December 24, 2006

Welcome to Issue #253 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!

Jazz Up your Spreadsheets
Occasionally, attorneys have to use spreadsheets in their work. And occasionally, they'll have to show those spreadsheets to a jury. Showing a boring list of rows and columns is unlikely to create the WOW factor your case needs -- fortunately, that's where CX Now! comes in. Just import your spreadsheet into this program, then customize it by turning the data into bar graphs, pie charts, and other visual layouts. When you're done, you can export the file directly into Powerpoint, to show to a jury, arbitration panel, or at your next partner meeting. Best of all, it's free.

Remote Printing Made Easy
PrinterAnywhere is an interesting application -- it allows you to safely print documents on any printer, anywhere in the world -- or to have documents printed on your computer from anywhere in the world. It's a free download, but both you and the owner of the other printer has to have the software installed. Once you're both up and running, you can easily print a file to the other's printer with just a few clicks. According to the site, the print jobs are encrypted, so PrinterAnywhere is safe to use.

Photoshop for the Frugal
Adobe Photoshop is a great tool for working with images. But let's face it -- the program is darned expensive, and sometimes us lawyers don't really need all those fancy bells and whistles. Instead, check out Paint.net, which handles many of the basic Photoshop functions, as well as a bunch of the advanced ones. And you certainly can't argue with the price -- free. Give this tool a try when you're working with images in your practice.

Search for Safe Sites
Scandoo is a cool search utility. It looks just like any other meta-search engine -- there's a place to enter your search terms, and you can choose to search in Google, Yahoo, or MSN. The difference is that Scandoo is scanning all of your search results in real time, to see if there's anything malicious about the sites. So off to the left of each result you'll see an icon indicating the safety level of that site. Just hover your mouse over each icon for more information. This is a great tool for checking sites prior to allowing your kids to surf them.

The Strongest Links Looks Back
The theme of this month's edition of Law Practice Today is "2006 Year in Review," and you'll find a great selection of law practice management articles there, on topics such as billing, optimizing practice leader performance, developing a marketing budget, the top ten causes of malpractice, and more. Dennis Kennedy and I decided to take a look back at our Strongest Links columns from the past year and create a "Best of" column with the strongest strongest links we found all year -- so if you missed a previous column, now you have a chance to make up for it. Check out The Strongest Links -- A Look Back at 2006.

Blawgs of the Week
Here's a selection of some of the great law-related blogs I featured the past two weeks at Inter Alia:

You're working in Word, and you type "1." and a sentence. When you hit Enter, Word start automatic numbering, and inserts a "2." for you. Helpful, right? Not if you didn't want to start a list, it isn't. Here's how to make Word less helpful in this regard.

In Word, go to Tools, then select AutoCorrect Options. Click on the AutoFormat as You Type tab, and look in the area under Apply as You Type. Uncheck Automatic Numbered Lists (and Automatic bulleted lists, if you are so inclined). Click OK, and you're done!

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!

MedlinePlus: Libraries
This is just a nifty page within the MedlinePlus website -- it's a directory for finding medical libraries throughout the United States. Just click on a state (or Canadian province), and you'll get a listing of medical libraries in that area -- you'll even get a link to the library's website if it's available.

New England Journal of Medicine
Sure, most of the great content here will set you back a bit ($99-$150 for print and online versions). But there's quite a bit here you can get for free. You can get free full-text articles from most of the issues going back to 1993 (and abstracts only back to 1975). Additionally, you can get the table of contents e-mailed to you every week, to learn of new articles on the site. Finally, there are three RSS feeds: the Current Issue, Four Most Recent Issues, and "Image of the Week."

Brain Tumor Trials and Treatments
The Musella Foundation for Brain Tumor Research presents this site, which discusses clinical trials and noteworthy treatments for brain tumors. You can search for different types of treatments, or browse a listing of clinical trials around the world. There are tons of informational pages for newly diagnosed brain tumor patients, as well as links to brain tumor centers, online support groups, books, organizations and other Internet resources. You can also interact with other visitors to the site via the live chat feature.

Center for Craniofacial Anomalies
This site is part of the University of California -- San Francisco's Children's Hospital. It primarily discusses the most common types of craniofacial conditions: cleft lip and palate, craniosynostosis syndromes, microtia and hemifacial microsomia and ectodermal dysplasia. You'll find some basic information here, as well as a lengthy list of organizations and websites that provide additional support.

American Cancer Society -- Statistics
The American Cancer Society tracks cancer occurrence, including the number of deaths, cases, and how long people survive after diagnosis. They place all their statistical reports on one page, which are free to download. Links to past years (back to 1997) are also available, as well as cancer data listed by state.

Tired of losing eBay auctions? AuctionSniper can help -- it automates your bidding in the closing seconds of any eBay auction, increasing your chances of winning.

A wintry game for you: In Mission in Snowdriftland, you're a snowman making your way through a dangerous land, gathering snowflakes.

Well, that’s it for Issue #253 – 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.

Subscription Information: If you want to keep on receiving issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net, or visit Inter Alia and sign up there! If you no longer want to receive the newsletter, just click on the link at the bottom of this newsletter.

Archives: Miss an issue? You can read previous issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly in the Archives.

Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.