October 10, 2004

Welcome to Issue #167 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!

PACER increases rates by 15%
Fortunately, it was only 7 cents a page to begin with. So 8 cents a page is still the best bang for the buck on the Internet.

Two new fun search tools
Danny Sullivan posted last week on two new(ish) search tools, iZiTO and Ujiko -- check 'em out.

Yahoo gets personal
In recent posts I have mentioned A9 and changes to Ask Jeeves, allowing users to save or otherwise personalize their search results. Now Yahoo gets into the act with My Yahoo! Search. The results pages allow you to save sites (with or without notes), share them, or block them from your computer. As usual, Chris Sherman has a thorough rundown of the new search tools features at Search Engine Watch.

GoHook a PDF
GoHook is a search engine for PDF files, and right now the site features over 500,000 documents (with 10,000 more added to the database each week). True, Google, Yahoo and other search engines will place PDF files in their search results, but none of them offer cached versions of the PDF files, like GoHook. Gary Price has more at the Search Engine Watch Blog. GoHook was originally designed as a search engine for completed auctions over at eBay, but due to licensing issues that focus is apparently changing.

Yahoo Local -- Final Version
Yahoo's Local Search is out of beta testing, and Chris Sherman has a comprehensive review. In my opinion, this is the local search to beat.

Blawg of the Week
Only one new blawg this week,and it's Nomination Nation, a group blog featuring news, views and gossip about judicial appointments. I have no idea who writes it -- perhaps that's the way they want it.

To IE or Not to IE?

There has been a lot of fuss lately over whether, for security reasons, we should all dump our copies of Internet Explorer in favor of Mozilla's FireFox product. In fact, the Executive Editor over at CNet has officially dumped Internet Explorer. But I tend to agree with the story (also from CNet) Planning to Dump IE? Think Again, which makes the point that, like it or not, many websites simply won't function in FireFox (in fact, there's apparently an issue with AI RoboForm that causes the latest version of FireFox to crash -- I'm having this problem myself). Further, Windows Update won't work at all in FireFox.

Fortunately, FireFox anticipated that we would still need to use Internet Explorer, because one of its great extensions is IE View, which installs an "Open Link Target in IE" option when you right-click. So IE is still just a click away.

Help Desk

You can use Outlook to track telephone calls, using the "Journal" feature. In your Contacts folder, double-click the name of the person you're going to call. On the "Actions" menu, click "New Journal Entry for Contact." When you start your call, click the "Start Timer" button. While you're talking, you can take notes in the space provided in the journal entry. When you're done, click "Pause Timer" and save your entry.

To come back to your journal entry, you can select the Activities tab. If you keep the Show field to "All Entries," you can also view e-mails you have sent to or received from that contact.

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!

WIPO International Classifications
Part of the World Intellectual Property Organization, this page covers four WIPO treaties that created classification systems which organize intellectual property materials into indexed structures for easy retrieval. The four classifications include the International Patent, Nice, Locarno, and Vienna Classifications. For each classification you'll find basic information regarding their use worldwide, principles of their application and revision, and explanatory material.

ASIL Electronic Guide to International Law
Presented by the American Society of International Law, the Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law is a terrific Internet resource. The guide is divided into sections on Human Rights, Commercial Arbitration, Criminal Law, Economic Law, Environmental Law, Intellectual Property Law, International Organizations, Lists/Newsgroups/Networks, Private International Law, and Treaties. Each category has a lengthy description of the subject, as well as a plethora of links leading to additional information. This is a must-have bookmark for your international law research.

Bankruptcy Services, LLC
BSI provides, well, bankruptcy services for companies in need, including filing preparation, claims management, noticing and communication, balloting and solicitation, and disbursement. But the real value to the legal researcher comes through clicking the Case Information link, which provides access to filed claims and schedules and other documents for the company's clients.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
The CBPP claims to be one of "the nation’s premier policy organizations working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals. On the home page you'll find recent news headlines, and links to other sources of information. The major areas of research include Earned Income Credit, Federal Budget, Federal Tax, Food Assistance, Health Policies, and more. Most of the areas contain links to reports on each subject. You can also sign up to be alerted by e-mail when new analyses are posted.

Constitution Finder
Need a handy page for world constitutions? This site from the University of Richmond School of Law is a simple page with links to constitutions, charters, amendments, and related documents from countries around the world. And it's updated regularly, which is a good thing.

Occasionally, I'll have a file that's just too big to send out by e-mail -- usually because the recipient's e-mail account won't allow file transfers over a certain size. That's where You Send It might come in handy; you can upload files up to 1 Gigabyte in size, and the recipient receives an e-mail directing them to the site to download the file. You can even send your file securely, if necessary.

If you use AI RoboForm to manage your passwords and personal information, you know how valuable it is. Now you can use RoboForm on any computer, if you own a Flash drive or other portable media storage device. Just download Portable RoboForm to your device, and whenever you plug it into a computer it starts up -- whether RoboForm is on that computer or not. Pretty nifty.

Well, that’s it for Issue #167 – 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.

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.