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Welcome to Issue #82 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!

Have you visited Inter Alia yet? If you haven’t, drop by – I try to update it every day with new and interesting information on the Internet, legal research, and other things. Plus, there are some items on the website that won’t make it into the newsletter each week. The HTML version of this newsletter is also available there.

And away we go…..

News Update

How Usable are Federal Websites?
This new study from PriceWaterhouseCoopers evaluates how many of the top 148 federal websites are really accessible (hint: it’s only 13.5%).

Speaking of Digital Government…
This competition ranks the best state and local government portals – the City of Tampa, Florida, and My Virginia won in their respective categories.

More on the Aftermath of September 11
Two interesting reports regarding the September 11 anniversary: first, a Pew Internet study examines how our views about online information have changed since last year. The second article discusses how a law firm can quickly recover from a disaster that effectively brings down all its technology.

Find Flash FAST
If you have ever waited patiently for a law firm website's "Intro" to finish, you're watching a program designed with Macromedia Flash. Flash is a very common animation tool used on many websites, and now AllTheWeb announces that Flash content and applications can be searched by the search engine's users.

Two Software Updates This Week
The much-awaited Windows XP Service Pack 1 was released this week; if you have XP but not the service pack, run Windows Update to get the software. There’s also a new release of the Google Toolbar – remember, you’ll have to uninstall your old toolbar before you can install the new one.

Reclaiming your Inbox – Part II

Last week I discussed what a pain spam can be, and the many devious ways spammers can get into your Inbox. This week, I want to discuss a few things you can do to reduce your spam intake, if not eliminate it completely.

Let me start by saying that none of the alternatives suggested here are 100%, sure-fire ways to inalterably eradicate spam from your mailbox. If you use a combination of the following tips, however, you have a good chance of getting rid of most of your unwanted e-mail.

First, we’ll start with software – there are a number of programs out there designed to deal with spam in different ways. I have been trying out two, with varying degrees of success. I first tried Cloudmark’s SpamNet, a free program that currently only works with Outlook XP and 2000 (Outlook Express is coming soon). The service creates an extensive database of spammers, which is used to evaluate the mail coming into your inbox. If an e-mail matches a known spammer, that mail is sent to a Spam sub-folder in your Inbox. When you find spam that gets through, SpamNet allows you to report it to the network, which then allows other users of the product to filter that spammer. SpamNet is a pretty good program, but it sometimes puts good and valuable e-mail into my Spam folder (don’t worry, you can get it out). Also, it doesn’t actually get rid of your unwanted e-mail; it just segregates it to a folder where it’s more easily managed.

The other spam fighter, which I recently started using, is MailWasher. This program is also free (although the creator would be grateful for a small donation), and it runs on other e-mail programs besides Outlook, including an upcoming version for Hotmail users. For MailWasher to work properly, it has to be used before you start your regular e-mail program. MailWasher analyzes your e-mail at the server to see if any spam is present – it give you the opportunity to see what mail is available. If there is any spam present that you don’t want to receive, just select it, and two things will happen: first, the e-mail will be deleted from your mail server, and second, a fake e-mail will be returned to the spammer notifying him that your e-mail address is not valid. Pretty cool, huh? After you have selected the spam you want to obliterate, just click another button and the mail you do want is downloaded into your e-mail program. Since I have been using MailWasher, not a single piece of unwanted e-mail has made it to Outlook – however, I can’t say yet that I’m receiving less spam. It’s just being eliminated by MailWasher before it gets to my Inbox.

I’ve only tried those two programs, and there are many more worth reviewing. On the Inter Alia website a few weeks back I reported on a new service called Habeas, which inserts a copyright-protected haiku into an e-mail. If a spammer sends a mail with this text in it, without signing the license agreement, it will be prosecuted under the copyright laws. You can check it out at http://www.habeas.com. Other programs you might try are MailShell, ChoiceMail, Spam Killer, Spam Cop, Spam Gourmet, iHateSpam, and Postini. Whew!

