Internet Legal Research Weekly -- November 11, 2007

Welcome to Issue #283 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!

A New Alternative Way to Search for Federal Cases
Have you checked out AltLaw yet? It's a search engine that will let you search the full text of U.S. Supreme Court and Circuit Appeals Court opinions. The current coverage from these courts is so far not great, but still pretty impressive: Supreme Court opinions from May 1991, and circuit court opinions from various dates (the earliest 1992), depending on the court. Currently there are more than 184,000 cases in the database. The search function is pretty easy to use -- just enter your terms, and the results allow you to view an HTML preview of the opinion. You can then download the original opinion in PDF, or get a text-only version. AltLaw is a joint project of Columbia and University of Colorado Law Schools. It has a long way to go, but as a free search tool for case law, it's a promising start.

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

Microsoft Word is truly a pack rat -- but it's just trying to be helpful. Whenever Word crashes, it leaves temporary or "interim" versions of the files that were open at the time. To get rid of them, run something like Window Washer or CCleaner, or even the Windows Disk Cleanup. But if you want to get rid of those files all at once, just click Start, then Search, then choose All Files and Folders and enter ~*.tmp in the "All or part of a file name" box. This will pull up all the temporary files, which can then be safely deleted.

Word also saves documents from crashes as part of its AutoRecover process, to make sure you don't lose any data. However, it keeps copies of its AutoRecover documents hidden, long after you've dealt with them. Here's how to make sure they're deleted after you no longer need them: In Word 2003, select Tools, then Options, and then File Locations. Double-click AutoRecover files, right click the folder (it may be \Word\Startup, or something like that), and choose Explore. Click the up arrow to move to the parent directory, and the delete all files that end in ".asd." In Word 2007, click the Office button, then Word Options. Click the Save option, and then you'll see the location for the AutoRecover files -- follow the same directions above.

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!

North Dakota Supreme Court RSS Feeds
Not much to this page, but the power of the information here is nevertheless tremendous -- if you are looking for North Dakota Supreme Court information, anyway. Here you'll get access to two RSS feeds -- one for N.D. Supreme Court news, and one for N.D. Supreme Court Opinions. Subscribe to these feeds, and you'll get the latest case law from North Dakota, as it becomes available. If you're new to RSS and want to learn more about how it can enhance your research, drop me a line.

Stopfakes.gov
A service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, this site aims to help protect intellectual property rights. You can view the upcoming programs and publications of the organization, including an upcoming China IP webinar. The publications include the IP Quarterly Update, Top 10 Ways to Protect Yourself, and others. There are also several "toolkits," providing information on intellectual property rights in other countries, such as Brazil, China, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, and Taiwan.

The Australian
I don't feature news outlets very often, but don't ignore them as possible sources of research. The Australian is described as "The Heart of the Nation," and you'll certainly get your fill of Australian news here. It has all the usual features of a news site, including RSS feeds for many of the major sections of the site.

Intellectual Property and Technology Forum
Another IP resource for you this week -- this one is from Boston College Law School. The IPTF -- also known as the Forum -- is a legal publication "dedicated to providing readers with rigorous, innovative scholarship, timely reporting, and ongoing discussion from the legal community concerning technology law and intellectual property." Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of articles available. However, there IS a IPTF Blog (http://bciptf.org/blog/) that is providing updated information from the Forum.

UN Pulse
Speaking of blogs, here's one from the United Nations. UN Pulse is designed to alert readers to just-released UN online information, major reports, publications, and documents. The blog is maintained by the reference librarians at the UN Library. There are links here to some fantastic resources, and of course there's an RSS feed so you can keep track of what's new at the UN without actually having to visit the blog.

American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists
AACE has been around like 1991, and like most membership sites the information here is intended primarily for its members. However, there are still a few good resources for researchers here -- clinical practice guidelines, position statements, and diabetes roadmaps, for example. The Resources page also provides some great links to other sites.

Try the game Day of the Bobteds -- it only wasted an hour of my time this morning.

Well, that’s it for Issue #283 – 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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