INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
October 16, 2005
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #210 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....
Yahoo! Gets Blogs, Finally....?
Yahoo! finally unveiled its blog search feature yesterday, and the thing is -- it's hard to tell they unveiled a blog search feature. To get to it, you have to do a search on Yahoo! News Search; the blog search results appear in a box on the right. Not very intuitive, if you ask me. Once you get to the results, they seem to be pretty good -- you can add the feed to your My Yahoo! page, or get the RSS feed with just one click. But by hiding it within the News Search, Yahoo! is giving it a sort of "ugly stepchild" status that I don't think it deserves.More on Miers
If you're still looking for information on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, this page from the University of Michigan Law Library does a pretty good job of putting all of her information in one place.Disaster Recovery on Law Practice Today
This month's issue of Law Practice Today tackles a timely topic: Disaster Recovery. There are several terrific articles on that subject and more, including a Strongest Links article on Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity by yours truly and Dennis Kennedy. Check it out.Blawgs of the Week
Gee, it seems like every week I'm announcing yet another blog from the Law Professor Blogs Network. This week it's the Environmental Law Prof Blog, which is presented by Susan L. Smith of Willamette University College of Law. Gary Howell's Texas Estate Planning and Probate Law blog provides information on the area of law, which "can be a minefield for anyone armed with a 'little knowledge.' He's practicing at Hirsch & Westheimer, P.C. in Houston. Legal marketing guru Larry Bodine recognizes that associates in law firms are often neglected in terms of training on marketing their practices. That's why he's created Associate Marketing Mentor, which he hopes will help associates become rainmakers, partners, and entrepreneurs. There's a Biglaw Associate out there who is disgruntled in his big law firm -- follow him as he prepares to leave his firm. I love the dynamic potential of group weblogs. And you can't get much more of a dynamic than with a group of law professors. Let's hope that's what happens at the University of Chicago Faculty Law Blog, featuring the essays, thoughts, and discussions of at least seven law professors. Here's a new Indiana blog from attorney Jeff Powless -- the Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Forum provides "resources for holding nursing homes accountable." Sheppard Mullin has another great practice-area-specific blog: the Real Estate and Construction Law Blog features up-to-date information on real estate, construction, environmental and land use law.
Caught in the 'Net
Developments in Local Search
I have mentioned here several times that local search (the ability to search for things in a specific locality) is very hot, and this past week both Google and Yahoo! made announcements about their respective local search tools:
Hard to pronounce, easy to use
Search engines have evolved significantly over the past year, to the point where you can now run a search at Google or Yahoo!, and generate an RSS feed for that particular search. In fact, there are a lot of sites that will generate RSS feeds for your search. But what a pain it is to go to each site to run your search and get an RSS feed.
Let Tara Calishain and her fabulous new Kebberfegg tool do all the heavy lifting for you. Just enter your search query, and choose a category of RSS feeds you'd like to search (you can choose multiple categories). Kebberfegg (it's a mushed up word for "Keyword-based RSS feed Generator") will provide you with a list of feeds for that search -- you can see it in HTML, or get the list as an OPML file that you can easily import into your newsreader.
Seriously cool tool.
We're up to Part 4 of a 5-part series on "de-gunking your PC," tips and tricks to help you clean your hard drive of junk that doesn't need to be there.
Tip #4: Use Disk Cleanup and Defragment Tools. I use WebRoot's Window Washer to keep my computer clean, and it's terrific. It removes all junk, temporary, and unnecessary files with the click of a button. But if you don't want to buy something, you can use your own Windows Disk Cleanup tool -- just select Start, then All Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, then Disk Cleanup. The program will determine what it can remove, and provide you with a list of categories from which you can choose.
After you have cleaned up your disk, you'll need to defragment your hard drive. As you delete files on your computer, it creates free space holes on your drive, which Windows uses to fill with parts of new files. As these files are fragmented, they are harder to use. Windows has its own defrag program, in the same System Tools menu as the Disk Cleanup tool. If you're looking for something a little more powerful, check out PerfectDisk from Raxco -- it's a great program.
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
Cyburbia
Cyburbia is the Urban Planning Portal, with lots of resources to satisfy the urban planner within you. The major part of this site is the Forum area, where you can find discussions on zoning, economic and community development, space planning, and more. The Resource Directory also appears to be a great....well, resource; it currently boasts over 1,900 links on urban planning issues. For the particularly geeky among you, there's also a PlanningWiki for factual knowledge and independent research about urban planning.Divorce Lawyer Source
This site is probably geared more toward consumers, but lawyers will likely find useful information here as well. The map on the front page helps you to find a divorce lawyer just by clicking on a state. In the side bar are three resource areas -- Law, Custody, and Family -- that provide more in-depth information about those subjects. There's also a Resources pages with links to other family law web sites.Earthquakes in the Last Week
Here's a particularly timely site, given the recent events in Pakistan. This page also makes use of the terrific Google Maps technology, to show you the location, date, and severity of earthquakes in the past week. Just click on the link and you'll be taken to a page at the U.S. Geological Survey that provides more information. There's even a link to let them know if you happened to feel that particular earthquake.Employee Benefits Security Administration
I love the Department of Labor web site -- there are so many sub-sites that could function as fully-independent resources, and this is one of them. This is the portal for government regulations on employee benefits security. There are links to resources on employers, service providers, fiduciaries, and plan sponsors, as well as workers, participants and beneficiaries. You can get instant access to proposed and final rules promulgated by the Department of Labor, and compliance assistance for employers big and small.ESRI/FEMA Hazard Awareness Site
ESRI is a manufacturer of GPS and mapping software, and it's working with FEMA to help "build disaster-resistant communities." You can create your own online hazard map, to see how particular natural disasters have affected certain geographic areas. Just pick the city, and whether you want to see flood hazard areas, recent and historic earthquakes, hail storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, or windstorms. You'll also find lots of helpful external links on hazard information on the left menu bar.
Finally, a few fun and useful sites to begin your week:
The bird flu is dominating the news lately -- download this Flu Tracker from Tamiflu to your desktop, and you'll get notified as soon as the flu appears in your area.
It's not too early to start thinking about your Halloween decorations, and there's no better place to start than Pumpkin Carving 101, with lots of helpful hints and tips for getting that jack-o-lantern perfect.
Well, that’s it for Issue #210 – 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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