• Kindle & iBooks – The Kindle and iBooks readers are the only apps you’ll probably need for reading books, and PDF files that people email to you. Both Do are excellent eBook readers, but books typically cost less in the Kindle store. On the other hand, I’ve found it much easier to get PDF files into the iBooks reader, so you’ll want to have both installed on your device. Don’t waste your time on the Kobo reader.
• Zite & Flipboard - Zite is a free personalized magazine for your iPad that automatically learns what you like and gets smarter every time you use it. Flipboard on the other hand had a little bit slicker interface than Zite, but it does not learn your likes and dislikes as you read over time, but stick with the sites and categories you’ve chosen to read. I’d try both out to see which you like better.
• Facebook & Path - Almost everyone is on Facebook now, and if you are, you should install the Facebook app. The user experience using the app is much more responsive and polished than the mobile web browser interface. You might also want to try out Path. Path allows you to post through to Facebook if you choose, or limit your posts to other Path users.  If you try it, I suspect you’ll like it.
• Evernote - An excellent tool for capturing, syncing data between your desktop and cell phone. I love the ability it gives me to take a picture of a white board, and then later do a key word search on the text that Evernote has OCR’ed for me. I like to call it my “external brain”.

• DropBox – DropBox, combined with Document to Go Premium is a great solution for those who want to be able to edit MS Office documents on their mobile device, and have those files automatically sync back to their desktop or laptop computer.  See my previous Blog post for more details.
• Documents To Go Premium ($17) – Open & edit Word, Excel & PowerPoint Documents from all the most popular cloud sources: Google Docs, DropBox, Box.net & SugarSync.
• Notability ($1) – An excellent tool for taking notes, that also allows you to record audio and sync it with your notes as you take them, as well as import and annotate PDF files.
• Gmail – If you use Gmail, you’re punishing yourself by not downloading the Gmail app for your iPhone and/or iPad. The Apple mail app is ok, but you’ll be much more comfortable in the native Gmail app.
• GoTasks – I use the task manager built into Gmail, so this free app has been very helpful in giving me a elegant app interface into those tasks.  I actually prefer GoTasks to the native Google interface.
• TripIt – “Tripit turns all your flight, hotel and rental car confirmation emails into simple, mobile travel itineraries just by hitting forward.”  Once you’ve used TripIt, you’ll never go back to managing your travel itineraries any other way.
• Google Translation & Google App – Google translate let’s you type or speak phrases and give’s you back a translation in the language of your choice. The Google search app allows you to take pictures and traslate the text into another language.  It can also take a picture of a business card and add it to your contacts on your iPhone.
• Flixster – Want to get quick reviews for movies, or find out what time a show is starting locally, Flixster comes to the rescue. Flixster’s critics and audience ratings are usually very helpful.
• Photosynth – A great free tool from Microsoft for taking panoramic photos with your iPhone.
• Downcast ($2) – If you are a podcast listener, I highly recommend you try out Downcast.  Why? 1. you can skip ahead 30 seconds or 2 minutes with a press of a button. 2. You can download your podcasts over the air and not have to plug into your main computer to update your podcasts. 3. You can start listening to a podcast as soon as it starts downloading rather than be forced to wait until it’s finished downloading. 4. Lastly, if you want to seed up your listening experience you have your choice of 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2, 2.5 or 3 times faster than normal.
• AirVideo ($3) - If you already have a video on your desktop computer, but you don’t want to have to spend the time and effort into converting it into an iPad friendly format, Air Video allows you to simultaneously trans-code and stream the video to your iPad or iPhone over your wifi network.  This works wonderfully when you’re at home, but will not work when you’re on the road.  Even so, Air Video is a app I use on a weekly basis.
• Navionics ($15) - If you are a sailer or boater with an iPad 3G or iPhone, Navionics Marine software is a must buy! Not only does the software track your cruises, but gives you access to tide and current information.  Once your done on the water, you can upload your cruise track to Facebook, or email it to yourself or to your friends to view in Google Earth.
• ShipFinder - Ship Finder provides a near real time map show the location of commercial shipping in coastal waters. If you are interested in shipping, cruising or sailing in ports and locations across the world, this is an app that you’ll enjoy.
• Marine Conditions for Victoria BC – While this is more of a mobile web app than a true iPhone or iPad app, it is something I wrote myself. It allow you to view up to date weather, current and tide information for the Victoria, BC, Canada area on your mobile device. Enjoy!

This is one use for my iPad that I definitely did not for see when I purchased it last year: Navigating my sailboat with it!  Compared to using a paper map, navigating with my iPad is a joy. I still take a paper map with me of course, just in case, but my iPad is my navigation tool of choice.  Last week I participated in the Swiftsure Race, which typically take about 16 hours to complete. This year because of light winds and adverse currents we crossed the finish line almost 30 hours after we started.

I had my iPad running the Navionics charting software the whole time, and I was able to keep track of where we were for the whole race on a single charge.  I turned the screen on and off as needed, but was still amazed at the battery life I saw during the race. The only problems I had with Navionics is that the program rebooted spontaneously three times during the voyage. I was able to quickly restart the program, but it typically “lost” some of the route that it had been tracking for me.

The water off Victoria where I sail as part of the Oak Bay Sailing Club, is very interesting and challenging (here is a day sail route from May 2011). Sometimes it can be difficult figuring out where you are given all the little islands and navigation buoys, but Navionics makes it much less stressful to navigate. There is also an iPhone version that I purchased. It works well, but the iPad’s larger screen is much nicer to view, and the battery life on the iPad is much better. I also purchased a water proof case to keep my iPad nice and dry.

If you want to use mapping software for sailing or driving, make sure you get the “3G” version of the iPad, as the wi-fi iPad does not come with a built in GPS. The price difference is about $100 between the two devices, but it is well worth the extra money if you end up using your iPad for navigation. The US & Canada version of Navionics for the iPad costs $50.

Pros: Easy to use. Relatively inexpensive. Excellent battery life. Great for day sails or longer cruises.

Cons: Software sometimes reboots after several hours of use. This is not a saftey concern, but did cause me to loose parts of the track from the 30 hour race I was in.
Tagged: iPad, iPhone, Smart Phones, software, sports, travel ]]> http://richmccue.com/2011/06/03/sailing-with-my-ipad-navionics/feed/ 1 48.483174 -123.319451 48.483174 -123.319451 richmccue Navionics for the iPad http://richmccue.com/2011/05/30/swiftsure-yacht-race-2011/ http://richmccue.com/2011/05/30/swiftsure-yacht-race-2011/#comments Tue, 31 May 2011 04:12:30 +0000 Rich McCue http://richmccue.com/?p=761 ]]>

For me Swiftsure began on the week before as I scrambled to get all the gear together for the race. A life jacket with a harness, a tether, as well as a water activated light attached to my life jacket. Lots of little things which all make lots of sense, but were unexpected when I excitedly signed up for the race the month before. With all my gear in my duffel bag, I boarded Big Ben the night before the race to avoid Tour de Victoria road closures that would make it difficult to get to the boat on time in the morning.  Captain Jim McLaughlin (of the Oak Bay Sailing School)and most of the other 6 members slept on board the 50’ Benetau Oceanis that night.

