INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
December 11, 2005
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #216 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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News Update

Searching Inside the Book
I have not had a chance to mention Google's new Book Search, but it's up and running, despite lawsuits and grumbling from publishers about copyright. You can search for a specific book, or just a particular topic. Once you find a book, you can search within the book, or browse from page to page. For books that are still copyrighted, Google Book Search prevents you from viewing the full text.

The Best of Law Practice Today
The latest issue of Law Practice Today is up, and it's a year-end round-up of some of the best articles written during the past year. I was pleased to participate in the Law Practice Today Roundtable: Looking Back and Looking Forward; we wrote that column using the new Web 2.0 tool Writely -- it's a terrific way to collaborate on documents online. Dennis and I also polished off our Strongest Links: Ethics column from earlier in the year, and added in some new, interesting ethics sites. Give it a look.

Blawgs of the Week
Here's another crop of law-related blogs for you to peruse. First up: William L. Wilson is a family lawyer at Anderson, Agostino & Keller, an Indiana law firm, and as you might guess he’s blogging about Indiana Family Law. Out of the Jungle presents "thoughts on the present and future of legal information, legal research, and legal education," from several law librarians, including Jim Milles, B.J. Kaufman, Betsy McKenzie, and Linda Ryan. Brian Leiter, whose Leiter Reports has been around for a while, is now also part of the Law Professor Blogs Network, with his Leiter's Law School Reports. Gavin Whenman is a law student in the United Kingdom, where he's writing his appropriately-titled diary of a uk law student. The Bank Lawyer's Blog grew up right in my own backyard here -- in Plano, Texas, to be exact. It's the product of Kevin Funnell, and of course he's talking about banking and financial institution law there. Facundo M. Lorenzo is an attorney in La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and he's blogging at Concursos y Quiebras, which translates at Google as "Aids and Bankruptcies." Another day, another foreign language blog. This one is Plevsi Actualité Juridique du Droit Maritime, a french-language blog dealing with maritime law and the law of the seas.

Caught in the 'Net

Web 2.0 Mania

The Web has gone crazy with a new concept called "Web 2.0." (). I wrote a brief description (PDF File) of the technology in the December issue of the Texas Bar Journal. And this week I featured a number of Web 2.0 sites that will make your online experience more productive. They include:

  • BlinkList is a social bookmarking site that lets you do a few different things. You can save and tag your own favorite bookmarks, search the bookmarks of other BlinkList users, or even search the Web (via Google) for other sites. If you find a tag or a bookmark list you like, you can sign up for that list's RSS feed.
  • Riffs allows you to post your recommendations on just about anything under the sun -- books, movies, sports, people, cars, software -- you name it, you can probably riff on it. Each item is in effect its own wiki that can be edited by anyone. You can tag recommendations, chat with others, e-mail items, and more. There's so much going on here, it can be overwhelming. But I definitely like the feel of the interface.
  • Num Sum is a free spreadsheet application. You can create your own spreadsheet that can be shared with and edited by others, or search for spreadsheets created by other users (although I have no idea why you'd want to do that). The free account allows you to access your spreadsheet from anywhere, add spreadsheets to your weblog, and store them for free. Caution: these spreadsheets don't all the advanced features you may have come to expect from Excel; it's just a basic spreadsheet application.
  • And just this week, JotSpot introduced its new JotSpot Tracker, a place where you can paste your Excel spreadsheets into an interactive web page. I've taken a quick look at it, and it looks interesting -- it doesn't have any calculation features, so it's really designed just to display information. Still, it's a good collaboration tool.
  • Kiko is a simple, easy-to-use online calendar. Create appointments, and move them around just by dragging and dropping. Invite others to view the calendar as well.

Help Desk

Want to add extra security to your wireless network? Then enable Media Access Control (or MAC) filtering. All wireless devices have unique MAC addresses; filtering tells your network's access point to grant access only to MAC addresses you enter.

To find your computer's MAC address, click Start, then Run, type in CMD, then OK. At the prompt, type IPCONFIG /ALL and press Enter. Scroll down and look for "Physical Address." It will be six pairs of numbers, like 24-33-53-11-00-00. Enter this address in your router's management program.

This won't keep determined hackers out, but it might discourage them enough to make them go elsewhere.

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

The Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution is a "private nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and innovative policy solutions." Designed primarily for policymakers and media, there are nevertheless some good resources here for the legal researcher. On the left-hand menu you'll find access to a number of research topics, including Business, Cities and Suburbs, Defense, Economics, Education, Environment, Science and Technology, Social Policy, and more. And we're just getting started -- on the right-hand menu you'll find links to four study programs: Economics, Foreign Policy, Governance, and Metropolitan. Lots of great information here.

The IP Mall
From the Pierce Law Center, the IP Mall's goal is "Training Intellectual Property, Commerce, & Technology Professionals with Skills to Meet Marketplace Needs." Look for the best resources under the IP Mall Resources link along the menu bar. They include links from Pierce Law Center, executive and administrative sites from the U.S. government, and IP legislative history information. You'll also see the IP News Blog (http://ipnewsblog.com/), which is updated on a regular basis.

A Crash Course in Copyright
There can never be too many IP resources in this newsletter, so let's visit one more. This site is provided by the University of Texas System, and it's designed for faculty and students -- but anyone can use it. The page provides a set of links to basic information on Fair Use, copyright management, how to find out who owns what, and more. This is a great little resource with helpful information.

U.S. Department of Education
Again, a site you should already know about, but I like to re-visit these sites occasionally to point out new or interesting features. There are a number of ways to find information here, the easiest being the "Quick Click" topics in the upper left. I expect most of you would spend your time in the Information Centers, which can be accessed on the right-hand menu. The Research and Statistics and Policy (Legislation and Regulations) centers are likely to be most helpful to you. There's also a link to Performance Reports, which show how the schools are performing under various laws such as No Child Left Behind.

Ujiko
Here's a search engine I bet you haven't seen. Ujiko is a search tool that seems a bit more like a game than search engine. The interface looks a little like a jukebox or game board -- once you enter a search, the results appear in a circle. Float your mouse over each result, and you'll see a preview in the middle. Ujiko claims that each time you visit a new site, you gain "one point of expertise" (whatever that means). With every 10 points, you "move to the next level." You gain access to different types of searches, as well as ways to customize the look and feel of the search engine. Interesting.

Finally, a few fun and useful sites to begin your week:

Working to winterize/proof your house? Maybe you can find some tips at BobVila.com, "the ultimate home site."

There's a whole stocking-full of holiday games to play at Shockwave's Winter Fun-derland.

Well, that’s it for Issue #217 – 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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