INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
January 30, 2005
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #180 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....
E-Mail by Subscription
Microsoft is hoping to fill what it thinks is a niche in the e-mailing market: Outlook by subscription. For $59/year, Hotmail users get an e-mail account with 2GB storage, and the ability to send attachments up to 20MB. It's designed for the Hotmail "power users," those that don't have Outlook on their PCs but want a little bit more from their e-mail program. It also comes with anti-virus and anti-spam protection.More words -- a good thing
Since its inception, Google has had a 10-word limit for searches. For most people, this isn't a problem, but it can be annoying if you are trying to search for a quote or something with, well, a lot of words. So it was great to hear that Google is extending its word limit....to 32 words. 32?Track your congressman via RSS
GovTrack.us does a couple of things. First, you'll be able to track federal legislation, as well as just about anything happening on Capitol Hill, and you can set up an RSS feed to monitor your searches. You can also track what other people think of legislation and other government matters, by monitoring the entries of bloggers. A great use of weblog and RSS technology to help individuals in their legal research.Yahoo! Brings back the Ticker
Those of you who read blogs no doubt remember the PointCast network, one of the first to introduce "push" technology to Internet users. You'll probably recognize that RSS feeds are just the latest form of push technology, and to my way of thinking it has a lot more staying power. PointCast streamed information to your desktop via a ticker that you could customize. Now Yahoo! wants to resurrect the ticker, and has debuted the free My Yahoo! Ticker for you to download. It resides on your Taskbar, and from there you can view the latest news, over 250,000 RSS feeds, or search Yahoo from within the ticker. I'm tempted, but the real estate on my Taskbar is already scarce.Google Now in Video
Google has caught up with Yahoo! again, debuting its Google Video Search yesterday. When you enter your search terms, Google queries the closed captioning text of the programs in its archive for a relevant match. It doesn't look like video is available yet -- just screenshots. And it's only indexing a limited number of channels right now, but expects to add a lot more content over the next year.Be a better Googler
Mary Ellen Bates is always a great source of tips on searching the Internet, and her January tip is no exception: Googling Better has a few Googlish tips you might not have used before.The Power of the Revealed Code
I occasionally get e-mail from readers who lament that when I offer word processing tips, I only discuss Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, it's the only wp program I use -- I haven't used WordPerfect for years. So I'm very happy to see my friend Jim Calloway is all over this WordPerfect stuff at the Law Practice Tips Blog. Check out his posts on A WordPerfect Lawyer in a Word World, The WordPerfect Lawyer -- Sharing Your Documents, and Advanced WordPerfect Macros. Great stuff, even if I don't understand it all...Blawgs of the Week
Here are the latest in new law-related weblogs found on the Web: Automatic Say is the blog of DRI, a Texas attorney who is writing about bankruptcy law, legal issues and politics, with a focus on the Fifth Circuit and Texas law. Dave Shukan hosts and writes Superfluity, "a collection of mostly IP legal items" and other news of interest. The Law Librarian Blog is yet another blog from the Law Professor Blogs Network, and it's written by Joe Hodnicki, the Web Services Coordinator of the University of Cincinnati Law Library. that lawyer dude is really Anthony Colleluori, a Long Island trial lawyer who wants to provide a "family friendly site where kids and their parents can come to learn about the Law, Government, and the Judicial System." Diane Pfadenhauer is an employment lawyer as well as a Human Resources professional, and she's talking about it at Strategic HR Lawyer, a blog "combining strategic human resources management and employment law."
Caught in the Net -- E-Mail
Why don't lawyers encrypt?
