November 14, 2004

Welcome to Issue #171 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!

When cheating is good for you
Most search engines provide you with the ability to "power search" by using special syntax. Trouble is, this syntax isn't always easy to figure out. Google's helping out with that, by providing this handy cheat sheet with helpful syntax, shortcuts, and more.

Speaking of cheat sheets...
The folks at the Yahoo! Search Blog have a page of advanced searches at Yahoo! News. Some cool syntax to use, as well as the ability to add your searches as RSS feeds to your My Yahoo! page.

Criminal Records available through PACER
Starting today, all federal criminal records that would ordinarily be available to the public at the courthouse will be available on each court's PACER website. There was previously a question about personal information contained in the records, but apparently those privacy issues have been resolved.

More research that comes to you from the State Department
The Department of State now offers not one, but four RSS feeds.

Taking your search on the road
Yahoo! is beefing up its Yahoo! Mobile site, now offering local, web and image search to its mobile services. Just select the type of phone you use, and get a listing of services available to you. Gary Price has more at the Search Engine Watch Blog.

The ubiquitous Google
This title couldn't be more accurate -- Google Everywhere. In this article, Tara Calishain offers ways to get Google results without actually going to Google.

Firefox Officially Released
Although I and many of you have been using it for months, the Firefox browser, Version 1.0, was finally released yesterday. If you haven't tried Firefox yet, you should -- it has some terrific features that you don't get with Internet Explorer. Search Engine Watch is going great guns with information on Firefox, including a three-parter on using the new browser for search: Mozilla Firefox: The Searcher's Browser, Firefox, Google and Web Search, and More Search and Browsing Fun with Firefox.

100 new ways to look at the news
Gary Price mentioned a nifty news visualization tool last week, called 10x10. It's a grid of 100 pictures (thus, 10 by 10), with news stories (from Reuters, BBC, and New York Times) associated with each. The photos/stories are updated each hour. Not a very hard-hitting news site, but then again, it's not intended to be.

Blawgs of the Week
Two new law-related weblogs for you this week. First, the so-far anonymous lawfulgal presents "the law. very funny. very often." Let's hope so -- we can use a laugh. And the environmental lawyers at Lowenstein Sandler are publishing The Environment, a weblog addressing environmental, health and safety issues for the business community.

Using Google for evil, and other phishing stories

There's a new phishing scam making the rounds, and it involves Google. Apparently, the scammers use Google to re-route an e-mail, and dupes users into creating Yahoo! e-mail accounts for the spammers to use themselves. The lesson here is that if you're going to create an e-mail account through Yahoo!, Hotmail, or other free(ish) services, go to the site yourself; don't rely on clicking through e-mails to get the account created. You could be creating a spammer's account by accident.

Meanwhile, have you heard about the latest phishing scheme? It's particularly diabolical, because it doesn't require you to take any action, other than opening an e-mail. When you do that, the malicious code is installed deep within your computer, and it can then force your browser to go to a fake website whenever you try to go to your own bank website. So far the scam is pretty limited, and is only affecting banks outside the United States.

To protect yourself, make sure your computer is up-to-date on its Windows update patches. But this phishing attack doesn't just involve Internet Explorer, so it doesn't matter which browser you're using. If you get infected, follow the instructions in the linked article above, and hopefully you'll avoid problems.

Help Desk

Looking for new software for your Palm device? Head over to PalmGear.com. You'll find tons of great free- and shareware to try out. If you become a regular downloader there, make sure you get PalmGear's StreamLync utility; it makes it a snap to download and install software from the site with just a few clicks.

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!

U.S. Government Blue Pages
This site should be a permanent part of your People Finder/Address Book websites. Here you can find the telephone number to just about any federal government office in the country. Just select the state, city (or area code), and the type of information you're seeking. You'll just get the phone number, but that's what you expect out of a phone book, isn't it?

Law.com IP Law Practice Center ($$)
This is one of five practice centers offered by Law.com. For about $129/year, you'll get access to a lot of information: the latest news from IP Lawyer, American Law Journal, The National Law Journal and other publications, the latest IP law decisions from around the country, e-mail updates, articles from intellectual property practitioners, and tools to aid you in your practice. Not bad for just $129.

Willamette Law Online
The students at Willamette University College of Law work on this website, described as a "Reference Guide for Law. Here you'll be able to read summaries of orders and decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Oregon Supreme Court, and Oregon Court of Appeals, as well as summaries in intellectual property, business, and conflicts law.

Uniform Business and Financial Laws Locator
Part of Cornell Law School's wonderful Legal Information Institute, this very simple (if long) page provides links to uniform business and financial laws around the country. Just select a uniform law (from Arbitration to Trusts, 34 links in all), and you'll get a list of states that have adopted such laws, with further links to those statutes. Be careful: this page does not appear to have been updated since April of 2003, so some of the links may be outdated.

WorldTradeLaw.net
This site dates back to 1991, when it was created by two international trade lawyers. It contains two parts: the first is free to all visitors, and features primary source documents on international trade law, a search engine for GATT/WTO opinions, links to other international trade law sources, and a discussion forum. There's also a subscription service providing analysis and commentary new WTO reports.

The game is called HomeRun, but I'm not sure why. The object is to steer a drunk guy down the road as far as you can without falling - I guess he's running home. Odd, German game:

The Glossarist is a compendium of glossaries on various subjects, from Arts & Culture to Travel.

Well, that’s it for Issue #171 – 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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