INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
September 2, 2007
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #277 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!
News Update -- from the Inter Alia Weblog
The best RSS list ever?
Well, I don't know about that, but this Ultimate RSS Toolbox has more than 120 resources related to RSS -- newsreaders, converters, validators, plugins, managers, mixers, ping tools, feed directories, tips and hacks, and more. If you are well-acquainted with RSS, this is a good place to find new tools. If you're new to RSS, this is a good place to start looking, after you read RSS Tools You Can Use: Automated Web Surfing for Lawyers, an article Dennis Kennedy and I wrote last November.Searching your PDFs
Again, another article I'm way behind in mentioning, but it's never too late for the good stuff, as I like to say. This set of tips is provided by Adobe guru Rick Borstein, who's teaching us to create a searchable index for a set of PDF files. Let's say you have a bunch of articles on a particular subject, or a lot of records you've received from opposing counsel. They are all PDF files, and you want to find a way to search all of them together, rather than one at a time. Rick teaches you how to create a searchable index of all of those files, so you can search them all at once. As I said, good stuff.Blawgs of the Week
Here are a few of the great law-related weblogs I featured on Inter Alia the past two weeks:
- I first had the pleasure of meeting Sharon Nelson a few years ago, and we both served on the TECHSHOW Board for two years. We've been good friends ever since. Sharon's the President of Sensei Enterprises, a nationally-known computer forensics and information technology company based in Fairfax, Virginia. With her blog, Ride the Lightning, Sharon claims a space no one has so far taken in the legal blogosphere: a blog about electronic evidence and on-the-ground computer forensics. She's off to a great start, so give her blog a read!
- Before becoming a lawyer in 2003, Finis Price had quite a background in computers and programming. He's using this knowledge to integrate technology into his practice, and he writes about it at TechnoEsq.
- A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Blake Boyd when we were both handling the technology for opposite sides of a three-week trial in San Antonio. Blake now has his own blog, called The Trial Technologist's View. He's sharing some of his experiences of the trials he's worked on, as well as software and hardware tips relating to trial presentation technology. Welcome to the blogosphere, Blake!
- Here's another great blog from the Law Professor Blogs Network: the Poverty Law Prof Blog is authored by Ezra Rosser (American University) and Lowell Kent Hull (Notre Dame Law School). As you can imagine, they're discussing issues in the law relating to poverty.
- Yet another great blog from the Law Professor Blog Network -- this one is called the M&A Law Prof Blog, and it's published by Steven Davidoff at Wayne State Law School. He's discussing the law of mergers and acquisitions, and reporting news of mergers, as well.
- The International Environmental Law Blog is probably one of the first Law Professor Blogs not to have the work "Prof" in the title -- but it's still from educators, in this case Dr. William Burns (Santa Clara University School of Law) and Richard Caddell (University of Wales, Bangor). Together they are writing about environmental issues on a global scale.
- And the Law Professor Weblogs just keep on a'coming.......today we have the Civil Procedure Prof Blog, written by W. Jeremy Counseller and Rory Ryan, both of Baylor Law School. They hope their blog will be a Civil Procedure "town square" where people can discover and discuss the latest developments, share teaching advice, and bounce scholarship/research ideas off each other. Sounds like it's geared towards other professors, but that doesn't mean the average lawyer can't benefit from subscribing to this blog, too.
- Are you getting tired of the law professor blogs? I hope not, 'cause I've got one more. It's the Administrative Law Prof Blog, brought to you by Drury Stevenson (South Texas College of Law) and Cynthia Quinn (University of Hawaii at Manoa). They're discussing administrative rules, regulations, rulemaking, and the like.
- Here's a blog from LexisNexis: Federal Info Pro is authored by Marie Kaddell, an Information Professional Consultant at the company. The blog is dedicated to topics of interest to federal librarians and all things LexisNexis as they pertain to the needs and interests of federal librarians.
Caught in the 'Net
Diagnose Your Health Problem on the Internet.....?
I *love* the concept behind Medgle, which is still in beta testing. Let's say you've had a cold sensation in your arm for the past 2 weeks. Medgle makes it easy for you to just click on the body part that's bothering you, choose the specific symptom from a list of possible options, tell the search engine how long the problem has been bothering you, as well as your sex and age. Medgle then returns a listing of possible matches for your symptoms. In our case above, you could possibly have either anterior spinal artery syndrome, or Wallenburg Syndrome. Ouch!
Let's say you go further and check on Wallenburg's Syndrome. The following page provides you with a brief summary of the condition, and then provides you results (from Google) relating to Treatment, Prevention, Drugs, Tests, Research, Diet, Alternative Medicine, and Fitness. You can even refine your results by changing the age or gender.
This site should NEVER be the substitute for a visit to the doctor's office. Still, it offers a new and interesting way to find medical information, and it definitely fits my criteria for a successful vertical/specialty search tool: it quickly narrows down your search to results you can actually use. Give it a look.
Help Desk
Here's a tip for Excel users -- but it more about aesthetics than anything else. By default, Excel makes the gridlines of your spreadsheet black to be businesslike. If you want to add a little more color to your spreadsheets, it's easy to change the gridline color. Here's how:
In Excel 2003, click Tools, then Options. Click the View tab, and then click the pull-down arrow next to Gridlines color. Choose the color you want, then click OK to close the dialog box.
In Excel 2007, click the Home button in the upper left corner, then choose Excel Options at the bottom of the box. Choose Advanced from the menu on the left, and scroll down the list until you get to Display Options for this Worksheet. Click the pull-down arrow next to Gridlines color, select your favorite color, then click OK.
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
MyICUCare
A service of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, MyICUCare provides information on critical and intensive care services for both families and patients. Several brochures are available on different subjects relating to ICU treatment -- making decisions when your loved ones are very sick, common problems of critical illness, hospital safety tips, etc. -- as well as other resources, including critical care questions and a glossary of important terms.GB Esp@cenet
This page allows you to search Great Britain patent applications published by the UK Intellectual Property Office since 1979. Actually, you can search patent databases of a large number of countries, but only if you know how to read those particular languages -- so let's focus on english. You can perform a quick search with just a keyword, or an advanced search if you have more information available. Unfortunately, you don't get the actual files -- just a listing of the Inventor, Applicant, and publication information.California Municipal Law Resources
The Santa Monica firm of Wallin, Kress, Reisman & Kranitz provides this simple page of links to California municipal laws, as well as links to other sites of interest -- city codes, California city websites, city attorneys, officials, and more. Not a very fancy site, but it's nice that the links are all in one place.CaseClips -- Indiana Judicial Center
Let's do another state resource, this one provided by the Indiana Courts. CaseClips provides selected decisions of the Indiana Appellate courts abstracted for judges -- but there's no reason why the legal researcher can't take advantage of these as well. CaseClips come out at least every two weeks, and sometimes more often, and the site provides archives back to 2001.Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons
And how about another medical society, while we're at it? This organization was established to provide an open forum for surgeons and other health professionals interested in laparoscopic, endoscopic, and minimally invasive surgery. Check out the Publications area -- some of the journals provide free or low-cost access to articles, and even RSS feeds to let you know when new articles are posted. There's also a place to find a doctor, and a brief section for patients.
Finally, here are a few fun and useful sites to get you through the holiday weekend:
WikiTravel takes the wiki concept and applies it to travel guides. There are over 16,000 destination guides, all of which can be edited by people like you.
Pacxon is a different take on Pac-Man, where you try to box in the bad guys rather than run away from them.
Well, that’s it for Issue #277 – 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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