Wired Magazine had a story this past week called Safe E-Mailing for Dummies, which discussed a new, easy-to-use encryption program called Ciphire. The article's premise, however, doesn't really match with the need for an encryption product; it says that "E-mail authentication -- confirmation that the stated sender actually sent the message in question -- could make many e-mail hassles fade away, since most scams and computer viruses rely on bogus sender information to lull recipients into a false sense of security." True, but for encryption software to work, the folks that I'm communicating with need to be using the same software; I seriously doubt I'm going to be able to convince my bank or credit card company to start using my encryption software. (If you want your e-mail to be able to help block phishing scams, you'll have to try the new Eudora application, or Mozilla Thunderbird.)In the 2003 ABA Technology Survey, only 14 percent of lawyers indicated that they used encryption in their e-mail communications. Why is that? I suspect there are 2 reasons: 1) it's just another extra step to follow when sending an e-mail; and 2) it's not required. The new Ciphire product is designed to make encryption a transparent process, so that might lure more attorneys to encrypt their e-mail.
Spam-Fighting in 2005
An IT director for a law firm said to me a few weeks ago, "spam is here to stay." My immediate reaction was "duh!" but then I realized the truth within those words. Despite the best efforts of anti-spam software makers and anti-spam laws, spam is a problem we must make manageable, a little like a chronic illness.Tom Spring at PC World helps in that regard with Spam Fighting Tips for the New Year. He has lots of great suggestions, many of which I'll be discussing in the session "E-Mail Emancipation" at ABA TECHSHOW.
The various components of the Microsoft Office suite are all designed to work together -- that means you can insert Word or Excel documents into your Powerpoint presentation. Let's see how to place a Word document into a Powerpoint slide.
In your PPT file, select Insert from the top menu and then Object. In the scroll box, find Microsoft Word Document; highlight it and select "Create from File" on the left. Click Browse to find the document you'd like to insert, and click OK. Click OK again. The document is inserted into your slide.
To embed the document, click anywhere on the empty space of the slide. If you need to edit it, right-click on the document and then click Document Object, and then Edit.
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
NWISWeb Data for the Nation
Although the title isn't very informative, the site sure is -- it provides access to water resources data collected at 1.5 million sites in all fifty states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. You can search for information by Surface Water, Ground Water, and Water Quality, as well as Real-Time data for selected sites. Each category allows you to customize your search by the type of information sought, as well as the geographic region. There is more water information here than you can shake a dowsing stick at -- check it out.Injuryboard.com Firm Directory
Looking for a personal injury lawyer in another state? This page is a simple directory of states, with links to firms and lawyers who practice personal injury law. The main Injuryboard web site "provides the general public with easily accessible legal and medical material in an effort to help consumers better understand any injury or medical condition that has negatively impacted their lives."Public Pioneer
Public Pioneer is Utah's Online Library, and it includes links to some great resources -- if you're a member. From the home page you can access premium databases with magazines, Utah newspapers, academic journals, motor vehicle repair/maintenance, business/financial data, health & medicine information, and more. If you dig a little deeper you'll find there are free links to some of these resources, and you can access the card catalogs of just about any Utah library for free as well. The Utah on the Web page contains a great set of links to the Beehive State.Ojose
Ojose stands for Online Journals Search Engine, and this is one busy-looking site. Ojose allows you to search over 60 scientific databases using only one search field -- this translates to hundreds of thousands of journal articles and publications. Just type in your query, select the source, and you're off. I wish there was an option to search in more than one database at a time -- that would make this site even more useful.SICE Foreign Trade Information System
SICE is the information technology arm of the Trade Unit of the Organization of American States, and the goal of this site is to provide the most complete information and documents on trade in the western hemisphere. You'll find documents in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. The main page has areas for learning about the Free Trade of the Americas process, trade agreements between the various member countries, and links to the Office for Trade, Growth, and Competitiveness. You'll also find links to such trade issues as Anti-Dumping, Competition, Dispute Settlement, Investment, and much more.
Finally, some fun and useful sites to begin your week:
Sometimes it's nice to know that you have a tech support person available to you 24/7 -- but that could get expensive. That's why you should check out Juvio, which (in addition to nutrition and personal care products....hmmm) will provide computer assistance to you for as little as $34.95 a month.
Remember Breakout? The Plastic Martians may look familiar, but with a circular theme.
Well, that’s it for Issue #180 – 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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