Everyone was up by 7am, and after a light breakfast we had a brief discussion about how we would start the race, and who would be responsible for which tasks. Jim II was charged with setting up a Helm and Navigation rotation for our crew of 8: one hour on navigation, followed by one hour on the helm.  This meant that everyone would be able to get some sleep during the night if the race went long.  With a forecast of winds of 10-20 knots, there was some talk of getting home for a late dinner that night, but when we motored out of the Victoria harbour at 8:30am, winds were light and stayed light as we arrived at the start line just off Clover Point.

The first groups of boats started their races beginning at 10am. Our “Juan de Fuca” race started a bit late at 11am.  Unfortunately when the cannon fired for our start, the wind died all together, and we were drifting backward with the flooding current of 4 knots.  For about half an hour we struggled with the sails, trying to move into a position with better wind, but we continued to drift backwards with five other boats.  The yachts with spinnakers held their own at Clover Point, and slowly started to make headway at the current slowed. Finally we decided we’d better drop anchor before we ran into Discovery Island.

We dragged our anchor for 10 minutes before pulling it up and lashing the rode from our spare anchor to our primary anchor. Our lashed up “extended” anchor solution worked, and we came to a stop about one kilometer north of Discovery Island.  There was still no wind, so we talked, drank a beer or two, and kept tabs on the Champions League final on our iPhones until about 3pm (yes, Barcelona did win).  With the wind rising, and the flood current slackening, we weighed anchor and started making our way back to the start line.  We passed the mouth of Victoria’s inner harbour a 5pm, which was slack tide, and got a close up look at the side of a very large freighter passing by.

We now we had the ebb current helping to push us the 75km towards Clallam Bay at the base of the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. The winds remained steady until about midnight. We were able to enjoy a completely clear night sky as we slowly beat our way up the median of the shipping channel with the 5k wind wafting directly down the strait.  The night sky was amazing bright without the city lights to obscure them.

I took my second shift at the helm and navigation station between 4am – 6am. Things were quiet and uneventful as we beat windward, zig zagging back and forth the median between the shipping lanes in the strait of Juan de Fuca.  My iPad with it’s Navionics software was great to have with us in the cockpit, so we could easily keep tabs on exactly where we were. Visibility was great for night time, and thankfully we didn’t see or come close to any freighters during the night. By 7am we were able to see Clallam Bay where we had to round the marker before heading home. The closer we got to the boat marking the turning point, the lighter the winds became. This is when the talk started about possibly not making it home until some time Monday morning.

As we rounded the marker boat, just 100 meters off the shore of Clallum Bay, the crew of the boat threw us a zip lock bag full of chocolate bars, to help us keep our energy up before eating breakfast.  Unfortunately with a headland blocking the wind, it took us over an hour to get out of the bay and into the strait where there was a bit more wind. As we were inching our way out of the bay I decided to go below and get a bit of sleep.

When I woke an hour later I could hear the diesel engine running and could tell that we were moving much more quickly through the water than we had been all night.  At first I thought that we had decided to motor home because of the light winds.  When I finally came to and asked what was going on, it turns out that we’d killed the house batteries using the lights and electronics during the previous 24 hours, and were running the engine in order to recharge them.

The good news was that we were now moving much more quickly, and were heading towards home on an almost direct broad reach rather than tracking back an forth into the wind as we had been doing on the way out. The forecast was now predicting winds of 25 to 35 knots in the late afternoon, so we were anxious to get home before things got too windy.

The wind did start to pick up as the afternoon progressed, so we progressively furled in our Genoa and main sail. By the time I took the helm at 3pm, the wind was blowing and, and Big Ben was twisting in the water as sizable swells from out of our rear starboard quarter pushed us towards home. It was hard work struggling with the helm, trying to keep Big Ben from looking like a drunken sailor.  I felt a little bit better to see Jim struggling with them when he took the helm after me.

We crossed the finish line at the entrance to Victoria’s inner harbour at about 4:30pm, after almost 30 hours of continuous sailing.  We would not have believed it before the start of the race that it would take us 22 hours to get out to Clallum bay, and then only 7 hours to make the return trip.

Our check-in with race officials. As one of our crew handed over the GPS tracking device the official asked why the GPS case was wet. We replied that we thought that they’d appreciate it if we washed the puke off the device before we returned it.  There was a nod of approval, and then they moved on to the last bit of official business before our race experience was officially over.

After we’d tied Big Ben up, the pizza and our spouses arrived, and we enjoyed some time in the cockpit eating pizza, drinking and telling stories about our 30 hour Swiftsure adventure. Swiftsure this year, and the Victoria Maui Race next year?

That said, here are my current crop of favourite iPad apps:

1. Kindle Reader (free) – Amazon’s eBook reader has the biggest selection of current books at the moment. I have read close to 10 books on my iPad and love it as an eBook reader. I appreciate the ability to re-size the font size, look-up words instantly with it’s built in dictionary, and sync my furthest read location to my iPhone.  That said, there are a number of books that I cannot buy in digital format (are you listening W.W. Norton & Co, publisher of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels?).
2. Flipboard (free) – “A personalized social magazine.”  It is the easiest and most user friendly way to browse your twitter feed (if you have one), or browse the online version of the Economist magazine for example.  In addition you can see the twitter comments that people have made about the articles.  This is a difficult app to explain, but once you’ve used it you’ll love it.
3. Air Video ($2.99) – If you already have a video on your desktop computer, but you don’t want to have to spend the time and effort into converting it into an iPad friendly format, Air Video allows you to simultaneously trans-code and stream the video to your iPad or iPhone over your wifi network.  This works wonderfully when you’re at home, but will not work when you’re on the road.  Even so, Air Video is a app I use on a weekly basis.
4. Read It Later (free) – Similar to Instapaper ($4.99), Read It Later allows you to bookmark articles that you’d like to read later while browsing news on your PC, Mac, iPad or iPhone, and then download those articles to read later on your iPad or iPhone. In the case of the iPhone, it re-formats the article so that it can be easily read on a small screen.
5. Kayak (free) – If you’re looking to travel, Kayak is a great tool to see what flights are available at what price.  It’s hard to explain how pleasant the software is to use.  I’ve found myself using Kayak at times even when I’m not traveling just to see how much it would cost to travel to Brazil, “just in case” I was able to go. In this case the iPad software is much nicer to use than the Kayak website. Even if you don’t end up purchasing your ticket through Kayak, it’s a nice place to start your travel plans.
6. Navionics Marine: Costal B.C. ($29.99) – If you are a sailer or boater with an iPad 3G or iPhone, Navionics Marine software is a must buy! The iPhone version of this charting application costs only $9.99, and it is well worth the money.  I wish I had the 3G version of the iPad with it’s built in GPS hardware so I could use this software on my iPad as well as my iPhone. Not only does the software track your cruises, but gives you access to tide and current information.  Once your done on the water, you can upload your cruise track to Facebook.
7. iBook (free) – Apple’s ebook reader is very similar to the Kindle software, except that the book selection for purchase is much smaller, but you do have the ability to view PDF documents and ePub books in iBook.  I use both the Kindle Reader and iBook depending on what I’m reading.
8. Adobe Ideas (free) – Want to draw a quick sketch or doodle? Adobe Ideas is the app for you.  Even if you can’t draw, you can always import a picture, and then trace it before exporting the drawing.  Fun and functional.
9. The Economist (free) – I love reading the economist, but having it on my iPad makes it much easier and convenient to read. It also allows me to listen to the stories if I don’t feel like reading them.

