INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
June 5, 2005
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #193 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....
Getting in the right Mindset
Yahoo! has introduced a new twist on its search services -- this one is called Mindset, and it's designed to help sort your results based upon whether you're looking for more commercial or informational-type sites. It does this by means of a slider, which re-sorts your search results as you move the slider from "shopping" to "researching." There's more on the new service here. I don't think the slider bar is particularly useful, and I just don't think most researchers will use it. I think it's also because I don't completely understand how it works. I prefer a site like Clusty to refine or better organize my search.Blawgs of the Week
Lots of new, fun law-related blogs to talk about this week. First, Cathy Kirkman is a lawyer at Wilson Sonsini, and she has a great new lexBlog blog, the Silicon Valley Media Law Blog. Day on Torts is also a new lexBlog blog published by John Day, a personal injury lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee. LawyerNews claims, a la the New York Times, to have "Everything That Is Fit To Print." There are links to the state bar associations on the home page, too. Tejas Bhatt has moved his Three Generations blawg to the new A Public Defender, where he's still blogging about "protecting the right to effective assistance of counsel." Hearsay features "a law student's view of life, the universe, and everything." I'd say she has enough to talk about. Lots of moving around in the blawgosphere. The Connecticut Law Blog is the new blog of the folks who brought you Kirby's Reports and Three Generations. But I thought that Three Generations was now A Public Defender.....? Finally, Technology and IP Business is the blog of David Jacobson, an Australian commercial lawyer who left the practice after 27 years to concentrate on consulting, and "making technology and intellectual property work for you (lawfully)."
We're up to #6 on the list of "Things to Do Before Calling Tech Support:"
Number 6: Narrow Down the Problem. Can you isolate specific times when the problem happens? Maybe it only happens when you open certain programs, or maybe it happens all the time. If you're having a problem with Word or WordPerfect, open up Notepad and see if the you're having the same problem. If you can observe the situations that lead to the particular problem, you'll make it much easier to ultimately diagnose the problem.
Next week: Know Yourself, Know Your System.
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
SquareTrade
SquareTrade is an alternative dispute resolution site of another flavor -- it's devoted to resolving disputes between online sellers and purchasers, primarily of eBay and several other sites. If you feel that you have gotten the raw end of a deal, just sign up here. The mediation process takes place entirely online, and the cost depends on the site involved; the prices range from $20 to $100, also depending on the value of the property in question. You've got to believe that a site like eBay has lots of disputes between sellers and buyers -- this seems like a nice way to get those disputes resolved.Findory
I'm sure I have mentioned Findory before -- it's a great new search engine for the news, and they are doing some interesting things there. The idea behind Findory's Personalization Technology is that the more links you click on, the more personalized Findory becomes for you. As you click on articles, they will appear as "Recent Sources" on the right-hand menu. Additionally, each article you click on will be saved in your reading history, for future reference. Perform a news or blog search and have the results sent to you in an RSS feed or by e-mail.Foreign Trade Statistics
An internal page at the U.S. Census Bureau is devoted to Foreign Trade Statistics, and they certainly have a quite a bit of statistics to offer. The main page features news headlines and links to new reports and other information, but the best stuff can be found behind the links at the top -- Reference, Regulations, and Statistics. You'll find codes, foreign trade guides, export forms, federal register notices, and of course statistics.Mergerstat ($$)
Mergerstat primarily serves the corporate financial workplace, providing information on mergers and acquisitions. The company partners with several online "channels," including Alacra, FactSet, and LexisNexis; you can purchase information from these services on a per-download basis, or for a yearly subscription of (gulp) $18,000. If you don't want the full monty, you can select from the a la carte menu, which offers information on Comparables, Trend Analysis, Prospecting, and Pitch Book Data. You can also see past deals, news stories, publications, and newsletters, all for a fee. The only thing you can get for free on this site is the set of market trend reports -- but you still have to register to see them.Bad Check Laws
Attention, bad check writers: you can now see the civil and criminal penalties by state for NSF checks, at the Bad Check Laws page of the National Credit Systems site.North Dakota Sex Offenders
Every now and then I'll feature a site that will only appeal to a small subset of the legal research community. The North Dakota Sex Offender Web Site is one of those sites. Just plug in a name, city, county, or other identifying information, and you'll receive information on the offender's current whereabouts, as well as the crimes of which he/she was convicted. North Dakota must not have many sexual offenders -- I was only able to find 2 named Smith, and 1 named Jones. Interesting.
Finally, some fun and useful sites to start your week.
Sometimes it's tough to find that small part that breaks on one of your appliances. No more - the PartStore will deliver that hard-to-find part.
Get lost (for a few hours) in the word and other games featured at Play With Your Mind.
Well, that’s it for Issue #193 – 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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