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Welcome to Issue #129 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!

Dogpile Updates its Toolbar
Meta-search tool Dogpile has updated its toolbar add-on to include some interesting new features. You can now see ABC News headlines streaming across the toolbar, and use the it to block pop-up ads. If somebody's using it, let me know how the pop-up blocker works -- I'm interested to know if it's as good as Google's.

20 security problems to think about
The SANS Institute, a company specializing in computer security training, has identified the twenty most critical Internet security vulnerabilities. This list can be found here, with detailed descriptions of the problems and how to fix them. The language can get a little dense, but stick with it -- we all need to protect our computers against the hazards waiting for us on the Internet.

Become a Teoma on search engine names
Ever wonder how the search engine companies came up with those (sometimes bizarre) names? Wonder no more; Chris Sherman over at SearchDay provides a handy dictionary to the most popular (but hey, where's Vivisimo?).

Become an Inbox Ecologist
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen has turned his attention to a different issue altogether: information pollution. The article is mostly about the ever-present spam problem, and it contains a few suggestions for managing the terror. I agree with most all of them, except for his advice, "Don't be event driven: resist e-mail alerts." Yes, if you subscribe to too many alert programs your Inbox will get cluttered up -- but will you spend less time going through your Inbox, or researching the issue on the Internet? I would much rather have the information brought to me.

The last line of virus defense
This article from Silicon.com reminds us that even though virus writers are truly bad types, and anti-virus software manufacturers are always scrambling to keep up, it's the end user who is ultimately responsible for protecting our PC or network from attack.

Lost in translation
Have you ever used Google's Language Tools to translate a website? It's pretty useful if you want to get a general idea of what's being said on a page written in German, French, Portuguese, or Italian. But it's probably not wise to rely on tools like these if you really need an accurate translation.

Has Google gone bad?
Maybe, says The Register. They're calling it a "Google-NACK" (NACK = Negative ACKnowledgement), and it happens when Google tells you there are thousands of results for a search query, but fails to return those results. Seth Finkelstein argues that this is happening because of problems with Google's anti-spam software. Greg Notess discusses this and other Google oddities on his Google Inconsistencies page.

For the Google power user
Tara Calashain discusses 20 Great Google Secrets over at PC Magazine. Many of these tips have been discussed right here with yours truly. They certainly are worth reviewing again.

Search Tip: Misspelling Sometimes Works
The weblog gtexts has been having fun finding misspelled words in court opinions on Westlaw. While this post was probably intended for amusement, intentionally misspelling a search term is a rarely-used but sometimes helpful technique. You never know when some truly useful information is available online, but is virtually "invisible" because the important keywords that could get us to that site have been misspelled. Try it at Google sometime -- misspell your search terms, and see what you get.

Local search -- a concept whose time has not yet come
I mentioned a few weeks ago that Google was trying out a service designed to provide local search results. This week, SearchDay takes a look at the state of localized search, including a not-yet-launched offering from Overture.

Google chat
Google founder Sergey Brin has been talking up the search engine lately. He sat down at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in August for this fireside chat. This week, he and co-founder Larry Page were interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air. On the Fresh Air link, just click on "Listen to the Founders of Google" to bring up the audio.

Blawgs of the Week
Here's the weekly roundup of law-related weblogs: First, In Re features the thoughts of Kyle Kaiser, law clerk to the Honorable Richard Dorr in the Western District of Missouri. By No Other is brought to us by D.C. Toedt, a general counsel in a software company; originally titled Business Lessons, the blog contains notes of lessons the author has gained in his business law reading. David Sarnacki, a Michigan family and divorce attorney, hosts Domestic Diversions, a collaborative weblog with nine contributors discussing relationships, families, and family law. And Ernest Miller, the guy behind Lawmeme, who describes himself rather modestly as "just some guy who likes to think about the intersection of law and technology," has his own blog, The Importance Of.

Selected Business and Corporate Info Websites

Lately I have been bringing you resources on topics that are too broad to completely cover in one article; this week we'll continue that trend. There are thousands of business and corporate information websites on the Internet, and many of those sites are worth your time and attention. Let's take a look at a few of them this week, with the promise of more to follow in the future.

We'll start with a site everyone should already know about: Dun & Bradstreet. D&B provides business information, for a fee; these "solutions" come in four major areas -- risk management, sales and marketing, supply management, and small business. You can do research on virtually any corporation, at prices ranging from pretty cheap to very expensive. D&B is clearly one of the leaders at providing business information on the Internet.

