Scrubbing of Metadata for Office 2003 and Office 2007 Excel Documents

Hi All,

Scrubbing of metadata is nothing but removal of the document properties like metadata of the particular document(Document properties and personal information stored within the document). In this instance, I would like to share with you all regarding scrubbing of metadata for microsoft excel documents (Office 2003 and Office 2007).

Please find the below steps to perform scrubbing of metadata for office 2007 Microsoft excel documents:

• Open the respective microsoft excel document.
• Go to File menu –> Info tab -> Check for Issues tab -> Inspect Document.
• A Document Inspector window pops up and select the document for selected content like “Document Properities and Personal Information.”
• Click on Inspect button.
• Upon clicking the Inspect button, Document Inspector inspects for appropriate data that needs to be scrubbed.
• Once the inspection has been complete, you will see an option for “Remove all” under the selected content of “Document Properties and Personal Information.”
• Click on “Remove all.”
• Click on “Close” button in the Document Inspector window.
• Save the document.
• To verify, just right click on the selected document, select properties option and you can see blank data in the metadata fields.

Please find the below steps to perform scrubbing of metadata for office 2003 Microsoft excel documents:

• Open the respective microsoft excel document.
• Go to File menu –> Properities tab -> Inspect Document.
• A Document Inspector window pops up and select the document for selected content like “Document Properities and Personal Information.”
• Click on Inspect button.
• Upon clicking the Inspect button, Document Inspector inspects for appropriate data that needs to be scrubbed.
• Once the inspection has been complete, you will see an option for “Remove all” under the selected content of “Document Properties and Personal Information.”
• Click on “Remove all.”
• Click on “Close” button in the Document Inspector window.
• Save the document.
• To verify, just right click on the selected document, select properties option and you can see blank data in the metadata fields.

Scrubbing of PDFs

Hi All,

Most of us are unaware of the term, scrubbing of Metadata.  Scrubbing of metadata is nothing but removal of the document properties like metadata of the particular document (Author, Date Last modified, Date Created etc.)

Please find the below steps to perform scrubbing of PDFs:

1. Open the respective PDF document.
2. Go to Edit – Preferences.
3. Select Documents section under Categories.
4. Select the option of Examine document when closing document option under Examine Document section.
5. Click on OK.
6. Once we have the pop up of Examine Document, check the appropriate data that needs to be scrubbed.
7. Click on Remove all checked items.
8. Once, we have the confirmation window which indicates that scrubbing is done. Click on OK.
9. Save the document.
10. To verify, just right click on the selected document, select properties option and you can see blank data in the metadata fields.

Tips to Write Blog Posts

One of the key valuable to blogging success is providing exceptional content. Go after these below tips to make sure your blog posts not only get read but make people to expect more from you.

1. Opt for the appropriate tone of the Blog

Each Blog has a target audience it has been written for. Before you begin writing blog posts, survey who’s your primary and secondary audiences will be. Who wants to read your blog and why? Are they receiving professional information and debate or fun? Be familiar with not only your goals for your blog but also your addressee’s expectations for it. Then make a decision on what tone would be most apt for your blog, and inscribe consistently in that tone and style.

2. Be Open

Blogs that are written in direct voice and truly show who the writer is are often the most popular. Consider the fact; Community that grows around the blog is the key component for blog’s success. If you represent yourself and content truly and openly, reader loyalty will undeniably raise.

3. Don’t Just List Links

Blogging is time-taking, and sometimes it will be very tempting to just list links to other online content for your readers to follow. Make sure not to fall into that trap. Readers do not follow a breadcrumb trail to find something interesting topics to read. In fact, they might like where you have lead them more than your blog. Instead, give readers a reason not to leave your blog by providing links with your own summary and opinion about the content of those links. Remember, a link without context is an easy way to lose readers rather than retaining them.

4. Provide Attribution

Do not risk being indicted of violating copyrights, breach of copyright or stealing content from another blog or website.  If you found information on another blog or website that you want to discuss on your blog make sure to provide a link back to the original source.

5. Write in Short and Precise

The visual appeal of your blog’s content can be just as important as the content itself. Write your blog posts in short paragraphs to provide visual relief from a text weighty web page. Most readers will skim a blog post or web page before deciding to read it in its entirety. Text heavy web pages and blog posts can be overwhelming to readers while pages with a lot of white space are easier to skim and more likely to keep readers on the page.