What are you favourite iPad apps?

iPad + Velcro = Amazing

You can just have fun playing around with the maps, or possibly do something more useful:

• You can send people directions to a party or event.
• Give conference attendees directions to hotels, restaurants, or other places of interest.
• Want to create a Sight seeing tour? Now’s your chance.
• Plot Crime rate statistics.
• Identify Neighborhood watch homes.
• Paper Route delivery (or non-delivery) map.
• Cool photo album, with pins put in where the pictures were taken.

Some of the features that could come in handy depending how how you want to use the system:

• Maps can be made public or private.
• You can draw lines on the map (sometimes the routes it suggests, just aren’t right!).
• You can embed pictures or videos in the pop-outs from pins.
• Email your maps to friends.
• Embed maps in a web page.

Lastly, here is a map of my neighborhood in Victoria, BC., complete with all the important locations to our family. Enjoy!

Another interesting thing I was told by one of my drivers, who also happens to be a bee keeper, is that right after the US bombing took place, the quality and quantity of the honey production by his bees increased dramatically. Now why would that happen? It may have something to do with the fact the the US destroyed most of Serbia’s heavy industry in the bombing, and in the process eliminated the source of most of the pollution in Serbia. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) many of the plants have now been repaired and the pollution if flowing freely again. It’s not surprising that Mirko (the bee keeper) now reports that honey production is down to where it was before the bombing again.

Lastly, during my stay in Serbia, the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenicia massacre was observed. Eight thousand men and boys were killed by Serbian soldiers while UN peace keepers looked on near the infamous Bosnian town. The Serbians I talked to in Belgrade were ashamed at what happened, but correctly pointed out that Bosnian soldiers had committed smaller atrocities in Serb villages around Srebrenicia before the Serbian solders committed their crimes. Prominent Bosnians and Croatians, including famous basketball players for example, rightly condemned what the Serbian soldiers did, and in their anger said many hateful things about Serbian people in general. There are now some signs of reconciliation though. An all star basketball game for the retiring Serbian basketball star and national hero Aleksandar Djordjevic was held during my visit. Many former team mates came to pay tribute, including some former Yugoslavia national team players from Bosnia and Croatia. It was reported in the media that one Croatian player expressed concerns about travelling to Serbia, because he literally feared for his life after some of the things he publicly said about Serbia during the war. Djordjevic told him not to worry, that he would let everyone know through the media that he was in Serbia as his personal guest. His visit went off without a hitch, and he was cheered by 20,000 Serbians at the beginning of the game. Hopefully we will see more cheering on both sides as time goes on.

Today I conducted my last site visit at the Belgrade Municipal Court, and had the opportunity to visit with Biljana Kosanovic, the head of the IT department (or department of scientific information) at the Serbian National Library. The Municipal court visit went well, but was uneventful. The visit to the National Library was extremely interesting. Biljana comes across as an extremely capable individual who has managed to accomplish many things at the library in the face of severe staff and monetary shortages. Among other things, she manages Kobson, which is a consortia of academic libraries, and government organizations, organized to purchase scientific journals and academic databases. It was formed in 2001 and currently has 151 members. They created their own federated search at the title level, and are

In her opinion, most students and faculty members at Serbian academic institutions do not know how to use on-line resources effectively. She was heartened to hear that the NCSC is helping the law faculties to offer legal research and writing courses. The library has a lab of 20 computers for instruction, and have used this lab to help medical faculty learn about on-line journals and databases for their research. IP authentication used to restrict access to the journals and databases, so that anyone coming from a Serbian government IP address can used the journals and databases (anyone at a university or government office). If using the service from home, students can use their Library assigned user name and password to access resources through a proxy server (Easy Proxy). They are also looking at citation manager for possible use.

In the past the National Library had 12 librarians, but because of funding cutbacks they are now down to 3 librarians and 3 senior IT staff. This was a conscious decision made on their part, in the face of their cutbacks, to concentrate their management dollars on IT related positions, as in their calculation this would allow them to maximize the effectiveness of their institution in an increasingly digital world. The library has 206 other library staff, and 5 million monographs (or books for all non-library people out there).

Kobbis is their library automation system. It was developed in Slovenia, and was purchased by the government for all academic institutions on the country. Conversions are taking place at universities across the country to this new system. The migration is taking place slowly because of a general shortage of staff at all the universities. The Kobbis systems allows for a Union catalogue & OPAC for all involved.

One innovative way the National Library has found to combat staff shortages, has been for the head Librarian to request from the government young men who do not want to do their two years of national service in the military, to do that service in the library. They have requested technically minded (i.e. Computer literate) young men to work at the library, and it has been successful. The quality of work that the young men do is uneven, but overall it is very helpful. They do their best to hire the individuals that work out well, but are unfortunately not always successful.

The rest of the afternoon I spent working on a hardware and software purchase form for USAID, and worked on writing my final report. I’m coming down to the wire now, and hope to have the report substantially done before I get on the plane on Monday morning. I have a conference call with the purchasing specialist in Virginia tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll find out if the list of hardware and the specifications I’ve sent are acceptable for a purchasing perspective (for some reason USAID prefers to purchase from US Companies?).

