May 14, 2006

Welcome to Issue #232 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!

Episode Three....
...of the Kennedy-Mighell Report is up, and this one is our ABA TECHSHOW Wrap-Up. Dennis and I discuss what we saw and learned at TECHSHOW, and we talk a bit about legal technology in 2006. And we promise, this is the last podcast on TECHSHOW (for a while, anyway). We'll be discussing something with an Internet feel next episode.

Marketing Links
This month's issue of Law Practice Today is all about Marketing - there are some terrific articles posted on using marketing in your practice, and increasing service to your clients. I contributed a Strongest Links article this month with a listing of the newest marketing weblogs that have popped up over the past year. Give it a look.

Blawgs of the Week
Here are a few of the great law-related weblogs featured this week on Inter Alia:

Caught in the 'Net

Google coughs up a bunch of new tools

It used to be that Google debuted a new service or feature every few weeks. It looks like they aren't doing that anymore -- instead, they're announcing a whole bunch of them all at once. Yesterday the following new stuff was unveiled:

-- Google Coop -- it's designed so that regular folks like you and me can label pages and help Google create specialized search tools. They are already creating guides on Destination Guides, Health, Autos, Computer and Video Games, and more. These vertical search tools should be really cool once they are up and running. There has already been a lot of buzz on the Health Search.

-- The new version of Google Desktop now includes some cool new gadgets. I'm not a user, but everyone I know who uses it loves the search capabilities -- just be careful of the potential privacy implications.

-- Type in two different words or phrases (say, good vs. evil) at Google Trends, and you'll see how they match up in terms of popularity.

The Google tool I'm most interested in isn't coming until next week. Stay tuned for the Google Notebook.....

Help Desk

Keeping your focus

I don't know know about you, but I *really* hate it when other programs try to take over when I'm working on my computer. You've probably had it happen before. You're working on one program, while another (perhaps a web site) is doing something else. Then without warning, that program suddenly appears in front of you, stealing your attention away from what you were doing.

I never thought this was a problem that could be fixed -- that it was just the price we as computer users had to pay for multitasking. That's why I was happy to read this article from Lifehacker on how to stop focus thieves. Just download Microsoft's TweakUI tool (a nifty, free download), and follow the directions in the article to prevent other applications from "stealing focus."

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!

Ten Minute Mentor
A number of web sites featured this site when it debuted last year, but it's still worth a mention. This is a service of the Texas Young Lawyers Association, and it's "an ongoing collection of short instructional presentations for the busy lawyer." The best description is "Concise. Practical. Free." The home page currently offers brief sessions on emergency response for lawyers, but there are many more videos in categories such as ADR, bankruptcy, ethics, family law, personal development, pre-trial procedure, wills/trust/probate, and many more.

The Corporate Library ($$)
The expert analysts here provide information in the fields of corporate governance, executive compensation, ratings analysis, takeover defenses, social networking and corporate leadership profiling. Their flagship product is Board Analyst, and can be found at www.boardanalyst.com. But here you can purchase a la carte research and company reports on dozens of subjects. Costs for reports here appear to average around $100-$150.

The LOC.gov Wise Guide
Okay, so this isn't really a research site per se; it's more like a magazine that highlights the best of the Library of Congress' online collections. For instance, now you can find information on Buddy Holly, the Trial in Iraq, Sam Houston, and May Celebrations. Very interesting reading.

The Trade Secrets Homepage
Mark Halligan is a principal in the Chicago IP firm of Welsh & Katz. He has created a great Trade Secrets Case Law Database, which is hosted by the folks at AskSam. That's enough to justify the worth of this site, but you'll also find some good links on trade secret basics, as well as articles authored by Mr. Halligan.

Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
This site is hosted by the University of Colorado-Boulder, and it contains some terrific resources on violence and violent acts. There are four major databases you can search here, which include listings of violence prevention, violence-related curricula, videos, data collection tools on violence-related topics, and other resource materials. You'll also have access to research topics and publications available (some for free, others for a reasonable fee).

What if you could share your computer problems with 85,000 other people? At the Tech Support Forums, you can share your tech support issues with experts, and others having the same problems.

Check out RadioTime to find Internet radio stations and listen to music that interests you.

Well, that’s it for Issue #232 – 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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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.