Why do Projects Fail? & How to avoid Project Failures?

Learning How to Avoid Project Failure:

We can probably all think of projects that have “failed” – perhaps processes got worse rather than better, maybe they were canceled because of cost overruns, or perhaps systems were launched with fundamental errors.

How do you know when – and why – a project has failed? In many cases, the reason for failure is obvious. However, the definition of failure isn’t always clear: one project with a significant delay might be described as a failure; yet another, with a similar delay, might be seen as a stunning success.

Definition of Project Failure:

A project is considered a failure when it has not delivered what was required, in line with expectations. Therefore, in order to succeed, a project must deliver to cost, to quality, and on time; and it must deliver the benefits presented in the business case.

The requirements for success are clear and absolute – right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Because the second part of our definition of success is that the project must be delivered “in line with expectations.”

If key stakeholders agreed that a project had to exceed its initial budget, the project may still be considered a success. Likewise, if a project delivered everything that was in the detailed project designs, it may still be considered a failure if it didn’t include vital elements that the key stakeholders needed. This doesn’t seem fair, but project success and failure isn’t just about the facts, nor is it simply about what was delivered. It’s also, crucially, about how the project is perceived.

Reasons for Project Failure:

Here are some of the main reasons why projects fail:

The wrong business requirements have been addressed:

If your project is set up to deliver the “wrong thing,” it may be considered a failure even if everything is delivered on time, within budget, and to the required quality. This seems harsh. But if your project doesn’t deliver what the organization really needs, this will inevitably negatively affect how it’s perceived. This is why it’s so important to conduct a thorough business requirements analysis.

It’s not possible to deliver the business case:

If your business case can’t be delivered, then you have an impossible task. To make things worse, after the business case is approved, delivery of other things then becomes dependent on your project. This makes changing your project’s deadlines, budgets and expectations more difficult.

For example, once you’ve promised to deliver a new airport baggage management system, airlines may schedule additional flights for shortly after the system’s launch, so that they can take advantage of the new capacity. If the baggage system doesn’t work, or if it has major problems during testing, it may be hard to convince senior managers to allow the project to be delayed, because they will have to give up promised increased revenue. When you write your business case, make sure you think through the project requirements in detail, and identify what’s needed to ensure that you can deliver those requirements.

Don’t just list assumptions – make sure you explore them thoroughly. Review other, similar projects, so that you don’t forget any major items. If you’re delivering a new system, review your hardware and interface requirements. If you have major risks, include sufficient contingency resources (people, budget, and time) to manage those risks appropriately. Remember that implementing change is hard!

Be realistic, and be ready to have some difficult conversations. For instance, your CEO may be disappointed that he can’t have what he wants before the year end, or key users may say that they really need a fully featured product at the end of phase one. However, it will be a lot harder to have these conversations at a future date, when your project is in trouble!

In many cases, business case documentation is written before a project manager is assigned. If you’re the incoming project manager, make sure you don’t simply accept these documents as they are!

You’re responsible for delivering the project, so be sure to review the business case. Validate assumptions, and identify any gaps or areas that need more detail. If difficult conversations are needed, have them now. Once deadlines, requirements, and budgets are set, expectations are much more difficult to change!

Implementation Is Poor:

If you deliver your project competently, you’ll avoid poor implementation – right? Unfortunately, it’s not that clear. Delivery can be complex. You need to manage risks, issues, and scope; manage your team; and communicate with stakeholders. Delivering change is hard, and not everything is in your control. Therefore, being competent isn’t enough for good implementation, but it’s a good start! There are a lot of tools available to help you.

Making Timely Decisions – If the project is clearly not going to be able to deliver the revised requirements, don’t ignore this. The sooner you communicate this, and the sooner you make a decision about the project’s future, the better.

Considering Smaller Projects: – It’s more difficult to change direction in a large cruise ship than in a tugboat. So, think about whether a proposed project’s scope and delivery timeline are appropriate within your business environment. Delivering projects in smaller pieces is not always appropriate, but it’s worth considering.

