauty is indeed only skin deep, as the rest of the site is still awaiting a refresh after three years. While the site has held up very well over that time, we had some pressing needs that required we focus on the home page. Our goals were:

• list all our services and products up front;
• better describe our services and value-added for the legal and professional services firms.
• integrate with our Wisdom Journal blog and Events; and
• highlight our services like OnSight, MindPort, and affiliate partners in a compelling fashion.

There are a few features that will be added before the year is out, like the ability to resize the text, complete accessibility, and improved navigation controls in the vignette area. The new home page also suggests the design direction the rest of the site will head.

Please give us your feedback on the new home page? What do you like about it? What improvements would you make?

Looking to learn a new application or upgrade your skills but can’t afford the latest version? The latest version will cost you, but with a little searching, the previous version can be had at a cut rate price or even free. Our troglodytic explorers of the Internet’s dark caves mined another nugget of gold in this list of free software. Many are great system tools like Registry Mechanic. For techs who want to play with partitioning or imaging software but don't have a valid license and don't want to use a questionable copy of the software, earlier versions are a great way to learn. However, if these will be the primary tools for your firm, it is worth investing in current software.

Anyone else have good sources of cheap, last generation software?

The outgoing head of Microsoft’s software division, Jim Allchin, made a bold claim last week that MS’s upcoming Vista operating system would not need additional antivirus software to protect it. Just as quickly as the tech press jumped on his statement did did he start backtracking. Writing on his blog, Allchin says: “Wow, you describe a specific situation and suddenly people extrapolate something completely different!” Allchin really has no one to blame but himself, because the reason why he was using a very specific situation is that he was trying to spin Vista’s security measures to make them appear in a more positive light. That’s one way to create spin: don't be false, but craft a situation that puts your point in the best light.

More positive and surprising news is that Britain’s The Inquirer says the release version is “polished, speedy, and looks good on the eye.” They had been panning the release candidate versions of Vista, and the buzz around the earlier version was less than enthusiastic, to say the least.

Program note, all these links are saved on the del.icio.us/sagesol network open to all our readers.

Adobe is seeking to capitalize on the movement towards PDF and native document formats in the legal world with new features in Acrobat 8.  The latest version includes legal-focused features like redaction, metadata removal, and bates numbering. Acrobat 8 also sports better integration for e-mails with Outlook and Notes.

Adobe is also backing up their push into the legal market with support/marketing resources. Adobe now hosts an "Acrobat for Legal Professions" blog which has great resources like in-depth review of new features and best practices. For instance, posts on the new redaction feature covers workflow, limitations, and best practices. The blog also provides tutorials on converting deposition transcripts into PDF and using Acrobat with various equipment.

While single-page TIFs still dominate in most litigation settings because of speed of review, the addition of bates numbering and redaction should send Acrobat to the forefront on the production side. Do you see new uses for Acrobat 8 in your firms because of these new features?

Here’s an idea we have been kicking around since the elections last week… No matter what your political stripes, one clear lesson from the razor-thin margins in the last few U.S. elections is that each vote counts. Voting is just another form of feedback, whether the medium is an election, or user input about IT support. In the United States, there are significant elections every two years, because the world is a dynamic place and people and policies need to adapt. Generally, IT matters are decided by a single vote, (or executive fiat!) that are set in stone and never revisited until the next upgrade cycle.

Information Technology is just as dynamic as American politics (if not more so), not to mention changes in the business environment. Encourage your users and staff to constantly “vote” on the state of your IT resources, whether it is network performance, custom applications, or how you are providing support. Furthermore, let them know that their “vote” matters in the choice of technology or chosen course. Dynamic systems require constant feedback to perform optimally, so make sure to continually encourage voting on your IT resources and practices.

Windows Vista has gone “gold,” meaning it has been released to manufacturing. So Microsoft will make a deadline and have it in PC manufacturers hands at the end of the month and on retail shelves at the end of January. However, there seems to be a funny vibe surrounding it. Don’t expect lines of geeks waiting for a midnight release to snap up copies; the sense out there is that mostly people will be holding their breath hoping it isn’t a debacle. Check out this quote from Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s CTO:

"It's released to manufacturing. That means it went through an immense amount of testing. When it goes out, it will not be perfect and there will be updates. But at the point it's at now, it feels really good. Is it perfect? No, it's software and it will have flaws. But it's fulfilling the roles that an operating system must fulfill in this day and age."

There is someone who is pumped up about their product: “it’s fulfilling the roles.” Wow. To see what could have been, check out Microsoft’s promotional video for Vista from back when it was codenamed “Longhorn.”

So, anyone excited about the impending release of Vista?

For Election Day, the great folks in our OnSight Support Center have two tips for you... but having nothing to do with elections. Anyway, here is a way to format cells in Excel quickly and how to save all open Word documents at once.

Format Excel Cells Fast

If you want quick access to the Format Cells dialog box in Microsoft Excel to modify items like type style, alignment or borders, select the cell you want to format and press CTRL+1.

Save All Your Word Documents at Once

If you know the "secret" key, you can save or close all of your open documents in one step.

• Hold down SHIFT and click the "File" menu. When you hold down the SHIFT key, two new options appear on the File menu: "Close All and Save All."
• To save all open documents at once, select "Save All." Or to close all your open documents, click "Close All." Word will prompt you to save your changes before closing any documents.

Note: Some document management systems may not allow you to use this trick.

In our post on “Musing on the Coming Web Desktop,” we mentioned one hybrid scenario where web apps with desktop functionality reside on the firm Intranet, rather than the Internet itself. John Milan’s post yesterday over at Read/Write Web discussed another type of hybrid, a cross between a web app and a desktop application.

That got us thinking: we have done precisely that! MindPort+Review, our online document review and collaboration tool that integrates with our MindPort extranet solution, is indeed that sort of hybrid. With MindPort+Review, the data—in this case, documents and their metadata—reside in a MindPort project, which is an online repository. The MindPort+Review tool is a desktop application that provides enhanced functionality for searching, sorting, filtering, and grouping documents. The desktop app also has tools for creating and maintaining custom coding (metadata) and advanced retrieval tools like pick lists, saved searches, and search folders. Since the data is online, people can collaborate on the documents anywhere they have an Internet connection.

When we created MindPort+Review, we just thought that was the best method to provide collaboration and the functionality of a desktop. Because the solution worked, we didn’t consider that it is pretty far out there on the leading edge of web technology.

Here is an application that we are keeping an eye on: VMware Converter. Currently in beta, VMware Converter turns physical machines into virtual machines for consolidation, disaster recovery, or any other reason you would want a physical Windows OS machine to go virtual. Best yet, it will convert a number of physical machines on the fly, or even from other vendor’s VM products like Microsoft’s Virtual Server. Here is another scenario: thinking of upgrading to Vista? Convert your current Windows XP image into a virtual machine for safekeeping in case you need access to apps that are incompatible with Vista.

VMware Converter is certainly an app to watch, and we’ll be putting it into our lab to give it a thorough ringing out to see if it lives up to its promise.