After work I had dinner with the chief of mission, David Anderson. We went to a wonderful little Serbian restaurant. I ate a chicken dish, wrapped in bacon and filled with cheese. It tasted wonderful as you might have guessed, but was probably not the most healthy thing I could have eaten. Actually most of the Serbian dishes seem to score high in the taste department, but not so high if you’re looking for healthy food. Time to head to bed now.

Today has been a report writing day from start to finish. I’ve been chasing down the last few requirements for my reports: A vend card system for student printing, windows training for law court judges and staff, and finally legal database access for Westlaw, Lexus/Nexus among others. Not much exciting to report.

On the side you can see a picture that I took on Monday of one of two police stations that the US bombed back in 1999.The amazing thing about the bombing of these buildings is that it appears that both buildings were hit directly in the middle (looking at them from the front), give or take a metre. I asked Mirko the other day if this way typical, or if they were just lucky. Mirko replied that almost everything they hit the hit right in the middle.

It’s 9PM here in Belgrade and I should probably get back to report writing…

I was awoken at 4:30 this morning by the call to morning prayer, or the actual morning prayer from the neighbourhood mosque. I’m not sure which it was, as things were a little bit hazy when I woke at that early hour. Fortunately I was able to get back to sleep, and slept in until 7:30. After breakfast Mirko and I went to the local bazaar to do some shopping. I found a nice leather jacket for Heather (hopefully I got the size right), and some European soccer jerseys for the boys. I just need to find something nice for Emily and Jillian and I will be set for gifts for everyone when I get home. We also ran in to the cutest little puppy on our shopping trip, so I stopped to give him a scratch behind his ears.

We left Novi Pazar by 10am and started out five hour trip back to Belgrade. At least it should have been a five hour trip. They are doing some fairly major improvements to the road through the mountains, and we were stopped for about one hour for some work they were doing. At least it was a beautiful spot that we stopped at. On our way thought the mountains Mirko pointed out a monument that was built in honour of the soldiers that fought in World War I (see picture on the side). We also talked about the environment. Mirko is a bee keeper, and his production has gone way down the past few years as industrial production has increased in Serbia. Ironically, Mirko says that he had the best production and quality of honey at the height of the war in the mid to late 1990′s because a lot of Serbian industrial production was destroyed by US bombing. Factories Destroyed = Less Acid Rain = More and Better Honey. The only problem with that equation is that a lot of people are out of work and are going hungry, which is a key ingredient in the recipe for ethnic and regional tension. We arrived back in Belgrade around 4pm, and I spend the rest of the afternoon and evening report writing.

At 8:30am we set off for Novi Pozar. Vlad has called in sick, and Innes and Mija are on vacation, so Mija’s brother Mirko is driving, and Milena from the NCSC office are acoompanying me. The trip to Novi Pozar is about five hours the the South West of Belgrade. The country side near Belgrade, and to the north is relatively flat, but the further south west you go, the more mountainousness the terrain becomes. The highway is narrow and winding for the last 2 ½ hours of the trip and it reminds me of travelling on the Crowsnest highway (#2) in Southern BC. The landscape is green, hilly and beautiful. Not quite as mountainousness as in BC, but familiar never the less.

We arrived at the Novi Posar courthouse right at 2pm and were greeted by Vice-President of the court and their Systems Administrator. We talked to them about the proposed donation of a computer, printer and internet connection, and possibly a photocopier and fax machine. They are expecing a large donation of computers similar to what the Kragujevac Courthouse will be getting, but they are in next phase of the EU project, and they are not sure when they will get the computers. We visited the reading room in the courthouse and there is plenty of space for the equipment. They have only dial-up internet for two computers in the building, so we talked about options for getting high speed internet for the library computer, and possibly for other computers in the building. It was a good meeting.

At the end of our visit, the Vice-President offered us the services of the courthouse driver to take us to an middle-age monistary just outside the city. The monistary is called Sopocani, and was built by King Uros I in the first half of the 13^th century. It was partially destroyed at least twice by Turkish armies over the years, and was abandoned for 200 years before work on its restoration began in the 1930′s. There are still several beautiful fresco’s in the building, that withstood the weather during the 200 years that it had no roof. It is currently in use again as a monistary. While we were visiting, one of the top leaders of the Eastern Orthadox church in Serbia visited the monastic complex and walked into the church while we were admiring the outside of the chapel. I purchased some trinkets from the little store on their site, and then we headed back down the mountain, and into town.

We ate dinner at the hotel we are staying at. I had the equivalent of the meat lovers special, which consisted of a variety of traditional Serbian grilled meats along with a bit of rice and vegetables. It was very good. We then went for a walk around the down town area of the city. Novi Posar probably doesn’t have more than one hundred thousand inhabitance, but I counted at least four mosques in the down town area. About eighty percent of the population in the city are Muslim. That percentage is much lower in the country side however. There are many little shops, selling cloths and jewlery in the narrow streets in the older part of town. I will do some shopping before we leave in the morning.

It is very interesting. Right now sitting in my hotel room I can hear a man from a near by mosque singing the evening prayer over a loudspeaker. I can also hear other men singing along with him. I wonder which direction Mecca is from here. One other thing that Mirko (our driver) pointed out to me as we were walking around this evening, is that there are almost no women sitting in the side walk cafes. While there are very few women who wear the traditional Muslim head covering, other traditions are firmly entrenched. I asked Mirko why there were some many problems between Serbians and Muslim Albanians in Kosovo, but everything seemed fine in Novi Pazar. His response was that he thought it was only a matter of time before there were problems. Given the history of the breakup of Yugoslavia over the past ten years, I can understand why he is pessimistic. I hope he is wrong though.

I did see the training facility they have in the office area (which will be a computer lab). The room has space for between 18 and 22 computers. This room is what the company currently occupying the buildings (an IBM business parter) is using for computer courses. They already have fairly high speed internet for the business in the building. The area for the library is not huge, but it is larger than the current Business Law Library space. There office for the librarian set aside. They have additional space near the library where they plan to place computers for the students to use. Their goal is to have 100 computers for student access, giving them a 1/10 ratio of computers to students. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next month and a half to see if they can pull this move off.

After the site visit Vlad an I returned to the NCSC office and I wrote up my notes from the visit and then went to get a quick hair cut (my hair has been taking too long to dry in the mornings). Tanya was very helpful in taking me to the little salon a half block away, and making sure that I could communicate with the young lady cutting my hair. Thankfully the hair turned out just fine. I went back to the office and did a bit more report writing, and then at 12:30 left for a lunch time basketball game with the Mormon missionaries I went to church with on Sunday. Most of them are American, but a couple of young Serbian guys came to play as well. We had three or four quick games of half court 3 on 3 basketball. It was a lot of fun. I really like the Serbian style of half court basketball (you don’t have to take the ball to the top of the key after a defencive rebound… you can shoot right away). It makes for a much quicker, or higher scoring games. Who really likes to play defence anyway; it is much funner scoring points.