Managing Expectations: – Just because you cancel a project does not automatically mean that the project is considered a failure. This depends on many factors, including how you manage the involvement of key project stakeholders in the decision-making process.

Key Points:

For a project to be successful, it’s not enough simply to manage your project competently, and deliver a good quality product. To avoid failure, make sure you have identified the right business requirements, created an achievable business case, put strong project governance into place, managed a high-quality implementation, focused on benefits, and monitored your changing environment.

Above all, be sure to manage the expectations, so that they stay supportive. After all, these are the people who will declare your project to be successful – or otherwise.

Tips to save interactive PDF file with all data typed into form by Adobe Reader

Inorder to save the data filled in an interactive PDF form, which is protected, we need to follow the below steps:

1. Open the PDF using Adobe Standard 8 Professional.
2. Go to Advanced menu, and click on “Enable the user rights in Adobe Reader”
3. Save the PDF and close.
4. Open the saved PDF in Adobe Reader9 or higher versions, and then fill the data in the respective fields in Form.
5. Save the PDF, you can save the data filled in PDF on to your hard disk and send it as attachment or as an email as required.

Any different solutions from the above would be highly appreciated.

Values of Time Management

Our life is like a bubble, a short morning dream. Therefore, we should take good care and make the best use of it. In other words, we must respect the value of time. Time management is basically planning and dividing one’s time in a productive way.

For instance, we have a number of activities that have to be taken care of in a particular period of time. So we should be able to plan our activities in such a way that we are able to complete all the work on time as scheduled.

It is a fact that if man takes care of his minutes’ then the ‘hours’ and ‘days” will take care of themselves. It is said that ‘Time is more precious than money’. This is because money lost in business or otherwise, can be gained or earned again, but time once lost, can never regained.

We all grow in time, live in time and ultimately, perish in time. There may not be an exact definition of time, but we all know what it is and its great value in a person’s life. A man has a lot of wants. We all want fame, success, money, happiness, love, etc. There is no end to our desires. However, only a few are successful, prosperous and happy. These few are the ones who realized the value of time. They made the best use of their time and attained desirable position in the society.

People, who made effective usage of time at their disposal, got the best from time. But those who forgot the value of time found to their utter dismay that it was harsh on them later.

In other words, successful persons use time in the best possible manner to achieve their goals. Most of us waste our precious time in unnecessary things such as gossips, roaming-aimlessly, grieving over the past blunders or day dreaming. It must always be kept in mind that, Time and tide wait for none. Time can be spent wisely or foolishly. The choice is ours and so are its consequences.

Life is not a bed of roses. Each and every one of us has to face a number of problems in life. We have to be bold and courageous enough to face them. Problems are faced by men of courage only. Escapist always avoids problems, had times teach us a lot. They prepare us for a prosperous and glorious future. If difficult times arrive, they would prepare us for a better life. We would be able to handle problems in future with more maturity, stability and courage.

Basically, time and opportunity once lost can never be recovered. The flow of time is ceaseless and eternal and we all are like small insignificant particles in this endless and continuous flow. Time is eternal and endless but human life is very limited, finite and short-lived. Therefore, successful people make the best use of time in their lives. A word done is time earned. A decision taken at an appropriate moment can work wonders. Hence, let us strike the iron when it is red hot.

We must make the best us of good times. We must make arrangements for the bad times during the good times. When the bad times knock at our doorstep, we should face them bravely with determination. That is how a rational and strong man is supposed to fight his battles of life. Ultimately a seasoned and an experienced human-being would be able to master time with his resources, skills and careful planning.

A proper use of time means the right use of an opportunity. As a very popular saying goes – ‘A stitch in time saves nine’. As opportunities in life are few and far between, so is time precious and limited. Those of us, who miss an opportunity or waste time, have to regret all our life. This implies that we must be punctual, disciplined and regular in our work-schedule.

One should instill the habit of early rising as one can complete a number of takes before the day has even started. For this, one must never be plagued with lethargy and bad habits. Some of them are sleeping late at night, laziness, passivity, remaining glued to the television or addicted to certain drugs etc.

To conclude, it is foolishness to think that we can make up for the lost time. There is a popular saying that ‘the past is dead and the future is unborn’. There are no tomorrows and yesterdays. It is ‘today’ which is important. Time is very powerful. So, we must ensure that we make the best use of time in our limited span of life. All greaten are the great economizer of time. They have left their foot-prints on the sands of time.  We should try to follow the greatest and learn to make the best use of time.