If it's annual reports you want, there are two sites you should check out. First is the Annual Reports Library, a resource for finding and evaluating annual reports. Here you'll find information on how to read or create an annual report, or where to find them on the Internet. The site used to have a large collection of annual reports available, but it recently sold them to Global Reports, which bills itself as the only comprehensive online library of international financial filings in full color, native PDF format. Here you'll find over 500,000 electronic and paper documents from 65 countries; to access them, you'll have to subscribe.

For those of you looking for business forms and contracts, FindLaw's Corporate Counsel Center might be able to help. Just select a state, then an industry, and you'll receive a listing of real contracts from real companies that you can view and download for free. Another helpful FindLaw site provides a set of links to state corporation and business forms; the links don't do anything other than take you to that state's business forms page, but it's nice to have them all in one place.

Finally, some business law sites. The American Bar Association Business Law Section is designed primarily for section members, but there are still some good resources for anyone. One of these resources is eSource, a monthly serving of best of the Section's resources covering timely issues and developments impacting business law and business lawyers. You can also read current and back issues of Business Law Today. Another site chock full of helpful information is the Delaware Corporate Law Clearinghouse, offering access to selected filings and opinions in corporate and other business litigation in the Delaware Court of Chancery, the nation's premier trial court for corporate law. The site used to feature new complaints and briefs, but now only offers the actual opinions -- still, not a bad deal. We end our brief tour with the Uniform Business and Financial Laws Locator, from Cornell's wonderful Legal Information Institute. At the top of the page is a listing of all Uniform business and financial laws; just click on a link and you'll be provided with a list of links for the states that have adopted that law.

Like I said, this is just a taste of business information sites; there are more to come. If you have a site you'd like to see mentioned in a future issue, drop me a line!

Last week, we became acquainted with AutoComplete in Internet Explorer. You can use AutoComplete to enter information you use frequently on the Internet -- passwords, credit card information, etc. If you're worried about others seeing this information on your computer, you can always clear these passwords and forms. Just select the Tools menu, then Internet Options. Open the Content tab, and click on AutoComplete. You'll have two choices there -- Clear Forms, and Clear Passwords. Click both, and your AutoComplete will be completely cleared out.

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!

Lloyd's of London Litigation Database
When I first saw the title, I got excited -- an independent database on a company's litigation sounded very interesting. After reviewing the site, I'm still interested, but a word of caution. The site is published anonymously by someone unhappy with Lloyd's business practices; keep that bias in mind when you examine this site. Here you can find a large number of case summaries, published opinions, and articles on lawsuits brought by Lloyd's against investors, and other types of lawsuits in which Lloyd's was involved.

National Coalition Against Censorship
The NCAC is an alliance of 50 national non-profit organizations working to educate its members and the public at large about the dangers of censorship and how to oppose them. You can read Censorship News, a quarterly publication, for free on the Internet, or order the print version for $30/year. There's an extensive set of links on NCAC's position on various issues, including Academic Freedom, Art, Libraries, Minors, Political Speech, and more. There's also information on special projects sponsored by the NCAC and links to Internet resources as well as publications for sale.

National Patient Safety Foundation
The mission of the NPSF is simple; to improve the safety of patients. The website certainly achieves a part of that goal, by making a lot of information on the subject available to patients and researchers alike. The Resources area is the most valuable, containing publications, a discussion forum, patient safety links, a speaker's bureau, and resources for parents and families. The discussion forum is actually a listserv, so you can receive regular updates on patient safety issues by e-mail.

Political Database of the Americas
From Georgetown University, this is simply a page of links to the database, which provides information and statistical data for countries in the Western Hemisphere. Here you'll find links to reference materials, primary documents, and statistical data in a number of different categories: Constitutions and Constitutional Studies, Electoral Systems and Election Data, Local Governance and Decentralization, Political Parties, Civil Society, and Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Institutions.

Reporter's Desktop
Okay, it says it's a Reporter's desktop, but I won't tell if you don't. This simple page provides convenient access to loads of research materials. From this page, you can search Google, Google News, AllTheWeb, Yahoo, HotBot, and several meta-search tools. There are links to mapping tools, phone and e-mail directories, a short selection of the "Best Reporting Links," and you can even get access here to the Associated Press, National Library of Medicine, and FedStats. Pretty cool.

Want to see what the Faroe Bridge in Denmark looks like, right now? What about the Black Star Brewery in Whitefish, Montana? Well, now you can, with Earthcam, the webcam network.

Halloween site of the week -- This is a search and research newsletter, so what better Halloween site to mention than the Halloween Search and Directory, which indexes about 400 Halloween sites.

Well, that’s it for Issue #129 – 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.

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.

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