Product Review: Keep Your Metadata Out-of-Sight'

'Metadata' ' 1. Confidential information that ends up being electronically distributed thereby causing embarrassment and allowing your law firm to be placed at great risk in the hands of any and all outsiders to your firm! Now I realize that I may not be Webster when it comes to defining words, but I think that this really is the definition of the word Metadata! Truth be told, Metadata is information embedded in all Microsoft' Office Documents, including the last 10 authors, file paths, and editing time, track changes and comments, plus much more that you never see BUT is really there! Moreover, each and every time your or someone in your firm sends an e-mail attachment, whether it be a document or an Excel spreadsheet, along with the attachment you send vital and confidential information, in the form of Metadata, to your opposition! So how do you find Metadata ' well, you can look at your file properties. Just open any of your Excel or Word documents, next select File, Properties and notice that Metadata can be found on each of the several tabs! If you think this amazing, then you should try this ' Select File, Open and highlight a file. Next from the files type drop down menu select 'Recover Text from Any File' and then open the file. Scroll through that document now and you will find more Metadata than you could possibly imagine! I was amazed to find unbelievable items in my files and you will be too!

I have heard a lot of Metadata war stories as of late. How about this, your firm finally hacks out that 50-plus page settlement on the case you've been longing to close. But, lo and behold, the case doesn't settle, because in the metadata that was transmitted with the attachment, was a note from lawyer A in your firm to lawyer B saying, 'hey don't offer this SOB the initial $400,000.00, make him suffer and only offer up $250,000.00, because he has always been a real jerk about this case and no one likes him or his attitude!' Sure enough with this staring opposing counsel in the face, do you really think he will want to settle with your firm? Ok so now you know that Metadata is out there lurking in your files and attachments ' what's a firm to do?

Well, if you're smart you will go right to www.SoftWise.net and you will order the best of the Metadata killers ' Out-of ' Sight '. Do this before your headaches get any worse! I know that I have been using this fine product for several months now and I no longer worry about sending Metadata along with my documents.

To be more exact, Out-of-Sight is a user-friendly Metadata management utility from the SoftWise Corporation. The utility enables a safe and effective way to manage all of your Microsoft Office documents and thereby protecting all of your valuable information. What it does exactly is to provide a mechanism to safely analyze and clean all your documents before they are sent out and it works with all Microsoft Office products. As the people at SoftWise put it ' 'it's a shrink-wrapped engine that provides an easy to use single dialog and the administrative module enables central management of the product and the establishment of enterprise standards, all using a simple GUI (graphical user interface).'

In addition Out-of-Sight integrates with multiple e-mail systems, so that every time you use it you get a prompt asking you if you care to remove the metadata prior to sending the e-mail, and with their batch processing system you can clean multiple documents or a directory or directory tree in one single operation! Without question the product wins over all others that I have seen in the marketplace today and I think that you will enjoy the ease of use that comes with it.

If you care to sample the Out-of-Sight product for a trial evaluation, just down load the eval copy and begin to work with it. You will find it simple and easy to use, and better yet it will work for you without a hitch. I have not had any problems with the program from the time I've loaded it until the time I first began to use it! I think that you will find that in a few short mouse clicks you will be amazed at how all your metadata is magically and, more importantly, perfectly, removed from all your documents. I think that after your first use of Out-of-Sight you will wonder why you didn't have it at your disposal a long time ago and you will be glad that you have it with your law firm from now on!

Alan Pearlman is an attorney, computer consultant and nationally syndicated columnist. He can be reached at his Web site, www.theelectroniclawyer.com, or by phone at 847-205-4383. ' 2003 Alan Pearlman 'The Electronic Lawyer.' All Rights Reserved.

'Metadata' ' 1. Confidential information that ends up being electronically distributed thereby causing embarrassment and allowing your law firm to be placed at great risk in the hands of any and all outsiders to your firm! Now I realize that I may not be Webster when it comes to defining words, but I think that this really is the definition of the word Metadata! Truth be told, Metadata is information embedded in all Microsoft' Office Documents, including the last 10 authors, file paths, and editing time, track changes and comments, plus much more that you never see BUT is really there! Moreover, each and every time your or someone in your firm sends an e-mail attachment, whether it be a document or an Excel spreadsheet, along with the attachment you send vital and confidential information, in the form of Metadata, to your opposition! So how do you find Metadata ' well, you can look at your file properties. Just open any of your Excel or Word documents, next select File, Properties and notice that Metadata can be found on each of the several tabs! If you think this amazing, then you should try this ' Select File, Open and highlight a file. Next from the files type drop down menu select 'Recover Text from Any File' and then open the file. Scroll through that document now and you will find more Metadata than you could possibly imagine! I was amazed to find unbelievable items in my files and you will be too!

I have heard a lot of Metadata war stories as of late. How about this, your firm finally hacks out that 50-plus page settlement on the case you've been longing to close. But, lo and behold, the case doesn't settle, because in the metadata that was transmitted with the attachment, was a note from lawyer A in your firm to lawyer B saying, 'hey don't offer this SOB the initial $400,000.00, make him suffer and only offer up $250,000.00, because he has always been a real jerk about this case and no one likes him or his attitude!' Sure enough with this staring opposing counsel in the face, do you really think he will want to settle with your firm? Ok so now you know that Metadata is out there lurking in your files and attachments ' what's a firm to do?

Well, if you're smart you will go right to www.SoftWise.net and you will order the best of the Metadata killers ' Out-of ' Sight '. Do this before your headaches get any worse! I know that I have been using this fine product for several months now and I no longer worry about sending Metadata along with my documents.

To be more exact, Out-of-Sight is a user-friendly Metadata management utility from the SoftWise Corporation. The utility enables a safe and effective way to manage all of your Microsoft Office documents and thereby protecting all of your valuable information. What it does exactly is to provide a mechanism to safely analyze and clean all your documents before they are sent out and it works with all Microsoft Office products. As the people at SoftWise put it ' 'it's a shrink-wrapped engine that provides an easy to use single dialog and the administrative module enables central management of the product and the establishment of enterprise standards, all using a simple GUI (graphical user interface).'

In addition Out-of-Sight integrates with multiple e-mail systems, so that every time you use it you get a prompt asking you if you care to remove the metadata prior to sending the e-mail, and with their batch processing system you can clean multiple documents or a directory or directory tree in one single operation! Without question the product wins over all others that I have seen in the marketplace today and I think that you will enjoy the ease of use that comes with it.

If you care to sample the Out-of-Sight product for a trial evaluation, just down load the eval copy and begin to work with it. You will find it simple and easy to use, and better yet it will work for you without a hitch. I have not had any problems with the program from the time I've loaded it until the time I first began to use it! I think that you will find that in a few short mouse clicks you will be amazed at how all your metadata is magically and, more importantly, perfectly, removed from all your documents. I think that after your first use of Out-of-Sight you will wonder why you didn't have it at your disposal a long time ago and you will be glad that you have it with your law firm from now on!

Alan Pearlman is an attorney, computer consultant and nationally syndicated columnist. He can be reached at his Web site, www.theelectroniclawyer.com, or by phone at 847-205-4383. ' 2003 Alan Pearlman 'The Electronic Lawyer.' All Rights Reserved.