INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
December 7, 2003
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #136 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!
I know last week I promised I would be back to normal starting with this issue. However, the holiday season is already in full swing for me, and my weekends are extremely busy. If you can put up with a "lite" version of the newsletter -- half of the kilobytes, but all of the goodness -- I'll be back to you with full versions after the new year. Thanks!
And away we go…..
More myths about security
Last week I featured myths about spam. This week, check out the top five myths about safe surfing.Wayback to classic software
The Internet Archive has received a DMCA exemption to archive copies of vintage software. This is great news, and very important -- keeping copies of these old programs around is important not only technologically, but also from a historical perspectiveThe month in search engine news
Like clockwork, Chris Sherman has posted the Search Engine Milestones for November 2003. Catch up on what's new in search engines here:The Top Ten
Jason Krause over at the ABA Journal has a nice article on The Top Ten in Tech, discussing technologies that are particularly useful to lawyers in their practices.Tab Hunter? Don't bother
This past week SearchDay featured a terrific article on how the future of search will rely on searching with invisible tabs. Chris makes an interesting observation; that when people go to a search engine (or any website, for that matter), they often don't see that there are navigation tabs across the top of the page that can simplify your search. How many of you use the tabs at Google? How many of you knew there were tabs there in the first place? (don't worry -- I won't tell).Network-Lawyers has got it goin' on
I haven't mentioned this yet (and I have no idea why), but the discussion over at Network-Lawyers is terrific. John Debruyn and several others have organized a series of online seminars on legal technology. This week we saw a very enlightening discussion on Cyber-Courts and Online Dispute Resolution. The seminars for January through March are:
- January -- Tool-a-Day -- useful tools for navigating and using the Internet
- February -- Search Engines (look for me!)
- March -- Legal Research Websites
When you sign up for the group, you can receive all of the messages through e-mail, so you don't have to do much of anything to start receiving the great content. What are you waiting for?
Stem searching now automatic
Google has begun auto-stemming some of its searches. Here's how it will work. Greg Notess states that this new feature may help relevance in some cases, but there are two potential problems: 1) it will be frustrating for searches looking for precise results; and 2) Google really should give users an option to "turn on" stemming, to give more control over the search process.Yellow Pages getting the message?
In a follow-up to my earlier post on how online yellow pages just don't measure up, here's a story on how SuperPages may have decided that it's cheaper and more profitable to have local search results available online.Marketing on LPT
The December issue of Law Practice Today is out, and this month the subject is marketing. As always, the articles are terrific; make sure you also check out the Department articles on the lower half of the page.FindArticles relaunched
Search company LookSmart has unveiled a new incarnation of FindArticles, a site boasting 3.5 million articles from over 700 publications. This is a terrific site for finding articles -- but check out Tara Calashain's problem with the website; it's a valid point:Blawgs of the Week
Here are this week's crop of law-related weblogs: first up is Blogbook, which aims to be a "blog about blawging," designed for legal bloggers to contribute their thoughts, feelings and ideas about legal blogging. Great idea! It seems that Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google fame have their own weblog, but they don't post to it all that often -- 12 posts over the past year. reversed and remanded has been around a long time -- since October 2002 -- and Sam is now in his second year at the University of San Diego School of Law. Kevin O'Keefe is a "social entrepreneur" who writes Internet Marketing for Lawyers. Kevin was the founder of Prairielaw.com, and he knows a thing or two about marketing on the Internet. The Disability Law Blog is published by Kevin Morton, a North Carolina attorney. Did I ever mention how much I like single-issue legal weblogs?Another annoyance, this one for users of Office 2000 and XP: dontcha just hate how the two programs insist on hiding menu items that you haven't used in a while (or at all)? What a pain -- here's how to stop it from happening.
In Word, click on any empty spot on a toolbar, choose Customize, then Options, and then check "Always show full menus." That's it -- pretty simple. The change will then be made to all Office programs.
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
NetVisualize Favorites Organizer ($$)
Looking for a different way to organize your favorite websites? NetVisualize definitely fits that bill -- this piece of software categorizes your bookmarks and displays them to you in the form of thumbnails. When you use the Links menu, a small snapshot of the website will pop up when you highlight the name; there's also a thumbnail image directory that will allow you to see a listing of sites all at once. As the site states, this type of program is great for searching for those sites in your favorites file that "you'll remember it when you see it." You can download an evaluation copy for a free 30-day trial, and pay $34.95 for a fully licensed version. An interesting concept.Patenting Art and Entertainment
Provided by a company called the Internet Patent News service, this site aims to help artists, entertainers, lawyers, executives, and investors "learn how to use the patent system to protect your art and entertainment creations and methods." Here you'll find a gallery of images of art and entertainment patents, a listing of patents from around the world, an introduction to the patent system as well as the problems encountered when protecting copyrights, cases and law review articles on the subject, and information on seminars and publications.Doctor Disciplinary Information
This page is part of the Public Citizen website, and it provides you with access to the medical disciplinary sites of each state, as well as the ranking of each state with respect to the information provided. You can browse by state, or look at the whole list of states on one page. In addition to the grade given to each site, you can also see at a glance what types of information are provided by the individual states regarding doctor discipline.SCOTUSBlog
You know that I am obsessed by weblogs -- however, many weblogs are not really very useful legal research tools. Every now and again I like to mention those weblogs that do provide a service to the legal researcher, and SCOTUSBlog is one of those sites. For the acronymically-challenged, SCOTUS is Supreme Court of the United States, and this weblog provides you will daily information on the nation's highest court. On any given day you might find the Court's orders for that day, upcoming oral arguments, or links to news stories on issues being considered by the Supreme Court. Those of you who use a news aggregator will be happy to know you can download the RSS feed, so you don't have to visit the site to find new content. This site is maintained by the Washington, D.C. firm of Goldstein and Howe, and it's a terrific weblog.Statistical Resources on the Web
I really wish the University of Michigan would upgrade its websites -- they use frames, which are so out-dated, and the design is just plain old. But the information they provide is superb, and this page on statistical resources is no different. You can search by categories including agriculture, foreign governments, business and industry, government finances, labor, energy, science, environment, transportation, and many, many other areas. Each category will take you to a page with sub-categories, and links from all over the Internet to statistical studies on those topics. If you're looking for statistics, take some time to explore this site -- you'll be glad you did.
Finally, some fun and useful sites for you this week:
The first official Christmas site of the month: This week we take a look at the Reindeer Liberation Front, "a band of committed freedom fighters, dedicated to the liberation of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and all his furry companions from under the oppressive yoke of Santa Claus."
I know I have mentioned this site before, but the FX Currency Converter is one of the best places on the Internet to figure out conversion rates for money. If you're REALLY into converting, you can even download a toolbar that will perform the conversions for you without even having to visit the website.Keep the balls from running down the drain in the addictive game Plastic Balls.
Well, that’s it for Issue #136 – 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.