August 6, 2006

Welcome to Issue #239 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!

Create Diagrams With Ease
Here's a nifty site I stumbled upon this past week -- Gliffy will help you create diagrams of just about anything, including network schematics, floorplans, even basic shapes. It has lots of customization tools, and with that great Web 2.0 feel it's very easy to use. Collaborate with others on diagrams, and when you're done you can save it to a JPEG. And of course, it's free -- you gotta register to use it, though.

Meta-Search, Web 2.0 Style
Opsdo is an nifty new meta-search tool. Just plug in your search terms, then scroll down and select the specific sources you want to search -- you have the ability to search sites in such categories as Images, Shopping, Reference, Blogs, News, Social, Business, Technology, and More (once you use it enough, the engines you use most frequently will appear in the "Most Frequently Used" box). Your search results actually appear in separate browser windows. Opsdo uses the BittyBrowser technology to display each site in a mini-window on the same page. So it's not a true meta-search, in that it doesn't de-duplicate and blend the results from all sites.

Zoom into this directory
You may remember ZoomInfo, a people, business and relationship search engine that can be a little scary with the information you can find. Well, the folks there are putting the information they have to work in another way -- The Zoom List is a very basic web site with some great information. It calls itself "a directory of companies, products, and services," and that's exactly what it is -- just select a company category, and you'll get a page with companies in that industry, with ZoomInfo information on each company.

Web site evaluation is still important
I used to speak at seminars all the time about evaluating the quality of web site content, and I recently realized that I haven't talked about it in some time. That's why I was glad to find this Checklist for Evaluating Web Sites from the University of Wisconsin Libraries -- it's concise and easy to follow, and contains pretty much everything you need to think about when you're trying to decide if the web site you're researching is the real deal.

Collaboratory Politics
If you haven't checked out the Campaigns Wikia yet, give it a spin. The site is the newest project of the creator of the Wikipedia, and like Wikipedia it's a wiki -- which means that registered users can contribute and add to the content. There are voter guides that provide information on elections all over the world, as well as a Talk Forum where anyone can debate, regardless of your political persuasion.

Blawgs of the Week
Here are some of the law-related weblogs I mentioned on Inter Alia this past week:

Here's a nifty tip to increase your Windows knowledge -- how many of you use the Right Click/Send To feature, to send documents to an e-mail, your CD burner, or other things? It's a really powerful tool, allowing you to send files virtually anywhere with just two clicks. You can actually control this menu to copy files to the folder or location of your choice. Here's how:

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!

Caught in the 'Net

Security to Go

In my recent article on A Road Warrior's Guide to Mobile Security, I mentioned a few ways to keep safe when you absolutely, positively have to use a public computer, or a computer that doesn't belong to you. There were two products I didn't mention, however. One was Lexar's Power To Go software. It's designed specifically for the company's JumpDrive USB drives, but that's okay -- I have one and they are good products. You can try PowerToGo out for free, but it's going to cost you between $50-$90 to keep it, depending on the size of your JumpDrive.

Don't have a JumpDrive? Check out Ceedo, which works with any USB flash drive. Ceedo too offers a free 30-day trial, but the site is interestingly mum on a purchase price.

Both of these products allow you to keep all of your favorite applications (word processing, e-mail, web browser, instant messenger, etc.) and data on your USB drive, and use those applications on any computer you visit. When you disconnect the USB drive from the computer, all traces of your computer use will vanish.

Regulations.gov
We continue our weekly review of government sites with Regulations.gov, a site designed to enhance the public's availability to participate in the government's regulatory decisionmaking. You won't find current regulations here, unfortunately; you'll have to head over to the CFR for that. Here you can find those regulations which are currently up for public comment, and offer your comments on them.

Wrightslaw
Peter and Pamela Wright present this site, which provides "accurate, reliable information about special education law, education law, and advocacy for children with disabilities." You'll find thousands of articles and other resources here, on topics ranging from Advocacy to Teachers and Principals. There's an Advocacy Library, a Law Library with case law and links to relevant statutes, and a schedule of training seminars on special education law and advocacy.

Terrorism Research Center ($$)
Since 1996, the TRC has been "an independent institute dedicated to the research of terrorism, information warfare and security, critical infrastructure protection, homeland security, and other issues of low-intensity political violence and gray-area phenomena." You can read the latest news on the home page, but the meaty stuff is available only to Premium Subscribers. This includes Intel and War Reports, Advisories, Country and Group Profiles, Terrorist Attack Archives, Documents, and more. Some of the Documents are free to download, and there are several mailing lists that are open to the public.

European Environment Agency
If for any reason you are researching environmental issues in Europe, this might be one place to start. The resources here are fairly overwhelming -- you can search for such products as reports, indicators, maps/graphs, and data. Or you can browse by topics, which include agriculture, air quality, soil, water, and many more. Documents are also broken down by country, so you can narrow your search. And if you want to keep up-to-date on the latest info posted on the site, just subscribe to the site's RSS feed.

American Academy of Pain Medicine
The specialty of pain medicine stretches across several disciplines -- anesthesiology, internal medicine, neurology, neurological surgery, orthopedic surgery, physiatry, and psychiatry. Although much of this site is available to members only, the legal researcher can still find items of value here. There are several publications offered, some for free, others not. The Consumer Information and Internet Resources pages offer some great links to topics concerned with pain and pain management.

The number of online storage sites has proliferated geometrically this year -- here's a site that introduces you to 90 of them.

Remember the Falling Sand game I mentioned a few months ago? Well, Hell of Sand Falling game takes it a step further, with napalm, flames, and C4. Cool!

Well, that’s it for Issue #239 – 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.