Although the above software products can go a long way to help keep your Inbox spam-free, here are a number of common-sense tips you can follow to protect yourself, which I found at a great site called Mike’s List:

If you use Hotmail and Yahoo, use an obscure e-mail address that cannot be guessed by the spammers, who might use software to run a “directory attack.”
Ask your friends and family never to send e-cards to you at your main e-mail address. If you must forward jokes or chain letters, try not to do it from your main e-mail address. If you send it from your main account, you never know who will wind up with the e-mail address.
Never reply to spam – even to request removal. I said it last week, and I’ll say it again: if you do, you only confirm the validity of your e-mail address to the spammer, making it more valuable.
If you have Outlook or Outlook Express, learn how to set up “rules” to delete spam based on keywords or e-mail addresses.
Never post your private e-mail address on the web, in chat rooms, or message boards (you are generally safe giving your e-mail address to a shopping website, but make sure you know the site’s policy on selling e-mail addresses).
If you need to post an e-mail address on your website, create a graphic image of the address. It can be seen by visitors to your site, but web-crawling spam harvesters won’t be able to see it.

There is surely more one can do to avoid spam, but what I’ve discussed above is a pretty good start. Do you have a spam remedy you’d like to share with the group? Drop me an e-mail and I’ll mention it in an upcoming issue!

Help Desk

One more e-mail tip this week, and I’ll move on to something else for a while (I just have a lot of e-mail tips!). Again, this is just for Outlook and Outlook Express users (although for all I know you Eudora users have this option, too). What if you want to send an e-mail to someone, but not until later? The Outlook Outbox can hold the message for you until you’re ready for it to go out. From the Message window, select the Options button, which opens the Message Options box. Under Delivery Options, check the box next to Do Not Deliver Before, and add a specified date and time. Outlook will send that e-mail out on the first Send/Receive after the designated time. Perfect for those of you who want others to believe you’re at work when you’re really out shopping.

Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me a line at tmighell@swbell.net– I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!

Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet

Administrative Research Guide
I should have added this site to my article on Administrative Law (from the February 24, 2002 issue); it’s a great tutorial on how to search for information on administrative law. It’s maintained by Georgetown University Law School, so don’t pay attention to the references about where in the library to find the materials. A solid primer on where to start your administrative law research.

Benefits Checkup
This site isn’t technically for legal research, but it may still be a good resource for any elder law clients you may have. Just fill out the questionnaire, and you’ll receive a list of benefits that may be available for you in your area, along with links to relevant sites. I’m not sure how well the program works, though; I signed up as myself, and the results told me I was eligible for information on the Elderly Nutrition program – hmmmm. Seriously though, this is a great site if you’re interested in finding local benefits programs, either for yourself, the ones you love, or even a client.

FindLaw Corporate Counsel Center
Gee, FindLaw has certainly been sprucing up its pages! This Center is primarily for corporate counsel, but anyone can take advantage of its resources. The home page offers news, featured documents, links to industry centers, an attorney lookup, and more. The tabs across the top take you to various areas of the Corporate Counsel Center, including Industry Centers, News, Research Tools, Law Firm Center (using West’s Legal Directory), Financial, and a personalized MyFindLaw page. Although most of the information is current, the articles from law firms are a little dated -- I think the FindLaw Library stopped posting new articles for about two years – there are articles ending in 2000, and just recently starting up again. Nevertheless, this is a good corporate counsel resource.

E-Jury
E-Jury was founded by Texas lawyer (and subscriber to this newsletter) Christopher Bagby, and it offers a unique service to trial lawyers. The site provides online mock juries and summary jury trials to lawyers (currently only in certain counties in Texas, and one county in Arizona, Louisiana, and Illinois each), so they can get an idea of how a real jury will respond to the facts of a particular case. Just sign up, submit your fact, jury charge, and some follow up questions, and submit them to the e-jury. Charges start at around $500, depending on how much information you want to submit to the jury. If you need an alternative to expensive jury consultants, give E-Jury a try.

FOI Online
FOI was founded in 1975, and was originally intended to facilitate the flow of information acquired under the Freedom of Information Act. FOI now specializes in Food and Drug Administration information; FOI now houses over 150,000 FDA documents, which can be shipped to you within two working days. If FOI doesn’t have the document in stock, it can request it from the FDA, and only FOI’s name becomes a matter of public record. Find information on drugs, devices, inspections, food, biologics, veterinary products, and more.

Finally, some fun and useful sites for your enjoyment. First, hone your Rock, Paper, Scissors skills at the World RPS Society. It features strategies and gambits to improve your game, and even a Rock Paper Scissors Trainer to practice against.

And if you find Rock Paper Scissors too mentally exhausting, HoldTheButton might be more your speed.

What’s a six-letter word for “instrumental”? Maybe One Across can help. Just type in the clue and the letters you have so far, and One Across’ search engine might just be able to solve it for you.

Well, that’s it for Issue #82– 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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