After more report writing in the afternoon I started to walk back to the hotel around 7pm. As I walked through the park around the large Eastern Orthodox temple near our offices (St. Sava I think – right beside the Serbian National Library), I decided to try to take a look inside (it is still under construction). The picture to the side is taken from my office window. No one stopped me when I went through the front door, so I went in further. The place is incredibly HUGE inside (note the size of the back hoe below the front door in the picture). The outside of the building has been finished, but the inside is only between five and ten percent completed. I have never been inside St. Peter’s in Rome, but I imagine that the dome is probably about the same size and height as the St. Sava dome. It will be an amazing place when it is completed. The interior space give the architect a huge canvas to work with. Given its’ size, who knows how long it will take to finish. The temple is situated on the site where a Turkish Visier is said to have burned the remains of St. Sava (the patron saint of Serbia) in order to punish the people of Serbia for a recent rebellion. I think that the Visier would be in awe of what has been built on that site.

I continued on my way to the hotel, but ended up stopping about half way there because of a torrential down pour. I had an umbrella, but I was getting soaked by the wind blown rain, and the water splashing up at me. I was fortunate enough to share a shop awning with two men roughly my age from eastern Serbia. They were in town working on a construction project because there is so little work in their little home town. I mentioned to them that I was going to Novi Pozar the next day, and they told me that I had to purcahse some jeans while I am there. Apparently there is a fair bit of textile manufacturing that goes on in Novi Pozar. We’ll see what I find when I get there.

On Saturday morning I woke up and decided I should get some exercise, so went for a jog. I first jogged up to the national assembly building, then looped around back towards the hotel, and crossed the Sava river to try to see if I could reach the arena where the volleyball match the night before. It was only about 3K from the hotel to the arena, so I jogged past it a bit to see some of the sites on the other side of the river. This brought the magnitude of my ripoff by the cab driver the night before clearly into focus. Many buildings outside the down town tourist section are run down, unless of course they are newer buildings. I’m not sure how different this is from the rest of Europe is; hopefully I’ll see more of Europe some day.

On my jog I saw a billboard with Srebrenitza (where I think some Bosnia Serb soldiers killed a eight thousand civilians) written on it and a picture of a dirty doll on the ground. There was more text in Serbian, but I couldn’t read it. I’m not sure if it was something put up by the government or a private group. I have asked a couple of people here about the civil wars in the 1990′s and get the impression that there are widely divergent views of who was viewed to be in the right and in the wrong during those conflicts. I’m sure that the issues surrounding the conflicts were not as black and white as they were portrayed in the western media, but the way some people here gloss over what happened in Srebrenitza is some what sad. It wasn’t until about a year ago that the Serbia public saw direct evidence on TV of the killing of some innocent civilians. The video showed 6 civilians killed execution style by some irregular Bosnian Serb soldiers. I think part of the problem is that people want to believe that nothing really bad happened, and with the Bush administration having a bit of a credibility problem after the weapons of mass distruction, people here say that the west in general cannot be trusted to report the news accurately
(look what they did in Iraq is their general response). In any case, bad things always happen in wars, and I’m glad that I was blessed to live in a relatively peaceful part of the world.

On my jog I also saw a bus with, “Donated by the people of Japan” written on the side. Very nice of the Japanese to help out with public transport here. Related to that, on my second day here, I can remember on of the office staff mentioning to me that one of the electric street trams that was going by us had been donated from another European country. The tram was definatly a hand-me-down, where as the bus looked brand new.

In the afternoon I went out for a walk to find a church to attend the next day. The doorman helped me with directions to the address I found on the internet. As I walked down toward the church I went by the bombed out remains of the military head quarters building. They were a mess! This was in the down town area that the buildings were hit, and buy the looks of it, there was only superficial damage to the other buildings around them, probably from flying debree. Only 2 1/2 blocks from the bombed buildings is the US Embassy. It had five grim looking Serbian soldiers standing out front, complete with green fatigues, helmets donned, and M16 machine guns in hand. I thought they were US marines from a distance, but when I said hello to one of the soldiers as I walked by, he turned to me and I saw the Serbian patch on his shoulder. He didn’t even smile. One block up at the Canadian Embassy, their single rent-a-cop was in his shack leaning back in his chair, eating a cookie. The contrast couldn’t have been larger. The slogan on a poster at the Canadian embassy said “Canada: Cool – Connected”. I block back I found the chaple I was looking for. I think I’ve finally figured out the street signs; they are typically on a corner of the buildings some where at the intersection – unless it is a main road, and then they might have a small street sign like we have in Canada or the US. The church was right between the Canadian and US Embassies, about a half a block up a side road. There were some missionaries in the chaple, and they told me that the church service stared at 10am the following morning. I walked down to the church the next morning, and enjoyed a nice service in Serbian. One of the missionaries translated for me, so I was able to keep up with what was going on, and what was being said. I spent the rest of the day wandering around the down town area, and reading my Belgrade and Serbia tour guides. It was an enjoyable, laid back day.

I started today by walking about five blocks down the the British Airlines office to see about some compensation for the late luggage. I receive seventy pounds for my troubles, which was almost enough to pay for the cloths that I purchased while I was waiting for my luggage to arrive. To the right you can see the outside of the hotel that I am staying at. It is called the “Hotel Moscow”. It was built in the 1930′s and has a Soviet style flavour to it (or at least what I think is a Soviet flavour). They say that the hotel has air conditioning, but I don’t believe it. Fortunately all the windows open, so I can get a bit of breeze to help cool down with at the end of the day. You can see a picture of my hotel room below. The NCSC (National Centre for State Courthouses) offices are only about two kilometres away from the hotel, which has made a very nice walk, returning from the office after travelling during the day.

After leaving the British Airlines office, I walked the three kilometres to the NCSC office and started putting together pricing for all the equipment that I have specified for use at the law faculty libraries (computers, servers, printers, photocopiers, vend card system and software). Not quite as much fun as travelling around the country, visiting universities, but this is what I am here to do. I have the approximate pricing for everything except for the vend card system. At the end of the day I sent this list of hardware and software to our local IT contractor for him give us a provisional quote. For the official procurement, the hardware and software specifications has to be put out to tender, but this provisional quote will give us a good idea of how far our budget will stretch.

