INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
January 6, 2002
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #54 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!
I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season – welcome to 2002!
And away we go…..
Help Desk
A Microsoft Word tip for you this week – if you frequently work with multiple documents open, you may know the misery of having to save and close each individual document before exiting Word. Luckily, there’s a shortcut – next time you have several documents open, press Shift as you open the File menu. Now you’ll notice that Save and Close have both changed; they now say Save All and Close All. A handy way to take care of all your documents at once.
Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail– I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!
Improving Your Image on the Internet
This week’s topic isn’t strictly about legal research. Then again, many of you might have a use for finding images on the Internet. Just over a year ago, the technology allowing us to search for pictures on the Web was in its infancy; today, there are many sites that can help you find images and other artwork. I frequently use image search engines to find fun pictures to insert in my PowerPoint training presentations – you might find images useful in trial or settlement presentations. This week’s article will take a look at some of the better and well-known image search engines on the Internet. A quick disclaimer that you’ll find on all of these sites – the images you find may be protected by copyright, so download and use them at your own risk.
Let’s start with non-search engine sites. One of my favorite sites is Corbis. There you can search for images either as a professional (which requires a licensing fee) or personal user. There are some great pictures here, but unfortunately they are all going to cost you. One picture I found cost $7.95 if I wanted to use it in a PowerPoint presentation, $19.95 for a website, and $29.95 for the best print quality – yikes! If money is not an issue, Corbis is a terrific site; otherwise, let’s move on. Other great sources of images include art galleries. As an example, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco sponsor the Thinker ImageBase, which contains 110,000 images of works of fine art.
The sites mentioned above are limited by the size of their respective collections. Over the past year or so, several of the well-known search engines have included image search options, and there are other sites that search only for pictures and graphics online. Because I’m predictable, I’ll start with my favorite – Google. Google introduced Google Images about 6 months ago, and it’s pretty darn big. Google claims to have 330 million images indexed; just plug in your search terms and watch it go. The nice thing about Google’s image search is that its Advanced feature allows you to retrieve only certain sizes, colors, or file types of pictures. Google warns, however, that you might see some adult content in your search results.
Another great search engine, FAST, also offers a multimedia search engine. Lycos’ Multimedia Search also uses the same FAST technology to search for media. These two engines will not only search for pictures, but also for audio and video. AltaVista also has an image search. Yahoo doesn’t have a search engine for pictures as such, but it does have an Image Gallery with about 400,000 images.
Of image-specific search engines, I like Ditto the best. Ditto claims to have six million thumbnails selected from over 115 million images, so its database is definitely smaller than Google. However, since the images are selected by a different technology, you might find more relevant results here. Another site, Ithaki, bills itself as an image meta-search – it will send your query to eight of the Internet’s image search engines simultaneously. I haven’t tried this site, so I don’t know whether the results are any good.
Now that you’ve found a site you like, make sure you understand how to formulate a search for an image. The number one rule to remember: be prepared to try repeated searches with variations of keywords. When someone saves an image, such as a JPG or GIF file, they may give the file any old name. For example, a picture of Marilyn Monroe might be entitled marilyn.gif, monroe.gif, mmonroe.gif, or even normajean.gif. The image search engines primarily look for the name of the picture when retrieving your results, but they will also look at text surrounding the image; you might get some completely irrelevant images, simply because the search terms are somewhere on the web page where your image resides. Before you start searching for images, sit down and compose a list of possible keywords, and use all of them in different combinations. You’ll be surprised at the different results you get for each one.
What are your experiences with image search engines? Has anyone used one I didn’t mention in this article? Drop me an e-mail and let me know!
Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet
Inmate Locator
This very simple site from the Federal Bureau of Prisons allows you to search for federal inmates by name or identification number. That’s it. That’s all there is.National Geographic Maps
For those of you who need more from your maps than Mapquest or MapBlast can deliver, check out National Geographic. There’s a Map Machine you can use to create your own map; it can be a topographic map, or can show a theme, such as climate, population, or employment. You can find street, atlas, and historical maps, and much more. This is a great mapping resource.Q and A Café
I was so excited about this site, until I found out it’s really limited to people who live in the San Francisco, Monterey Bay, and North Bay areas of California. Still, I thought I’d mention it, because I think it’s a terrific idea. The Q and A Café offers live online reference assistance from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., 7 days a week. You can chat in real time online with a librarian and get assistance with your reference questions. I know there are several of these sites popping up all over the place – I just wish there were some that covered more geography.eNow ($$)
Speaking of real-time information, eNow wants to put that information in your hands less than a second after it’s published. eNow simultaneously monitors, indexes, and filters hundreds of thousands of live content streams - local and international newswires, web sites, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and television and cable networks - and puts the information you want directly on your desktop. This is done by way of the Knowledge Hub – eNow says this solution is ideal for corporate environments that must have instant access to information. Unfortunately, you have to request information to find out about prices. Still, this stuff looks pretty cool to me.American Corporate Counsel Association
Whether you’re corporate counsel or just want to get business from them, the ACCA page has some good information for you. There are member areas that provide you with information about the Association, or allow you to find or talk with other ACCA members. The Member-To-Member section is a pretty useful way to combine the experience of corporate counsel, to provide assistance to any member not familiar with a particular area of law. There are articles on ethical obligations of in-house counsel, and many other resources.Finally, a couple of fun and useful sites for you this week:
Lake Superior State University has released its 27th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use, and General Uselessness. Words that have been banished include “Friendly Fire,” “Faith-Based,” “Reality TV,” and “Synergy.”
For my Texas subscribers, if you aren’t aware already, a new state law took effect January 1 that allows you to opt out of telemarketer phone call lists. For only $2.25 for 3 years, you can place your name on the Texas No-Call list from which telemarketers are forbidden to make calls. Nifty, huh?
And so my non-Lone Star State subscribers have a useful site, FreeAnswers allows you to get answers to your Microsoft, Intuit, and Adobe-software related problems just by typing in your question. In reality, the site just queries the KnowledgeBase of each company’s website, but having it all in one place is handy.
Well, that’s it for Issue #54 – I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.
Tom Mighell
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