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Welcome to Issue #152 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'm back! It feels like forever since I last wrote in this space. I'll try not to cram too much information into this issue, although the urge is strong.

Relying on MEMRI to save your life
Recently in the Network-Lawyers mailing list, the discussion centered on the best way to carry your important medical information with you wherever you go, and the ways technology is making this easier. Now it looks like Michigan is taking things a step further. With its new MEMRI Electronic Medical Record Initiative, the state aims to create a network that allows physicians to use the Internet to quickly access all the medical records a person creates throughout the health care system.

It's a spoof, but it sure isn't funny
Have you received e-mails from addresses you've never heard of, complaining that you tried to send them a virus? Over the past few months, viruses have evolved so that they can "spoof" or fake e-mail addresses, to make it appear that the virus is coming from a certain e-mail address. Read a great explanation of what's going on at Why I'm Not Sending You Viruses.

How a lawyer uses his PDA
Two weeks ago I spoke at the ABA Law Practice Management Section's Spring Meeting on "Client Contact: Anywhere, Anytime," which focused on wireless PDAs and cell phone/PDA combos. A Day in the Life of A PDA-Enabled Lawyer, written by Nashville attorney Barry Shrum, is a terrific article, and it goes into some detail on different types of software lawyers can use on their PDAs.

Dip your toes in the blog swimming pool
Not sure what the hubbub about blogging and RSS feeds is all about? Ernie to the rescue. Make sure you read his post that tells you how to get all your legal news with a newsreader. In my opinion, the best part of this article is the file Ernie has created with 44 law-related weblogs to get you started on this whole weblog thing.

Google Goes to College
This is the kind of news that makes a search freak like me go giddy all over: Google has announced an alliance with 17 universities, including MIT, to provide a way to search the scholarly papers of each institution. When the testing is complete, the option may become an option on Google's advanced search page.

The Blawgs of April
Here are some of the new weblogs I came across this past month: First is another blawg from a team of Michigan lawyers, this one focusing on family law. Domestic Diversions is a collaborative weblog based in Michigan and focused on relationships, families and family law. Here's a blawg devoted to a single law. The NEPA Blawg provides, law, news and perspective on the National Environmental Policy Act. This is the type of weblog environmental should pay attention to on a regular basis. The folks at Reigel & Associates, a Minnesota law firm, have launched Aviation Law Discussions, a blog devoted to legal issues affecting the aviation industry. GovTechNews is brought to us by Tom Braman, who plans on using his blog to tell us about state/local government technology, emphasizing information architecture and the user experience. Sean Fosmire apparently isn't content to maintain two weblogs -- he has now started his third blawg venture, this one focusing on medical malpractice issues in Michigan. It is called, appropriately enough, Michigan Medical Malpractice. A Canadian labour and employment lawyer offers Thoughts from a Management Lawyer. Finally, Patently Obvious is, as you might imagine, a patent law weblog.

Behold A9

So Amazon is getting into the search business, eh? Yesterday the online retail monster unveiled A9, which appears to be a promising new addition to the search engine world. First of all, it relies on Google's search results, so you can't go wrong there. But it also adds several intriguing features of its own.

Signing into your Amazon account (if you have one) helps A9 to customize your search experience (I know, those of you with privacy concerns are cringing now....). The main search page is very simple, a la Google. The search results page is tabbed; the first tab will show you Amazon search results for your query, if any exist -- it will also include the "Search Inside The Book" results. The second tab keeps track of your search history, so you have easy access to searches you have run before.

You can also perform an A9 query from anywhere on the Internet, from your address bar -- just type a9.com/query, and you'll be taken to your results. (I'm still playing with this -- I'm not sure how you enter a multi-term query in a URL format).

As with all search engines, there's the ubiquitous toolbar. In addition to the usual features, it contains a diary feature that allows you to make notes on any website you visit, and then reference those notes any time you re-visit that site from any computer.

Of course, with all these good features, you'd have to expect that A9 would want more of your personal information. And you'd be right. As I said before, A9 keeps track of your search history --and it also keeps track of your "click history" -- if your search results include a site you have seen before, A9 will let you know, and even tell you the date you last visited the site.

Reviews on A9 are found here and here.

Here's a tip for Word users: you can edit two different parts of a single document in the same window. First you'll have to split the current window by selecting Window, then Split. You can then navigate to different parts of the same document in each window. To jump between the two windows, press the F6 key. You can close the second pane by selecting Window, then Remove Split, or by dragging the dividing line between the panes to the top of the window.

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!

Council for Regulatory Environmental Modeling
This site looks like it's pretty specialized, and only for high-level environmental geeks. the CREM is a group of senior managers from the EPA who promote consistency and consensus among environmental model developers and users. Users have access to the vast Models Knowledge Base, an inventory of all the EPA's environmental models. There's also a library containing organizational documents, white papers, science advisory reports, and other documents. Even if you don't understand what's going on here, the Environmental Glossary is a great page to keep handy.

Feedster
Have you come to realize the amazing resource of information contained in the thousands of weblogs being maintained by average people all across the country? If so, you need a resource that can search these weblogs. Feedster is such a search engine. Feedster monitors the weblog world continuously, and you can take advantage of this power to search for information. Just enter your query, and Feedster will show you where those keywords were mentioned in a weblog or RSS feed somewhere. I'll say it again: weblogs are a great source of information for the legal researcher.

Gambling Laws in the US
This is the type of site I always like to see: devoted to single area of law, and covering the laws of all 50 states. Unfortunately, most sites like this are created by individuals who don't often keep the site updated, and it becomes stale. Hopefully, Gambling Laws in the US will be different. This site was created by Chuck Humphrey, a lawyer with an interest in gambling laws. Here you can find the gambling laws of each state, as well as a summary of those laws. Also available are federal gambling laws, as well as links to articles on the topic of gambling, mostly online.

The Venice Commission
An agency of the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission's job is to provide assistance to European countries with adopting constitutions and conform to the standards of Europe's constitutional heritage. The Council was originally designed as a tool for emergency constitutional engineering in a time of political upheaval; now the Council keeps a close watch on societal changes and how they might affect a country's constitution. The two areas of this site that got my attention were the Documents and Codices Database. In the Documents area, you can download PDF files categorized by series, country, subject, or opinion. Codices regularly reports on the case law of Constitutional Courts and Courts of equivalent jurisdiction in Europe, and you can read the publication here.

Insurance Industry Internet Network
The goal of the IIIN is to provide a resource on the Internet for finding websites related to the insurance industry. These sites have been categorized by subject area: Agents & Brokers, Newsstand, Insurance-Related Resources, Corporate Counsel, Job Bank, Insurance Companies on the Internet, and Insurance Law Firms. Each category has a large number of links that are very helpful on this subject. This is a great resource for insurance information.

Looking for a new house, or selling the one you have? The ABCs of Real Estate is a great site to bookmark. It provides links to just about everything you need to buy or sell a house.

Satisfy your inner child, as well as your inner Picasso, over at Mr. PicassoHead.

Well, that’s it for Issue #152 – 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.

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