For lunch I went to a local fast food place; actually it wasn’t that fast, but the “Serbian Hamburger” was excellent. They use a mix of hamburger and ground pork, with some spicing, that makes an excellent burger. They tend to be quite large, so by the time I was finished, I was stuffed. One thing I’ve noticed in Serbia, is that a lot of people smoke here. I think part of the reason why I’ve noticed this is because of the law against smoking in public spaces in British Columbia. Here people smoke everywhere, especially in the many out door cafe’s. The other thing I’ve noticed while driving around the country, is that drivers are very liberal in the use of their car horns. They are definatly not shy about l leaning on their horns. Another thing that has impressed me is the number of people who can speak English here. Especially the younger people. English is a compulsory course in the schools here so most young people can speak at least a little bit of English. Many signs in major public places are in both English and Serbian. For example in the new arena here, all the signs are in both languages. It is ironic that they have adopted English as their second language, when historically they had closer ties with Austria/Hungry and Turkey. Maybe it is because those relationships were forced on them, that they do not speak more German and Turkish.

After work I went home dropped off my stuff and then caught a taxi to take me to the arena for a volleyball game – Serbia against Brazil. Unfortunately my taxi driver is a perfect example of why taxi drivers some times have a bad reputation. My ride to the arena cost me 1,300 dinar, which converts into about $23 Canadian dollars. To put this in context, my ticket to the game cost 800 dinar. I checked my tourist map when I got home and saw that we had taken a very round about way to get to the game. More on my return trip in a bit. The game was excellent. It was very close with Brazil winning in the end. When Serbia was doing well the crowd was very loud, when Brazil was on a roll, they were pretty quiet. A couple of times when Brazil amazing plays, the crowd gave them polite applause in recognition of excellent plays. The arena that the game was played in is only about two years old. Construction on it started in the early 1990′s, but the war delayed it’s construction by a number of years. It seats 20,000 spectators, and is modern, but somewhat spartan compared to other arenas I’ve seen. The only food you could buy inside was juice or pop, and potato chips. There was a heavy police presence both inside and outside the arena. Not just regular officers, but officers with their riot helmets and batons hanging from their belts.

After the game I decided that I wasn’t going to get ripped off again by another taxi driver, so I exited the arena and asked a couple of people where I could catch a bus to the down town area. Two people pointed me in the direction of a bus stop, and one even gave me a bus number to look for. When I arrived at the bus stop the bus I was told to catch arrived, so I just hopped on. Initially the bus was heading toward down town, but after about 10 minutes I was pretty sure it wasn’t any more. I asked someone on the bus if they spoke English; he said a little bit, so I asked him if the bus went down town. To my disappointment he said no. I followed up by asking him how I could get to down town. This was beyond his English, so he asked the person in front of him in Serbian if he spoke English, which he did quite well. This person told me I should get off the bus at the next bus stop, cross the street, and hop on any bus that stopped on the far side of the road and it would take me down town. I thanked him, did as he told me and arrived back at the hotel in about 20 minutes. I enjoyed my ‘office’ day today, and am looking forward to a day off tomorrow so I can do a bit more exploring around Belgrade.

Today Mija’s brother, Mirko picked me up outside the hotel, along with Vlad. We then stopped by Ines’ apartment, and then set off for Novi Sad. Mija had the day off to take care of some family business, so his older brother Mirko was filling in for him. Novi Sad is about one hour north of Belgrade. The farm land that we travelled through was beautiful. The land is quite flat, almost like southern Alberta, except that things are not nearly as dry here; all the crops and grass along the side of the road were green. It appears that the main crops in this area are corn, sunflower and a little bit of wheat. It took us about an hour and a half driving northward to arrive in Novi Sad.

When we arrived at the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad, the campus was packed. Apparently this weekend there is a big music festival, and people have been pouring into the campus area all day, setting up tents and filling parking spaces. Mirko could not come in to the law building with us as he spent about 20 minutes looking for a parking space. Unlike all the other Facultys I have visited here in Serbia, the Novi Sad Faculty is situated on a campus similar to what you typically find in Canada and the US. Rather than a building in a down town like area, the Novi Sad campus has large open, grassy spaces between their buildings. After entering the building, we went strait to the Dean’s office where she warmly greeted us, and insisted that I try some of their famous Novi Sad tomato juice (which turned out to be very good). She told me a bit about the history of the Law faculty, and then answered some of the questions I had about administrative issues, such as paying for printing, and determining if they would be able to install the electrical and network wiring for the computers we would donate (which they indicated they could do). The Dean also had some questions about books on family law that Ines said she would follow up up with her on. Next we walked to the library where the head Librarian, and Systems Administrator joined us. We looked at the reading room where they proposed that the computers should be located. The room is large and bright, with a mezzanine, and expansive windows helping to light the room. The building is constructed of cement, but there are a number of columns where the data and electrical wires could be surface mounted in a relatively inconspicuous fashion (they have done this in one corner of the reading room already where they have 3 old public access terminals).

Next we went upstairs where they have a computer lab of 10 computers, including one workstation for an lab tutor to monitor the use of the computers. These computers had just been recently upgraded to Windows XP Pro, with 2.2Ghz processors and 256 MB of RAM. The Law Faculty has about 3000 students, and they have a grand total of 13 computers for the students to use. And just like all the other law schools, the students cannot browse the stacks for books. They must make a written request to a librarian, and then he or she will look for the book. If they are busy, the have to come back the next day to pickup the book.

After visiting the lab we said good-bye to our hosts and drove to the down town area to get a snack before head back to Beograd. The new word I learnt today was “good” or “Dobra” in Serbian. The English words for the day (I’m helping Vlad with his already excellent English) were “Eclectic” and “Ecumenical”. We were discussing the use of Linux and Windows by the Novi Sad systems administrator, and both those words seemed appropriate in the conversation. I’ll test him in the morning to see if he remembers them (he probably will).

Today we woke up to a cloudy rainy day. We ate breakfast together at the hotel, and then drove to the Nis Law Faculty building in the down town area of Nis. The Faculty of Law and Faculty of Economics share the same building that was built in the 1950′s. We went directly to the Vice Dean’s office and after greeting him, he took us on a tour of the Faculty. One interesting feature of the administrative area of the Faculty, is that all the doors had a padded leather covering. Vlad told me that in communist times, having a padded leather door was a sign of status. I’ll have to see what I can do about getting a padded leather door for my office when I get back to Uvic. First we went to the library area and was shown the single student workstation for accessing on-line legal resources. The computer was ancient (it was running windows 3.1), and the librarian told me that it works “sometimes”. There were three or four other computers for on-line research, but they were reserved for faculty use only. Next we walked to the reading room, where they are proposing to put the desktop computers we are purchasing for them. You can see what the room looks like in the picture above. The computers would be place along the back wall on the main level, as well as along the same wall on the mezzanine above. They have recently installed electrical outlets along those walls, and are planning on installing Network jacks as soon as they know how many computers they will be receiving. While looking at the reading room, we were joined by the faculty systems administrator. His background is primarily Linux and Unix based, although they have one windows server. He told us that they would need an additional switch to accommodate any computers we would give them. As for printing, they thought that a vend card based system would best fit their needs, as giving network accounts to all their students would be difficult given the number of students in their faculty. Currently printing is free on their one student accessible computer, but students must bring their own paper to print on. From the reading room we went to the Dean’s office, and were introduced to him there. He is a confidant man who is very proud of his Law School. He presented us with two DVD’s that were made to commemorate the 45^th anniversary of the founding of the Nis Law Faculty.