Overview of Epsilon – Powerful Text Editor

Epsilon is a programmer’s text editor modeled after Emacs. It resembles Emacs not only in its default keyBindings and layout, but also in the fact that it has a Turing-complete extension language in which much of its functionality is implemented. Unlike Emacs, Epsilon’s extension language, EEL (Epsilon Extension Language) is a dialect of C rather than a language of Lisp. Epsilon runs on DOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and OS/2. No other languages come close to the Epsilon Extension Language when it comes to speed and expressive power.

Epsilon is a text editor product by Lugaru Software. It was first released in 1984, long before Emacs was available on personal computers, and modestly priced, so it provided an attractive alternative to the usual DOS editors for those accustomed to Emacs.

Epsilon supports Unicode but does not display characters outside the BMP and cannot presently handle right-to-left scripts. It can convert among dozens of character encodings.

Epsilon is similar to a toolbox full of premium tools you can use to get your job done quickly, easily, and with minimum fuss.

Epsilon also has a bookmark mechanism that lets you say “remember this place”. Later, press a key and Epsilon goes back there instantly. Epsilon can remember up to 36 bookmarks at once, and can even remember them from one session to the next.

Epsilon 13 added features like Mac OS X support, spell checking, smart indenting for HTML and XML, context-sensitive help, improved source code browsing, dired grep, many more file variables, a mode for Tcl files, line numbers, and many new and improved commands.

Epsilon has a variety of features to make programming tasks easier:

1. Epsilon’s sophisticated C/C++/Java indenting recognizes keywords and language constructs, automatically indenting to the right level (and making it easy to spot a misplaced brace).
2. Smart paste automatically reindents code as you move it from place to place.
3. Epsilon has commands to move forward or back by parentheses, square brackets, or #if/#endif pairs. All these commands understand nesting rules and skip over nested pairs.
4. Epsilon for Windows connects to WinHelp files, so you can quickly look up a keyword or the parameters for an API call.
5. Epsilon’s concurrent process buffer lets you run command-line programs interactively in an Epsilon buffer, so you can use the full power of Epsilon to prepare input or modify output.
6. Compile from Epsilon, and the editor will intercept your compiler’s error messages. Instantly jump to any syntax errors with the touch of a key.Customizable syntax highlighting for C, C++, Java, HTML and TeX makes your code easier to read. Plus Epsilon automatically highlights matching delimiters when you move to them, making it easy to read complicated parenthesized expressions.
7. Type an ftp file name at a file prompt and Epsilon for Windows 95/NT will asynchronously retrieve the file via ftp from any computer on the Internet. Also edit remote directories using dired, save files, run a Telnet session, retrieve the HTML text of web pages, and more.

Whenever handling the large amount of the data, some time it is uneasy to change the value or modify the information within few minute & auditing entire volume is not easy task too. To make our task much easier, Epsilon Application will help us to save the time by being user friendly.

Various Benefits of Epsilon in Back Office processes:

1. Consistency Data Checking
2. Grepping the data
3. Listing file’s from location
4. Copy, Move File’s from One location to Other Location
5. Format Checking of Data
6. Comparing the Data
7. Multiple Search at a time using search options
8. Character wise Search
9. Macro
10. Keyboard Macro (New Store of Build function)
11. Renaming and recreating of the files with different formats.
12. Vertical Selection – Copy & Deletion of the Data.

Amicus Attorney Overview

Amicus Attorney is practice management software which is designed to make law firms more efficient and profitable. Firm members can easily access their client and billing information from their desktops and allows them to do more; bill more and go home early.

Amicus Attorney is the preferred solution for Law Firms worldwide because the key differentiator is the approach (Top – Bottom Level).

Various benefits of Amicus Attorney:

Systematize your practice – Maintain on top of the thousands of different pieces of information in the law practice.

Capture more billable time – Automatic time entries for daily activities like phone calls, e-mails and To Do’s – Amicus pays for itself very quickly

Work better as a team – Eliminate duplicated effort and lost time by sharing information, tracking tasks, keeping each other up to date, planning meetings, and coordinating everything across the entire firm

Manage communications, especially e-mail – never lose track of any phone call or e-mail, and be able to review the history of communications in the context of each file.

