Internet Legal Research Weekly -- March 23, 2008

Welcome to Issue #292 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!

Whew! ABA TECHSHOW is finally over, and I've *almost* caught up on all my sleep. If you managed to make it to Chicago, I hope you had a great time -- I sure did. If you weren't there, hopefully you followed the Buzz at www.techshow.com/buzz. Next year's show is April 2-4, back in Chicago -- mark your calendars now!

I'll also let you know that the book I wrote with Dennis Kennedy, The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, is now available at the ABA Store or on Amazon. Check it out!

Yakkle: Chat and Share Your Screen, All at Once
Yakkle is an interesting new tool. At its heart it's pretty much an instant messaging and chat program -- in fact, you can log in to Yakkle with your Gmail or Google Talk account settings. What sets Yakkle apart is its ability to share your desktop with others during the chat session. Skype, Google Talk, and the other IM programs sure don't do this right now. It's a small download, and uses Java. This is another great example of the new tools that allow us to easily collaborate with each other over the Internet.

Another simple way to share your screen
Here's another free way to share your screen with others -- and it's from Microsoft! SharedView is a program you download to your computer, and you can invite up to 15 people to view your screen. I don't like it as much as Adobe Connect, because it requires the other meeting participants to download software too -- on the other hand, while Adobe Connect doesn't require a download, it's not free. Once you share your screen, you can give up control to others, and that person gets their own personal mouse pointer so you can see what they're referring to when they are talking. There's also a chat module so that you can chat onscreen. It seems that these screen sharing tools are rapidly proliferating -- are you sensing a theme here?

Getting tangled up in a new forum tool
In our book on collaboration tools and technologies, Dennis Kennedy and I discuss alternatives to email as a collaboration tool. Sometimes you need a place to discuss a particular matter, but you want to keep all the messages in one place, rather than separate in each team member's Inbox. With a tool like Tangler, you can do just that. Tangler allows you to create your own discussion forum in seconds, and it's free. You can make the forum public or private, and you can even take code from Tangler and embed the forum on your own website or blog.

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

Hopefully you never need to tinker with your computer, but if you must, it's a good idea to make sure you have a good toolkit. Keep these four things handy just in case you need to work on your PC:

-- Screwdrivers -- there are lots of screws on a computer box, so make sure you have a set with Phillips, standard, and Torx heads.

-- Pliers and tweezers -- needle-nose pliers and tweezers will help you get to those hard-to-reach parts with no problem.

-- Compressed Air -- the first thing I do when I open up my computer is give it a thorough dusting. PCs are definitely dust traps.

-- Handheld Vacuum -- use this to remove everything that the compressed air doesn't blow out.

-- Antistatic strap -- static electricity can hurt some of the sensitive components of your computer, so it's a good idea to wear one of these straps before diving in to the guts of your PC.

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!

Library of Congress Webcasts
This may not be a legal research site, but the stuff you can find here is very interesting, from a history point of view. The Library of Congress is posting dozens of speeches and other presentations on all sorts of issues, in topics including biography, performing arts, education, government, poetry and literature, religion, and technology, among others. As I review this site, the features webcast is "The Impact of Parking Garages" -- I'm not sure how you can get 62 minutes out of that topic, but there it is.

U.S. Pharmacopeia
The Pharmacopeia is the official public-standards setting authority for all prescription and over-the-counter medications, dietary supplements, and other healthcare products. There's all sorts of great information here, including the National Formulary, the Food Chemicals Codex, Pending and Non-US Standards, Reference Standards, Healthcare Quality and Information, and a lot more. If you're looking for in-depth standards information on particular prescription drugs, or ANY type of drug, this is a good place to start.

Australian Treaties Library
Part of the Australian Legal Information Institute, this Treaties Library disseminates treaty information to the general public. You can conduct a keyword search of the nine treaty databases -- these databases contain not only treaties, but also news updates, resources, status lists, and more. You can also search the library by country, by status or subject, or some other category.

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
AAOS bills itself as the "preeminent provider of musculoskeletal education to orthopaedic surgeons and others in the world." For us "others," there are some good resources here. The News and Journals page provides you with links to newsletters, patient safety alerts, legislative updates, and Medline and PubMed. The Research page also contains some great information, including physician and patient demographics, clinical guidelines and performance measures, selected research documents, among others.

DomainTools
Want to figure out who's behind that website that's saying mean things about your client? Domain Tools is a good place to do that. The WhoIs lookup there will help you find out who has registered all current, deleted, and expired domain names.

Well, that’s it for Issue #292 – 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.