April 2, 2006

Welcome to Issue #228 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!

Blawgs of the Week
Here are some of the better law-related blogs I featured this week on Inter Alia:

My Quest for Online Backup

I've been thinking a lot lately about backing up my computer data. I currently have one backup system at home: it's a Maxtor One-Touch 120GB drive. It does a great job of keeping my computer files, just in case my PC goes down. But I read in a recent crime watch report for my neighborhood that someone's house was robbed, and both the computer and backup hard drive were stolen. What good's a backup if you can lose that, too? So I decided on a backup for my backup, and started searching for an online solution.

Here was my criteria:

1. Space -- I want to use backup just to store my personal files -- documents, presentations, photos, and maybe software that I don't have on CD. So I went looking for a solution that provided between 5GB and 10GB of space.

2. Automatic, incremental backup -- I don't want to have to constantly upload new files to this service; I want it to regularly search my computer for the latest files, and automatically upload them to my offline storage.

3. Cost -- although I'm willing to pay something for online backup, I don't want to pay a lot -- free is also good.

With these parameters in mind, I set off to look for some online storage providers. I realize there are a TON of these providers, and I no doubt missed several; these are some of the services I researched.

I first checked out some of the best Web 2.0 online storage sites as mentioned by Dion Hinchcliffe. The site Openomy won his prize for best online storage -- I immediately crossed this one off my list because it only offers 1GB of storage. Omnidrive may be a good service, but the beta testing has apparently not launched yet. AllMyData has an interesting twist, called "grid storage" -- if you share 10GB on your computer, you receive 1GB of storage free. There are plans to offer 10GB through 1 Terabyte of storage very inexpensively, but these services are not available yet.

The other service recommended by Hinchcliffe is XDrive, which basically met all my criteria: plenty of storage, automatic backup, and a reasonable price -- $9.95/month. However, I had nothing but trouble with the service -- it would not upload all my files successfully, and only one of my three e-mails to customer service were answered. Not impressed.

So I turned to services like Streamload () and Box.net. Both services offered a lot of online space (Box.net up to 5GB for $4.99/month, Streamload 10GB for free). Unfortunately, neither service has an automatic backup feature -- I'd have to do all the heavy lifting myself. I was really tempted when Streamload increased their free storage to 25GB, but the lack of an automatic backup was a deal breaker for me.

That's how I wound up with Mozy . You can get 2GB of storage for free, after answering a brief survey, and Mozy has a great incremental backup program. This week Mozy clinched it by offering new plans, up to 20GB for $40/year. I chose the 10GB plan for $30/year, and I love it.

A quick word about security: all of these services offer what appear to be very secure products, but make sure you do the research to satisfy yourself that your data will be safe. And don't think about backing up your confidential work files with these services; there are better, more secure choices out there for you. These services are best suited to use with your home PC.

We're spring cleaning here at the ILRW, and this week we are running our standard Windows Maintenance Programs. Windows actually has several utilities that can help your PC to run smoothly. If you're using XP, the easiest way to get to these programs is to go to your Start menu, then All Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools. You'll see, among other things, the Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter tools. We talked about disk cleanup a little last week, and this Disk Cleanup utility does a respectable job of ridding your computer of unwanted files.

Defragmenting your hard drive is something you can do to help your computer run more efficiently. As you open and close programs, those programs become fragmented, and your PC has to work harder to find all the individual clusters of those programs. A Defragmenter puts all of the pieces together again. When you "defrag" your hard drive, it's a good idea to shut down all running programs and leave your computer alone for awhile -- the program works better if it can work without interruption. If you want to try a different defragmenter than the Windows version, check out PerfectDisk -- it's $40, I've been using it for a while, and I think it works great.

Department of the Interior
I'm still making my way through various departments of the federal government, and Interior's next on the list. The DOI is the nation's principal conservation agency, and you'll find lots of conservation-related resources here. You can search some of the initiatives started by DOI including healthy forests, Water 2025, and Cooperative Conservation, or check out some of the sub-agencies of the Department; these include the National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and more

U.S. Business Reporter ($$)
This site calls itself "The Digital Research Tool of Business," and it's very businesslike in its appearance. The research categories include Corporate, Financial, Industry, Retail, Market, Investment, Economic, Business Law, and Business Statistics. Unfortunately, I can't tell you whether the site's any good, because all of the content is available only to subscribers. I think it's a mistake not to have any free content; how else will potential subscribers know whether the paid stuff is worth the cost? Anyway, if you're interested in subscribing, it's $99.95/year.

United Nations Environment Programme
The United Nations' environmental branch aims to inspire, inform, and enable nations and people to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. Here you'll find resources for Governments, Scientists, Journalists, Business Persons, Civil Society, and Kids. There are also separate sections devoted to various topics such as biodiversity, sustainable consumption, poverty and the environment, and more. Lots of environmental resources here.

American University Washington College of Law
WCL is located in Washington, D.C., and although the site is primarily for students, faculty, and alumni, there are still a few things of interest for the legal researcher. The Topics area contains pointers to many of WCL's programs, along with publications and links to useful sites. And the law school is really getting in the podcasting groove, and offers recordings of speeches given at conferences and other events.

Alzheimer's Association
Here's a terrific resource for learning more about this horrible disease. Of course you'll find information on the illness, its cause, diagnosis, and treatment, but there's also a great Resources section that contains messages boards and topics sheets, as well as areas for research, services, and advocacy.

When I write an article, sometimes I lose track of how many times I use a certain word. To prevent word abuse, sometimes I use WordCounter, which shows me the word frequency in any body of text.

Hear a song on the radio you like, but don't know what it is? Try Music On Command - all you do is call in (or visit the web site), and they'll tell you the name of the song you just heard, and e-mail you purchase information.

Well, that’s it for Issue #227 – 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.

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