Enhanced Client Service – The status of any client matter is just a click away; automatic follow-up reminders ensure that nothing is missed out.

Quick  Documentation – Creates standard legal documents with the click of a button.

Re-usability – Accumulate the steps for any type of transaction, save them as precedent and then re-use the expertise on similar files.

Commonly Used File Types in Litigation Management

TXT File: A text file holds just the text information without retaining the format. Most basic file types can be opened with any text editor or word processor. TXT files are used to import data into most databases from another database, spreadsheet or electronic discovery.

CSV File: A CSV file is commonly expressed as a ‘Comma Delimited File’ or a ‘Character Separated File’. The second description is more accurate since any character including the comma, can be used to define each piece of data.  CSV files are used to import data into most databases from another database, spreadsheet or electronic discovery.  You would use this file instead of .edii file but would also need a .dii file to get the images into the database.

DCB, INI, KEY, LAYOUT, NDX, TAG, TEX, TRK Files: All these files are related to Concordance database and we need  Concordance to open any of these related files.

LFP File: The .LFP file indicates the documents were prepared using IPRO software.  Many of the service departments use this application.  The benefit is that IPro has a free utility that will convert the .lfp file to a variety of formats in particular, a .dii , OPT,  and DAT file.

OPT File: The OPT file is a Concordance load file that can be converted using IPRO’s  iConverter++ to create a load file that will work in almost any litigation support software tool.

DAT File: A DAT file is really nothing different than a .CSV file.  It is important to identify the fields of data that are being delivered within the .dat file so that you can match them to a field in your database or create new one.  It also has delimiters that should have been requested on the front end.  If not, you should be able to make adjustments at the “setup” before the import.  You can also do a full global search and replace to get the data imported but sometimes that can become exasperating.  A .dat file only loads the text and does not load images.

Dii File: The Dii file (document image information) is the load file which is a proprietary Summation file and is used to batch load images, OCR, and objective coding into the database. The Dii file instructs Summation on the unitization of the documents in the database as it would otherwise appear in a file cabinet with appropriate page breaks.  You can also use a Dii file to load images without OCR or objective coding.

eDii File: The eDii file (electronic document image information) is the load file which is a proprietary Summation file and is used to batch load images and data extracted from native files.  The eDii file instructs Summation on the unitization of the documents in the database it would otherwise appear in a file cabinet with appropriate page breaks in addition to loading data into fields such as TO, FROM, E-MAIL DATE, SUBJECT, BODY, etc

Control List (.lst):  A control list is an ASCII text file that contains the data necessary to link OCR documents to database records.

SBF File: A file format propriety to Summation and is used to bundle documents and/or transcripts which can be imported or exported electronically.  SBF files delivered from a court reporter are a bundle of both the transcript and deposition exhibits and even the video if applicable.  However, an .sbf file delivered from opposing counsel would be a bundle of documents that can be dropped right into the Case Explorer tree and subsequently merged into the Core Database.

Introduction to Concordance Discovery Software

Concordance Discovery Software is used to organize and manage massive volumes of litigation data and OCR text.  The software can handle over 33 million records per database and allows up to 250 customizable fields per record.  We can easily import, search and organize email and other e-discovery documents quickly and accurately. It makes easy to identify and analyze critical information regarding a particular case.

The various features of Concordance Discovery Software are:

• Concordance technology allows us to be associated with satellite offices, co-counsel, expert witnesses and clients on e-discovery documents in real time.
• A single search box lets us search the full text of hundreds of thousands of documents in up to 128 litigation databases simultaneously.  It allows us to search by a word, phrase, spreadsheets, memos, prior testimony and diagrams.
• We can perform Boolean, vague, Wild Card and even relational and conceptual searches. Exclusive integration with EverQuest’s Cognition offers the ability to search on the meaning of words and find conceptually similar matches, for more appropriate discovery.
• We can modify the screens to meet our specific needs by choosing the fields we want to display hiding other fields.
• We can use Concordance Image software to promptly highlight confidential portions of case documents and redact them prior to delivery. We can also insert comments to get attention to key issues among other team members.

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