INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
January 23, 2005
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #179 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!
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And away we go....
Get your business news fed to you
Yahoo! Finance is now offering company news via RSS feed. Just enter the stock ticker symbol, and a feed will be generated that will deliver that company's news directly into your news reader of choice.Meet Mr. Sapo
I have no idea who MrSapo is, but he/she/they have an interesting search interface. As Tara Calishain puts it, it's not exactly a meta-search engine -- more like a "meta-interface" site. But it's pretty cool --you can run your search on multiple engines all in the same window. You can even run different types of searches -- Basic, Images, Audio/Video, Academic, News, and Weblogs -- there are over 80 search engines used!When you really need to send me a terabyte of information
Getting big files to people through e-mail is a problem; most ISPs have size limits on e-mail, and so files bigger than 3-5MB frequently don't get through. A number of services have popped up to address this issue -- companies like YouSendIt and FileCourier provide for safe and secure file transfer. Now Streamload is getting into the act -- you can sign up for a free 10GB account (limited to 100MB per month upload/download), which allows you to send a whopping 50-terabyte file with a single e-mail message. Please, please do not send me a 50-terabyte file.When being fickle is a good thing
Chris Sherman reports on a recent survey, which shows that Yahoo! Search and MSN Search are gaining ground on Google's share of the search market. An interesting statistic from this survey is that users are willing to turn to other search engines if they get unsatisfactory results from their site of choice -- over 50% responded that search engine loyalty only goes so far as long as the results are relevant. This is good news, I think -- successful searchers know that they must rely on more than one search engine in order to be sure they have covered all the bases.Managing your digital images
This past week Google released a new version of its Picasa software, which helps you to organize, label, and find your photos easily. Danny Sullivan compares it with Adobe Photoshop Album, a program I have been using for some time now and recommend highly.Blawgs of the Week
The Confrontation Blog is devoted to "reporting and commenting on developments related to Crawford v. Washington, ....[which]....transformed the doctrine of the Confrontation Clause..." Someone named only SH is providing notes and comments on Arkansas law from a Crittenden County perspective over at Razorback Lawyer. Sooiee! The Telecommunications Consulting Blog is presented by Bunnie Riedel, as an exchange of ideas regarding cable franchise renewal and how communities can get the best agreement possible. The DUIblog is presented by Lawrence Taylor, who is blogging about bad DUI laws, false evidence, and the New Prohibition. Finally, B. Janelle Grenier alerted me to a new blog she's working on, in conjunction with the Greater Valley Forge Human Resource Association Legislative Committee. It's The HR Law Link, and it features human resources law stories -- she'll be blogging along with two employment lawyers.
A Word about the PDF Speedup Utility
I mentioned last week the new Adobe Reader Speedup utility, which significantly reduces the time it takes to load the Acrobat Reader. But as alert reader (and utility user) Curt observes, this program is designed to disable all the plugins that open with the Acrobat Reader, including the ability to fill in forms. So if you like to fill in forms using the Acrobat Reader, you probably won't want to use the speedup utility. Thanks Curt!
Sometimes the text underneath your desktop icons can make everything look messy. Here's how to display those icons without any text:
You should probably only do this with icons that actually reside on your desktop, not with shortcuts.
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
KaiserEDU
This wonderfully comprehensive site from the Kaiser Family Foundation is designed for health policy students and faculty, but anyone with an interest in health policy topics and debates will benefit from its resources. The meat of this site is concentrated in the Issue Modules and Reference Libraries areas. The Issue Modules focus on specific health policy issues, and provides data, analysis, academic literature, presentations, webcasts, and public opinion on these subjects. There are eight reference libraries, on topics ranging from Medicare to the role of states in health policy. For each you'll also find academic literature, presentations, webcasts, and more.Legal Gateway
I'm not a big fan of a web site that doesn't even identify its publisher, and this is one of those sites. Still, it strives to provide useful information -- I'm just not confident how authoritative it is, because no authors or citations are mentioned. So take this site with a large grain of salt. That said -- Legal Gateway provides a page for each state, designed for consumers, businesses, and lawyers who need information about that state's law. Just select a state, and you'll find links to its legal resources, law, as well as answers to questions from attorneys. Who are the attorneys? I don't know. Is the law accurate? I don't know. The individual state links are helpful, but I'm just not sure I can recommend this site.MicroPatent ($$)
Calling itself "the world's leading source for online patent and trademark information," MicroPatent certainly provides a lot of information, mostly for a fee. Here you can search for patent/trademark information, order documents, analyze patent histories, or receive professional patent search assistance. There are a number of e-learning presentations you can view to learn more about the products offered, and you can also register for the free e-bulletin, but you'll pretty much have to pay for everything else.NHGRI Policy & Legislation Database
Part of the National Human Genome Research Institute, this database contains federal and state laws, legislative materials, and federal administrative and executive materials on genomic issues. You can easily search by clicking on a particular state, or you can use the advanced search by specific topic or database. The results will usually take you to that particular source; however, there's a summary link for some of the results that will help you make a quick decision about the relevance of that choice. A page that does what it promises, and does it well.Uniform Law Commissioners
Here's a mouthful -- the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws is responsible for drafting the "Uniform Laws" that we see on so many standard subjects. On the main page, you can search the various Acts to see the status of various Uniform Laws, from draft to final legislation. You can also search by committee, to see what each group is working on. This site does not appear to have been updated recently, so be careful to independently verify the information you find here.
Finally, some fun and useful sites for you this week:
When I talk to a computer user about managing their "cookies," I frequently get a blank stare. If you're one of those people, check out How Internet Cookies Work.
If you played video games as a kid, it's time to Name That Game! Try to figure out the video games behind the sounds.
Well, that’s it for Issue #179 – 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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