We arrived back in Belgrade around 2pm, and went back to the office to get caught up on e-mail and so I could finish summarizing my notes from the meeting. Neil Campbell (the UVic Law Librarian) was able to put me in touch with our Westlaw and Lexus/Nexus representatives, so hopefully we will be able to work something out to give Serbian law students similar access to the on-line databases as Canadian students have.

My luggage finally arrived! Three days late, but it caught up with me at last. I arrived back at my hotel (the Moscow Hotel) at about 5:30 and they said my luggage beat me there by thirty minutes. It would be interesting to know if it travelled the same route to get here as I did. I suspect it arrived in Belgrade via Singapore, or Dubai. It’s nice to have a selection of cloths to change into. I bought some pants, a shirt and some socks so that I’d be able to rotate through two sets of cloths until either my suitcases arrived, or they were pronounced lost and I could buy a bunch of new cloths.

I celebrated the arrival of my luggage by putting on my sneakers, some shorts and a t-shirt and walking down to the Fortress and talking my way into a pickup basketball game. The guys at the basketball court were very friendly. I talked with one guy in particular, whose English was quite good. He found someone who was a bit tired, and I took his place in a couple of 3 on 3 games. I played OK, but not spectacular. I was a little afraid of re-spraining the ankle I rolled a week and a half ago. A couple of the players where excellent passers. They seemed to be able to find their team mates and pass to them at will. One other thing that was interesting, is that when they play half court basketball, if you are defending and you rebound, you don’t have to take the ball to the top of the key, you can immediately shoot. I’m sure on a couple of occasion my team mates were wondering what I was doing when I had a clear shot after rebounding and I ran away from the hoop. I hope that I’ll be able to get back there a couple more times and play again; I need to do something to help me stay in shape.

For some reason I couldn’t sleep this morning, so at about 5am I got up, had a shower, and then went for a walk to explore the down town area of old Belgrade, minus most of the people. I walked down the deserted pedestrian walk way and into the park down at the end called Kalemegdan. This is a park built around the remains of several ancient fortresses, the first of which dates back to the Celts. You can see the different styles of wall building used over the years in the picture on the side. The fortress was used and expanded upon by several different empires over the years, including the Celts, Romans, Turks, Hungarians and Germans (among others). After wandering around the fort, and finding four beautiful basketball courts and two tennis courts among the ruins (it was odd to find the courts there, but it does make them much more accessible and usable to the public, especially younger people), I headed back to the hotel for a 7am breakfast, and then got ready to be picked up by Mija for our trip to the south of Serbia.

At about 9am Mija, Inas, Vlad and I left Belgrade by car and travelled for two hours to Kragugevac. We first went and visited the Law School there. The law building is somewhat newer than the other law school buildings we have visited, but is also looks a lot like a cement bunker (I’m pretty sure it was built in the 1960′s, or early 1970′s). We met with the head Law Librarian, and he indicated that they had a reading room and two storage rooms that they want to convert into computer labs for their students. They were just waiting to find out how many computers they would be receiving, and then they would hire and architect to draw up some plans and then begin the renovations necessary to have electrical and data ports at every desk. We also asked them if it would be helpful to receive a donated photocopier, and they said yes, but if they had a choice between a photocopier and additional computers, they would take the computers. When questioned about how they would restrict access to the computers so that their lab would not be over run with non-law students, the librarian indicated that the already require students to show the equivalent of their student card to gain entry into the library. They were also interested in gaining access to Westlaw, Lexus/Nexus and Hein-on-Line, but not if if would be a large expense. I was impressed with their Systems Administrator. They seemed willing to do their part to make electronic resources available to their students. One final thing the Law Librarian said was that they were changing their curriculum so that their students would be writing more essays, which he though would mean more on-line research and more need for word processing. After finishing the tour of the law library, we then drove across town to the Kragugevac Municipal Court Building.

The Municipal Court Building in Kragugevac is a beautiful, if somewhat run down heritage building in the down town area of the city. We met with the Secretary of the Court, as the President of the court was on a trip to Denmark with some other Serbian judges and our program director, learning about the Danish legal system. The good news at the Court house was that the European Union was donating 200 computers along with networking equipment to the court house (as opposed to the one computer that a report I was given indicated would be donated). All the judges will have computers after the EU donation, although they will not be able to directly access the internet from their offices. To access online resources they will have to go to the “internet cafe” that is being setup, which will consist of eight computers with internet access. The bad news is that the library was not slated to receive a computer, nor any of the administrative staff at the court house. The internet cafe will be on the other side of the building from the court library (you can see the library in the picture on the side. I stood in one corner of the room to take the picture, so you are looking at 75% of the library. It is very small and very hot in the summer time). It looks like we will probably help them out with a photocopier and a computer for the library.

After our visit to the court library, we drove out of the city toward Nis which is about an hour an a half drive south from Kragujevac. Once in Nis, we drove around the city for a while to find our hotel. Unfortunately the reservations at the hotel we intended to stay at were somehow cancelled, so we ended up driving to a hotel on the outskirts of town. There is a lot of construction going on around the hotel, which was interesting to see, because the methods of construction and construction materials are very similar to what I saw in Brazil almost 15 years ago. Lots of cement and brick, with ceramic tile roofs. Very different from the lumber construction used in Canada, but I suspect that cement and brick are much easier to source locally than lumber is in Canada.

After settling into the hotel we went out to find some dinner, and went to a very nice Italian style restraunt called momma’s pizza. The pizza was excellent. The servings were huge, and I barely ate half of the pizza that I ordered. Luckily Mija and Inas were able to help me out). Next we decided to explore around the old town and went to the city fortress (which is now a very nice park), to look at the ruins. I did a little shopping in one of the tourist shops in the fortress, and we enjoyed some icecream. This fortress, like the one in Belgrade, is ancient. It was constructed by the Romans, and was used and improved upon by various empires over the ages. Unfortunately our hotel does not have internet access, so I won’t be able to post this to my blog, or check my e-mail until we get back to Belgrade tomorrow afternoon.

