Internet Legal Research Weekly -- April 13, 2008

Welcome to Issue #295 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!

Using the Search Engines of Others
When it comes to creating your own search engine, Google Custom Search Engine is one of the best. To make a search engine all you have to do is throw a few URLs together, name the search engine, and you're done. When you use your custom search engine, Google will only search those specific sites that you have added to the engine.

What if you don't know what sites to add to your search engine? That's where Topicle comes in. It's described as a "search engine community" -- it uses the Google Custom Search Engine tool, but it also allows you to save your own search engine as well as search or browse the search engines created by other users. Looking for a search engine on Tokyo Restaurants or Nine Inch Nails? You can find them here. The search tool is the same as if you create your own through Google's CSE; it's the community aspect that makes this site interesting.

Go Xcavating for Stock Photos
I use stock photography a lot in my presentations -- although image search engines like Google Image Search can bring you hundreds of thousands of photos, they don't always have the best quality. In contrast, stock photography sites offer high-quality images at pretty reasonable prices. I really like iStockphoto, but what I'd really like is a meta-search tool that searches across all sorts of stock photo sites.

I wonder if Xcavator.net is the answer to my prayers. From this site you can search more than 6 million images. You can save pictures to your own "lightbox" at the bottom of the page, or click on "Hi-Res" to purchase the photos at the site where they reside. What's even better about this tool is its ability to match images -- once you find an image you like, click Match and Xcavator will refine its search accordingly. Xcavator is definitely a site I will be trying out as I get ready for presentations in the future.

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

Over the next few issues I'm continuing a multi-week set of tips on computer security. This week I'll offer a few tips about malware and antivirus.

-- Your antivirus program scans your entire computer for viruses, but what if you're worried about a single file that might be infected? Most antivirus programs have a feature that will scan a single file. If you can't find it, try VirusTotal (http://www.virustotal.com) -- you can just upload the file to that website, and it will check the file against 32 antivirus providers.

-- Beware of rootkits. Viruses are tricky, but rootkits are especially diabolical. A rootkit is a program that digs deep to the root of your computer, and hides itself there. If something is wrong with your computer and your regular troubleshooting can't figure it out, maybe it's a rootkit. There are several rootkit detectors, such as the free Rootkit Revealer (http://tinyurl.com/2gukvq), that will tell you if you're infected.

-- Macs are smaller targets than PCs, primarily because they don't have the same market share. Many argue that Mac users don't need to use antivirus software, but that doesn't mean that Mac users should never have to worry about viruses. Don't be complacent.

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!

Canadian Human Rights Tribunal
The CHRT applies the principles of the Canadian Human Rights Act to discrimination cases. At this site you can learn more about the jurisdiction, operations, members, rules and procedures of the Tribunal. There's also a database of decisions and rulings, which you can browse by year, complainant/respondent, or by ground of discrimination. Annual reports of the work of the Tribunal are also available.

Montana Driver History Records Service ($)
Here's another site to save for the day you need the driving record of a Montana driver (if that day should ever come, that is). Unfortunately, it's not free, unless you already have a Montana drivers license. Otherwise, you'll need to pay a $75 annual fee that gives you unlimited access.

Fast Facts for Congress
The goal of this site is to help you find census facts -- fast -- for your Congressional district, county, state, or the U.S. You can get nearly instant information on population, housing, economic facts, demographics, and more. This site is a treasure trove of census information.

Consumer's Guide to Legal Help
The American Bar Association has a number of great resources hidden throughout its site. One of them is the Consumer's Guide to Legal Help, which is really geared more towards people searching for a lawyer. Just select a state, and you'll get a page with links to various ways to find a lawyer or legal information: lawyer referral, free legal help, licensing, self-help, court information, and what you can do if you have trouble with a lawyer.

Guide to Legal Research in Norway
Here's another in the great GlobaLex series of legal research guides from NYU's Hauser Global Law School Program. This guide is written by Pal Bertnes, Director of the Law Library at the University of Oslo. You'll find a comprehensive summary of Norwegian law, including an introduction to the legal system in Norway, basic texts, legislation, codes and commentaries, law reports and judgments, reference books, current information services, and law school information, among other things. Again, a great site to have handy in the event you ever need to research Norwegian law.

Here's an interesting tool -- the Color Palette Generator helps you choose colors for your website or print publication, by matching them to photos/images found on the Internet. Just plug in the URL for an image you're interested in using, and you'll get a full palette of the colors that match the image.

With Bloons, you try to pop balloons with darts -- I dare you not to become addicted to this game.

Well, that’s it for Issue #295 – 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.