INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
December 19, 2004
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #175 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!

And away we go…..

News Update

Just a Suggestion
Google has introduced a new feature called Google Suggest. Just start typing your search terms, and Google will show search suggestions while you are still typing. You'll also get to see the approximate number of hits that search query will retrieve, so you can adjust your search. Pretty neat. Danny Sullivan has more.

Something I've always wanted to do
Tired of listening to that person sitting next to you talk to her friend about an upcoming cosmetic procedure? Let her know exactly what you're thinking with a special note from the Society for Handheld Hushing, or SHH. Just download the PDF file and start writing.

Google news expands
There are seven new editions of Google News:

Blawgs of the Week
Here's your weekly helping of law-related weblogs: A lawyer calling himself Addicus Finch is blogging over at Law in Hyperspeed, which hopes to provide comfort and help to lawyers, judges and others with ADD. Here's a combination -- Gary Becker and Richard Posner, both of the University of Chicago (economics and law, respectively), have ganged together to write the Becker-Posner Blog. The Utah Bar Association is blogging its Utah Bar Journal, releasing the magazine articles in blog format. Cool! The Anonymous Law Professor features stories "by a fictional tenured law professor at a first-tier law school." Read his blog, and you'll understand why he's anonymous... David Cohen is an immigration lawyer, and he's publishing the Canadian Immigration Blawg.

eBay Unveils Desktop Search Tool

Okay, not really. But it certainly seems like everyone else is, doesn't it? This week saw the debut of the MSN Toolbar Suite, and then Ask Jeeves joined in with Ask Jeeves Desktop Search. Here are a number of articles and reviews on the new products:

Help Desk

We're up to the final installment of our year-long checklist of tips for maintaining your PC. Last but not least, here are three things you should do every year for your computer:

  • Clean out your PC case. Buy a can of pressurized air, or use a vacuum cleaner to clean out the dust that has accumulated over the past year (actually, I do this more often)
  • Spring-clean your programs. Computer a little sluggish? Get rid of programs you no longer use or need. For a more drastic approach, make a full backup of your system, and then do a complete reinstall of Windows (not for the faint of heart).
  • Diagnose hardware problems. Windows has a utility to diagnose problems with your hardware, and there are other programs out there that can also help.

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

Legal Database on Child Abduction Cases
This site is part of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and it deals with the thousands of children who are the victims of international parental abduction each year. Registration is required to use the database, but it's free. That's basically all you'll find here -- a database of reported decisions, with lots of fields to choose from when searching for information.

Learn the Internet!
Okay, maybe this isn't a legal research site, but it's the holidays, so we're going a bit off-track here. This site from AARP is a good place for anyone who gets a new computer for the holidays and wants to learn more about surfing the Internet -- especially senior citizens. The tutorials are very basic and easy to understand. There's even an e-mail newsletter available with helpful hints and tips on using the Internet.

Alaska Sex Offender Registration
Find information here on Alaska's sex offenders -- either by using the Search function, or browsing them all at once. Each entry will provide a lot of information about the offender -- physical description (with picture), current whereabouts, and a complete sexual offense conviction history.

Andean Community
The Andean Community consists of Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. This site brings together news and trade information for all of these countries. You'll also find information on "circulation of persons," the common market, foreign policy, border and sustainable development, economic policies, treaties and legislation, a business directory, and much more. This is a nifty site for people interested in this part of South America.

CensusScope
CensusScope describes itself as "your portal to Census 2000 data." And it's a pretty good portal, at that. Start exploring by choosing one of four categories: Charts & Trends, Maps, Rankings and Segregation. Each category has a wealth of information available, and numerous ways to drill down to more detailed data. You can view population information by state, county, or metro area. An easy to use, informative site.

Here are a whole bunch of holiday sites to have fun with this week:

Each year PNC Bank publishes its Christmas Price Index, and this year 12 Days of Christmas will set you back $17,296.91. On the Internet, that price goes up to $27,736.50 (it's hard to find cheap lords-a-leaping on the Web).

It's not too late to donate a gift to the Toys For Tots program. Just click the link to find a database of toy drives, state by state.

Not exactly festive, and not really a site, either -- the Centers for Disease Control released a study on fall-related injuries during the holidays. As you would imagine, most falls are attributed to decorating activities.

You'll find just about everything you ever wanted to know about A Christmas Carol at David Perdue's site devoted to the story. Lots of great links here.

Want to learn more about how Christmas is celebrated around the world? Check out Holiday Traditions, from the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

If you're giving something technology-related to your parents this holiday season, chances are you'll be their first line of technical support. Not to fear -- CNet has put together this page on Tech Support for Your Parents, with lots of helpful tips and ways to keep calm throughout the madness.

And while we're on the subject, you can probably use these Top 10 Postholiday Headache Cures, to help you avert a technology disaster.

Navigate the snowy streets of Boston in the game Get Wrapped.

Well, that’s it for Issue #175 – 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

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