INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
May 25, 2003
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #113 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 visit Inter Alia and fill out the subscription form -- it's free!

If you haven't bought your tickets to Bar None yet, what are you waiting for? The show is truly funny and well-acted, and the singing is great. If you don't believe me, head over to the Bar None website, click on the CD link and listen to a few clips. You can also buy tickets on the site. This week, please enjoy another issue of "ILRW-Lite."

And away we go…..

News Update

What do your SERPS look like?
That's Search Engine Result Pages, for those of you with your minds in the gutter. Elwyn Jenkins has a nice selection of search engine dictionaries, to help you make sense of search engine technology.

A Few Articles on Computer Security

There were quite a few stories this week dealing with viruses, popups, spam, and computer security:

Fizzer is more powerful than it sounds: A new worm has hit the Internet, and it's a doozy. The Fizzer worm spreads via e-mail as well as the Kazaa file-sharing service, and opens your computer to hackers. Make sure your virus definitions are updated.

That evil spammer might just be you: Here's an article from the New York Times on how spammers hijack computers to send spam.

A Microsoft e-mail to ignore: A new worm making its way around the Internet appears to come from a Microsoft support organization. In reality, the e-mail address is forged, and the e-mail contains an executable file that burrows its way into your Windows registry when executed. Update your virus definitions (most of which have already been modified to counter this threat). If you receive an e-mail from support(at)microsoft(dot)com, beware.

How Gator does it: I used to love Gator. It was a terrific utility that securely remembered your passwords and contact information, allowing me to fill forms on the Internet literally in seconds. Then the pop-up ads started. Whenever I visited an Internet vendor, Gator would cause a competitor's ad to pop up on the screen. That was enough for me. Interestingly, Gator targets almost 7,500 sites for this treatment. Ben Edelman at Harvard has a terrific analysis of Gator's advertisements and targeting.

And if this Googling thing gets to you...Read Danny Sullivan's article on Google and search privacy for some peace of mind.

Yay!!!
Sabrina has a new set of articles up at LLRX, including our presentation for ABA Techshow on online communities.

Learn more about Daypop
With the rumors swirling that Google will soon launch a search tool for weblogs, some people wonder if such a move will mean the end of Daypop, the best weblog search engine around. Gary Price of ResourceShelf interviewed Dan Chan of Daypop over at SearchDay.

A rebirth for RocketNews?
I have long been a fan of news search service RocketNews, but the company has developed more of a corporate focus in the past year. Well, the RocketNews search engine has a new look -- it looks a little like a weblog, as a matter of fact. Be sure to check out the new RocketNews Desktop -- free to try for 14 days, $69 to buy.

RSS Feeds of the Week
As readers of ILRW may know, RSS feeds allow you to retrieve headlines and summaries of news from websites that are then displayed to you in headline format in a newsreader or aggregator. A few sites debuted RSS feeds this week, giving researchers a terrific new way to receive this information. First, the Legal Information Institute has new RSS feeds with summaries of recent Supreme Court decisions. There are two feeds: the Today feed acts as a notification system for opinions released in the past twenty-four hours, and the Recent feed shows decisions from the past thirty days (depending on when the Supremes are in session). Also, aggregator site NewsIsFree has created some RSS feeds for news
headlines from FindLaw. Unfortunately, at the time of this issue the feeds didn't work. Here's hoping they work soon.

Note: to view these feeds, you'll need a newsreader -- e-mail me if you want to know more about this software tool)

Blawgs of the Week
What would this newsletter be without more law-related weblogs for you to explore? First up is Crimen Falsi, which is published by Omnibus Bill, who is "just another Beltway lawyer." A 20-something lawyer negotiating life in New York City comes to us with Fragrant Lotus. The Curmudgeonly Clerk presents the unsolicited caveats, commentaries, and criticism of a clerk for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Baseball Crank offers commentary on baseball, politics, war, law, and more. Corp Law Blog offers Information for lawyers practicing corporate securities and M&A law. I especially like the disclaimer: "This blog does not offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, you need to consult with a lawyer instead of a blog." And TheInstitute for Business Law and Technology at Touro Law Center debuted BizLawTech this week, "to serve as the source of information and best practices in business and technology law for our students, attorneys and businesspeople throughout Long Island and far beyond."

Help Desk

Do you like to AutoComplete? Many products have this feature, and Internet Explorer is one of them. AutoComplete makes it easy to enter addresses, forms, passwords, or other information. But do you want other people learning your private information? If not, you'll need to turn off the AutoComplete option. Here's how to do it:

Select Tools, then Internet Options, and click on the Content tab. In the Personal Information area, click AutoComplete. Clear the checkbox next to Usernames and Passwords on Forms. You may also want to clear the Forms check box, and click the Clear Forms and Clear Passwords buttons, just to make sure you purge all sensitive information. Then click OK.

Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)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

Employment Law Guide
The resource-heavy Department of Labor is at it again with this Employment Law Guide, "designed mainly for those needing 'hands-on' information to develop wage, benefit, safety and health, and nondiscrimination policies for businesses in general industry." You can download the entire guide in PDF format, or review the separate sections in HTML.

Footage.Net
If you're looking for stock, archival, or news footage, Footage.Net may be the place. Here you'll find videotape, newsreels, vintage and contemporary images, news archives, and much more. The sources include Getty Images, CNN ImageSource, NBC News Archives, National Geographic Television Film Library, and much, much more. Try a global search for the video you're seeking, or try a "Zap" request -- essentially it's an e-mail request for video that is distributed to all of the companies providing access to their databases. A
pretty cool place to find video and other footage.

Federal Legislative History Research
A service of the Law Librarian's Society of Washington, D.C., this PDF file is a terrific guide on conducting legislative history research on federal laws. Download this file and make it a permanent part of your electronic library.

Legal Writing Success ($$)
Don't have time to finish that big appellate brief? Legal Writing Success wants to help. This company provides services for lawyers, law and college students, and expert witnesses. The staff consists of attorneys who in addition to writing services assist in research, consulting, rewriting and editing, and conducting writing workshops and seminars. And the prices don't look too bad, either. I can't vouch for the quality of the product; visit the site and judge for yourself.

O*Net Online
What an interesting site -- it provides access to the O*Net database, which includes information on skills, abilities, knowledges, work activities, and interests associated with occupations. This information can be used to develop job descriptions, facilitate career exploration, and for other purposes related to human resources. You can search by keyword, code, or job family, or search for occupations that match a certain set of job skills.

Finally, some fun and useful sites for you this week:

If you can handle seagull poop, check out this target-practice game.

You're heading out on a roadtrip, and you want to know ahead of time the radio stations that are available on your route. Radio-Locator to the rescue! Just enter the city, zip, or state, and you can find any radio station in that area. You can also search for Internet streaming radio as well as international radio stations.

Well, that’s it for Issue #113 – 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

Subscription Information: If you want to keep on receiving issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net, or visit Inter Alia and sign up there! If you no longer want to receive the newsletter, just click on the link at the bottom of this newsletter. Or, send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net and I'll remove you from the list.

Archives: Miss an issue? You can read previous issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly in the Archives.

Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net..

BACK TO INTER ALIA
SUBSCRIBE