INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
November 30, 2003
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #135 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!
This is the Happy Birthday to Me issue....since today's my birthday, I'm celebrating by publishing an abbreviated version of the Internet Legal Research Weekly. See you next week!
And away we go…..
Zimmerman's finds a new home
I'm just getting around to reporting this -- Zimmerman's Research Guide, once featured on LLRX, now resides at LexisOne. Zimmerman's "is an extensive listing of legal, business and other information sources designed to help researchers get to the answer of a research question. Developed by a researcher for researchers, the Guide contains more than 1,000 subject headings that are continually updated by librarian Andrew Zimmerman. It covers a variety of information formats, publishers and providers, and helps researchers determine what to do next, no matter where they are in their research."More on MSN News service
According to New Scientist, Microsoft says its new Newsbot news service will personalize results within 10 minutes of a user browsing the news. Personalization is the name of the game now with the major search engines.Think you know about spam?
Maybe not. Here are the ten biggest spam myths, as well as Ten Tips for Slaying Spam.A new look for Kartoo
Meta-search tool Kartoo has launched a new version of its product, with new personalization features.West adds enhancements to search results
ResultsPlus is a new offering by West that provides additional resources during your Westlaw searches. A search using ResultsPlus will also suggest matches in ALR or AmJur annotations. Simple (and logical) extension of the research process, but oh so useful.Link Rot a growing problem
The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center reports that references contained in Internet documents are often gone within months of being posted, which can lead to big information gaps. I have this problem with my weblog -- every now and I again I try to check the links on this site, to make sure they are still active. I usually have to go back and fix, or even eliminate, many of the links I have posted in the past.
Quaero, ergo Google (or something like that)
PC Magazine features an article on how Google has become an online cultural icon in I Search, Therefore I Google.Blawgs of the Week
Another week, yet more law-related weblogs to introduce to you. First, David is the Airblogger, providing law, technology, mobility and random meme echoes. And DTM is the weblog of Dan Fingerman, a recent graduate of Boston University College of Law and soon-to-be (as in next Tuesday) member of the California bar. Dan blogs about civil liberties, cyberlaw, politics, privacy, and hockey, among other things.I don't know about you, but I think it's a pain in the #$! when Adobe Acrobat Reader opens right in my browser when I try to read a PDF file. Worse, when I'm done viewing the PDF, the small Acrobat applet doesn't unload, often causing my system to freeze up.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to deal with this. If you want the Acrobat Reader to load outside of your browser, launch it from your Start menu, select Edit, then Preferences. Select Options, and uncheck Display PDF in Browser. From now on, when you click on a PDF, you'll see the usual File Download box; just select Open, and the Acrobat Reader will open on its own.
If you *do* like the Acrobat Reader opening in your browser, when you're done just press Ctrl-Alt-Delete (and then the Processes tab, if you're using Windows XP or 2000) -- highlight Acrord32, and then End Task (or End Process). That will kill the program.
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
The Fiscal Survey of States
This is just a PDF file, released by the National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers in June of 2003. Here you can see the current state of state expenditure developments, including budget cuts and increases made in the past year, as well as historical values. The report also contains state revenue developments and total balances, from fiscal year 1979 to the present.International Law Office
"Launched in February 1998, the International Law Office delivers global analysis to lawyers worldwide via email on a free subscription basis. It provides legal developments from around the world, a comprehensive directory of firms and partners, a database of the world's major deals and the legal advisers involved, and a global news round-up." The home page has links to newsletters, the latest international deals, and recent news. The newsletters area allows you to search for topics ranging from arbitration to white collar crime, and narrow your search for a particular country or countries. There's also a legal directory that features lawyers worldwide, as well as search pages for business deals and the news archive.Labordoc
Labordoc is the International Labour Office (ILO) Library's catalogue of its collection of books, reports, journals, and documents. There are two types of searches here: Basic and Guided. A search for "maternity leave" brought 720 citations, many of them from other countries. To do more than search, however, you'll need to be a Client of the International Labour Office. Still, there seem to be some good resources here.Wikipedia
Lately, weblogs have been all the rage; while weblogs were being developed, however, so were Wikis -- collaborative websites comprised of the collective work of multiple authors. The Wikipedia is one such compilation. The intent is to create a complete and accurate free content encyclopedia, and the current version contains 176,899 entries. You can browse the front page, or enter your own search terms. The articles for each entry are hyperlinked to other parts of the Wikipedia, which is very helpful. A cool tool is the "what links here" link at the bottom of each entry -- just click it and you can see all other related entries. The only caution is that, because anyone, even you, can edit and/or contribute to the articles, they are only as good as the person writing them. Still, it's a pretty great resource.National Association of Retired Federal Employees
NARFE's goal has remained the same since 1921: to protect and improve the retirement benefits of federal retirees, employees and their families. Here you'll find information on membership, legislation affecting the members, retirement and insurance benefits, news on retirement issues, and more. Members have full online access to NARFE magazine.
Finally, some fun and useful sites to start your week:
Want to remind your future self to straighten up and fly right? Send an e-mail to yourself through FutureMe. You can also read the strangely poignant letters other people are sending to themselves.
Can't get enough of seeing other people's misery? Check out the Dent Cam, which is positioned directly over a dental chair in a New York City dentist's office.
Well, that’s it for Issue #135 – 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.
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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.