INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
October 9, 2005
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #209 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....
Blawg Review #26
This week I had the pleasure of hosting Blawg Review, a weekly review of what's being said on law-related blawgs around the 'Net. Being that October 3 was the "First Monday in October," my version of the Blawg Review had a decidedly Supreme theme. Check it out.Supreme Court Resource in beta
Just in time for the opening of the Supreme Court term, the folks at Justia, in conjunction with Oyez and US Court Firms, have unveiled the U.S. Supreme Court Center. At the top of the page you'll be able to search all U.S. Supreme Court opinions up through the 2004 term -- it's blazing fast. The site also includes links to Supreme Court or Constitutional law-related weblogs, and other Supreme Court resources. I think this is going to be a terrific resource for Supreme Court researchers.Map out your zip code
Here's yet another application making use of Google Maps. Just fill in your zip code at this site and you'll get a Google Map outlining the geographical area of the zip. Or you can just click on the map, and get the zip code for that area.In-Depth Site Search
Really want to see all of the pages on a particular domain? Yahoo! Site Explorer is really more for webmasters, but there's no reason we can't use it, too. Just plug in a URL, and you'll get a listing of all the pages for that domain that currently exist in Yahoo's index. Click one button (Inlinks) and you'll get a listing of all the other sites that link to that URL.Blawgs of the Week
As usual, some interested law-related blogs to discuss this week. First up, BloggingBroadband.com is the blog of attorney Jon Kreucher, where he's talking about issues of interest to cable and broadband regulators. J. Kevin Morton is a lawyer in Winston-Salem, North Carolina who has been practicing in the area of disability law for twenty years. He's now providing news and information about long-term disability claims and appeals at the LTD Benefits Blog. Here's another lexBlog-created blog -- this one is the Pennsylvania Health Law Blog, featuring laws and news that directly affect the delivery of healthcare in Pennsylvania. It's brought to you by the firm of McNees Wallace & Nurick, LLC. Jack Bogdanski is a tax law professor at Lewis & Clark, and he's blogging, not necessarily in a law-related way, at Jack Bog's Blog. The Brown Water Blawg is the blogchild of Kentucky lawyer Michael Odell Walker. He's providing information and news regarding admiralty and maritime law from an inland waterways, or "brown water" perspective. Cory Hojka is systems engineer now studying as a law student at the University of Chicago, and his new CopyBites blog will cover summaries of cases and articles on copyright, regardless of what they may advocate. Finally, Jennifer Campbell is VP/CEO of Integrity Marketing Solutions, which provides legal marketing services. She's blogging about it at the Law Firm Marketing and Practice Development Blog.
Caught in the 'Net
Two Interesting New Search Tools
The Between Lawyers gang was discussing search tools a few weeks ago, and we all agreed that what we really want is a "roll your own" type search engine, that allows us to create a search tool that focuses on specific web sites. Well, ask and ye shall receive. I've been looking at two tools lately that bring us pretty close.
The first is Rollyo, which allows you to create search engines using only the sources you trust. You can use up to 25 sites, but you can create any number of custom "SearchRolls." Gary Price has more on this at Roll Your Own Search Engine with Rollyo, and my good friend Dennis Kennedy has also been trying this out -- you can see his comments here.
Another, pricier offering is Watson 2.0, from Intellext. It's a little bit like using the Google Deskbar, but better, because you don't have those pesky privacy issues. Just open any page in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Internet Explorer, or Firefox, and Watson will determine the context of the information, and deliver relevant results from the Web. And it will search any site -- so here too you can create your own specialized search engine. The downside here is the price -- it's a subscription service, $9.95/month or $99/year. I'm not likely to use a product like that unless I can pay a flat one-time fee. Still, it's a pretty cool search tool. Read more about it at Move Over, Google Sidebar.
We're at the midway point of my five-part series on "Degunking Your PC," ways to clean up all the junk that's hanging out on your computer. This week is more of a reminder than anything else.
Tip #3: Get Rid of Spyware and Adware. Hopefully I've hammered this home with all of you enough, but it always bears repeating: adware and spyware will mess up your system. Seriously. Make sure you're using at least one, but preferably two or three, anti-spyware applications. And keep the spyware definitions updated, to provide continuous protection. If you can spring for it, try WebRoot's SpySweeper -- I think it's the best out there. Microsoft's Anti-Spyware tool is pretty good too, because it automatically updates it self and provides real-time protection (SpySweeper does, too). Ad-Aware and SpyBot are also good tools.
Here's another way to avoid spyware: use the Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer -- it just doesn't attract spyware the way IE does.
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
Amedeo
Dubbed "The Medical Literature Guide," Amedeo's main business is in providing weekly e-mails with bibliographic lists about new scientific publications. Just select a topic (25 general subjects in all, from Infectious Diseases to Substance Abuse), select the medical journals you want to include, and you'll receive a weekly e-mail with new publications in those journals, on that specific topic. The site also provides personal pages for one-time downloads of available abstracts, as well as an overview of medical literature published in medical journals over the past 1-2 years. Best of all, it's free.Arkansas Crime Information Center
The ACIC provides information technology services to law enforcement agencies and other criminal justice organizations in Arkansas. Researchers will find a number of good resources here -- there's a Sex Offender Registry, and a place to search for Missing Persons and criminal justice officials. Crime statistic reports are also available back to 1998, and there's a Victim's Guide with lots of helpful information.Can We Tape?
A site provided by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, it's billed as "A Practical Guide to Taping Phone Calls and In-Person Conversations in the 50 States and D.C." You'll find a state-by-state guide to the law on recording conversations, either one at a time, or in a helpful chart. The site also features useful information on consent, interstate phone calls, possession and publication, and more. A nice, simple niche site.Chambers and Partners
Looking for a business lawyer? You might start here, at this directory published by Chambers and Partners, legal publishers and recruitment consultants. You can search by firm or attorney, or you can browse by state. Once you select a state, you'll see a listing of the areas of law available in that state -- one more click and you'll get a listing of business lawyers that practice in that area, along with C and P's rating and commentary.Canadian Commercial Arbitration Act
From the Canadian Department of Justice, you'll find the complete text here of the Canadian Commercial Arbitration Act, complete with hyperlinks. That's all you'll find here -- but then again, that's all you were expecting, right?
Finally, some fun and useful sites to get you going this week:
Can't get that last word of the crossword? Or maybe the last ten words? One Across will help -- it will even analyze the clue for you.
If you happen to find yourself driving across country and want to save on the high cost of case, use AAA's Fuel Cost Calculator to calculate the estimated cost of your trip.
Well, that’s it for Issue #209 – 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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