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TECH SUPPORT on that option — to be metadata. But from a litigator's perspective, says Fried- man, any data associated with a docu- ment that is not produced in a printout, or when the document is burned as an image to a CD, is, in effect, metadata. Indeed, discussion among lawyers of the importance and use of metadata inevitably leads to discussion of rules about when it must be produced in e- discovery. Common law has been slow to clarify. Some jurists say parties in a dispute are obliged to produce meta- data only when it's relevant to the case. But as Friedman and Rothman point out, some metadata, even if it's not relevant to the case, can be extremely useful for filtering and culling docu- ments when reviewing a large docu- ment database. If you know that e-mails relevant to a line of inquiry could only have been sent between two dates, for example, it's easy when you have access to the metadata to confine a search to mes- sages sent during that period — im- possible when you don't. "That's really the way metadata is most often used and probably the best way for lawyers to take advantage of it," Rothman says. The issue is that metadata was often not included in e-discovery. "Metadata WIRE L E S S ALPHABET SOUP W ireless network equipment vendors are heavily promot- ing new and improved "Draft N" (or 11N) Wi-Fi gear. What's that about? If you're a small firm looking to install a new wireless network or upgrade an old one, or you're setting up a home office, you need to know. The Wi-Fi technical standard to which manufacturers build their products is designated as 802.11 — by the IEEE, the standards body that developed it — and sometimes shortened in context to 11. Each successive generation of standards received a lettered designa- tion. The first generation, confusingly, was 11B. Successive generations, even more confusingly: 11A and 11G. The most important improvement in the new 11N standard, yet to be ratified, is faster network throughput — to speeds above many current wired net- works. So it takes less time to transfer files or do backups over the network. You can more reliably transmit high- quality streaming video. Range is increased too — you can use your laptop further from the router. In the last six months, equipment has begun to ship based on a second revision of the draft 11N standard, which is reckoned to be close enough to the final that users will be able to upgrade to it by simply downloading and installing software. Draft N routers suitable for a small law office or home sell for between $80 and $250. In our test environment, 11N products were as much as five times faster than 11G, but not as fast as ven- dors claim. It's not that vendors lie. It's just that environment — walls, doors, other wireless networks, etc. — impact network performance. Bottom line: Draft N gear works. Whatever your environment, it will be a significant improvement over 11G, and it need not cost a lot more. That said, our recommendation for a small law office: the excellent but rela- tively expensive Linksys WRT600N ($250). — GB www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com JULY 2008 25 Gadget Watch