Our first visit of the day was to the Belgrade Law School. The School is home to about 3000 students. In the picture to the side you can see the two computers that are available for the students to use. Incredible! They are in the process of converting one of their reading rooms into a computer lab with 35 seats. With our help, that will raise their computer to student ratio from 1/1500 to 1/85 (as opposed to our 1/10 ratio at the Uvic Law Faculty). To make matters worse, very few students have access to a computer and internet at home, so it computers are not available at school, they don’t have access to on-line legal resources. The good news is that their network infrastructure is in good shape, and that their access to the internet (through a government funded research network) is also quite fast. They have a knowledgeable network administrator who is struggling to do his best with the resources available to him. Most faculty members have computers in their offices, and research assistants have access to a small computer lab (6 workstations) so that they can do on line research when necessary. I was also able to visit with the vice dean, and we discussed how valuable it would be to be able to give her students access to on line legal resources such as Westlaw UK, Lexus/Nexus and Hein-Online. One interesting note, is that students are not allowed to roam the stacks and take books out on their own. If a students wants a book (an this is standard practise at Universities in Serbia), they request the book from a librarian, and then the librarian goes and gets the book for them, and checks it out in the student’s name. Quite an ordeal to get a book. Searching for materials on line will make the students feel like they have died and gone to heaven. The visit was productive, and enlightening at the same time. While they have very few student accessible computers, they have laid the groundwork to make installing those computers quite easily.

Then we grabbed a taxi and went to the Belgrade Business Law School (a new private school). We first met with the Law Librarian. All the books in their three year old law school fit in one room about 20 feet by 15 feet wide. Truly amazing. There current computer situation is somewhat better than the Belgrade Law School as they have 60 student computers shared between 3000 students (1000 law students, and the others from two other faculties in the same building). All students are given a network user name and password. Next we met with the Dean of the Law School and found out that the Law Faculty would be moving to a new building in October, so they would be setting up a computer lab in that new location (with between 30 and 40 workstations). We have arranged to see to the new building on Monday to get a feel for the size of the new computer lab, and how we can help them with Computer Hardware and networking equipment. Their current network is in very good shape, and they have at least two competent network administrators. They will hire an additional network administrator for their new building. The dean also expressed a keen interest in being able to access Westlaw UK, Lexus/Nexus and Hein-Online (I think this will be a reoccurring theme on my Faculty visits). I am have been told that infrastructure, hardware and network support at the Business Law School is probably the best in the country for law schools.

Infected paper cuts used to be the most dangerous occupational hazard you could expect to face while working in the mail room. Unfortunately the events of the past few weeks have made the mail room a potentially much more dangerous place to work. Right now it seems that primarily high profile US government organizations, and media outlets have been the targets of Anthrax letters. However US postal workers and others have also been exposed to the anthrax bacteria through the handling of the mail as it went through their work place. At this point we have no idea how broad this threat will be. Will it be just the US that will be targeted? Will smaller companies and organizations be targeted? At this point, we just don’t know.

It is not difficult to see why some US organizations have begun to encourage more and more people to use on-line or other electronic means to contact people and do business rather than use the postal service. The sheer volume of mail that has to be processed in some organizations is enormous. There are bills, cheques, letters, promotional materials, and the ubiquitous junk mail, that some poor mail room worker has to sort through and deliver. Finally the clerks, secretaries, and other workers that open the letters and deal with them in one way or another (the circular filing cabinet is a good friend of mine come mail time).

In order to more easily manage the risk of contaminated mail, the volume of conventional mail needs to be reduced. This can be done in a number of ways. For starters I’m sure that many organizations are rethinking the effectiveness of mass mailings for promotional purposes (i.e. junk mail). I know if I was working in a mail room the first thing I’d do with junk mail would be to take it in my latex gloved hand and deposit it in the garbage. The second thing would be to cut down on mail from the people I do business with. I would encourage my customers to direct deposit cheques into my bank account rather than send cheques. I would also encourage my suppliers to send my bills to me in electronic format. Finally I would encourage my customers to either avail themselves of my 1-800 number, send me e-mail, or chat on-line with one of my customer service representatives – anything but send a letter.

I’m sure all the lawyers and accountants out there are just starting so say, “but it isn’t quite that easy.” And they are right. Moving from paper to digital documents does present a different set of challenges for a business. For example, if a customer sends me an order, how do I know that it did in fact come from my trusted customer? It could have come from some hacker who is going to play a practical joke by ordering a million widgets in stead of the 100 that are really needed? Can you see the problem? I believe that the e-mail with the order for a million widgets attached to it came from bill_gates@microsoft.com, however it is very easy to forge an email. I am sure that Bill Gates would not be happy to see a million widgets sitting at his loading dock waiting to be unloaded.

In this case you have two possible solutions. One: you can have a secure web form that all your customers have to order through, or Two: you require your customers to send purchase orders to you via digitally signed e-mail. Both the secure web order page, and the digitally signed e-mail offer adequate security for your transaction. There are a number of companies that offer both personal and web server digital signatures to help make your transactions secure (see www.cacert.org orwww.thawte.com for more information about digital signatures).

Another issue that our lawyer and account friends will bring up is the enforceability of contracts with electronic signatures. Care must be taken that when completing a transaction, or making a contract with a digital signature, the laws in the jurisdictions where the transaction is taking place will enforce the contract. Your local lawyer should be able to fill you in on what to watch of for.

Besides Digital Signatures, there is another technology that is making it’s way into more an more software, that will make it much easier to automatically process all the digitally signed documents. It is call XML (or eXtensible Markup Language). What XML really is, is a standard for importing and exporting data into different programs. For example, I am using my accounting program to make up a purchase order to send to you. When I am ready to send it to you, the accounting package will convert the order into a standard XML format and then will digitally sign it and e-mail it to you. Your accounting system will import the order and start to process it, all without anyone having to re type the order (thus eliminating errors that can creep into the process).

By moving our processes from manual to secure electronic transfers over the internet, we can leave ourselves more susceptible to hackers if we do not take appropriate steps to protect ourselves. Firewalls and sensible corporate policies regarding the use of networking equipment will be more important than ever. Keeping our private digital signatures will be as important as making sure we don’t loose our wallet or purse at the mall.

As you can see, our mail room friend now has less and less to mail to open. That is good, because now he can concentrate on new ways to open the reduced volume of mail without being exposed to anything nasty.

Rich McCue
System Administrator
UVic Faculty of Law
rmccue@uvic.ca

Interesting Links:
http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/cons/jeh/adamache.html
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/ISB/Planning/ecom/index.htm