INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
December 5, 2009
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #350 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!

And away we go.....

News Update -- from the Inter Alia Weblog

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

Green Building & Environmental Trends is published by Rich Cartlidge, a recent law school grad and LEED AP. He's discussing trends in the fields of green building, construction and environmental law.

Here's a nifty business law blog: the Startup Company Blog provides insights for founders of and investors in emerging and startup companies. It's published by multi-blog big firm Davis Wright & Tremaine.

Another blog from uber-blogging firm Davis Wright & Tremaine: this one is the Hospitality Law Blog, which as you might imagine discusses legal issues of interest to the hospitality industry. You'll find recent posts on energy drinks, lottery commissions, franchising, and alcoholic beverages, to name a few.

Help Desk

Last week I showed Windows XP users how to create a task that would automatically shut your computer down every day. This week, I'll do the same thing for Vista users (however few of you are out there).

Click the Windows button, and in the Start Search box at the bottom type taskschd.msc, to bring up the Task Scheduler. In the right hand pane, click Create Task, and then give it a name. Click the Triggers tab, then the New button to create a new trigger. Choose On a schedule, then choose your schedule (for example, daily at 11:00pm). Confirm the Enabled box at the bottom is checked, and then click OK. Next, click the Actions tab and then New. Select Start a program, and then type C:\Windows\system32\Shutdown.exe in the Program/script box (or click browse and navigate to that program on your computer). In the Add Arguments box add any of the following conditions that I mentioned last week:

-s shut down
-l log off
-r reboot
-t xx delay shutdown for xx seconds (Windows will display a warning box)
-c "Your text" add "Your text" to the warning box

Click OK, and then click the Conditions tab. Check Start the task only if the computer is idle for:, and select a comfortable amount of time. Click OK, and you're done.

Whether you're using XP or Vista, once the shutdown sequence starts there's only one way to stop it: to abort the shutdown. To do this, you might want to create a desktop icon called Cancel Shutdown, that you can quickly click if necessary. To do this, right-click on the desktop, select New, then Shortcut. Click on the New Shortcut that appears on your desktop, and a dialog box will open up (it may open up as you create the shortcut). In the box Type the location of the item, type C:\Windows\system32\shutdown.exe -a (the -a is the command for "abort"), then click Next and name the shortcut. Click Finish. Now when you find your computer suddenly shutting down on you, just double click this shortcut, and Windows will abort the shutdown.

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!


Updates from Twitter

Here are the articles and resources I found interesting on Twitter this week:

Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet

Metroon Legal Research Suite ($$)
For my Texas readers, Metroon is a brand new legal research suite that provides single source access for Texas state and county public records. Subscribers have access to state and county indices, assumed names, real property records, condo/townhouse records, marriage licenses and applications, court records, UCC records, vital statistics records, along with images of the documents. You'll have to call them to open an account, so I can't tell you the prices - or whether the resources contained in their databases are any good.

Singapore Statutes
If for any reason you need access to the laws of Singapore (and who doesn't at one time or another?), this page is a really simple page to lose. You can browse by letter, or by entering the Cap. Number to find the statute by number. The design isn't pretty, but it's fairly easy to navigate.

South Carolina Judicial Department
While I'm visiting state home page portals, I'm also visiting the state judicial sites as well. There's not much to this site, so it's pretty easy to navigate - across the top are links for the Supreme Court, Courts of Appeal, Trial Courts, Court Officials, Opinions/Orders, and even to calendars with circuit judge assignments, family judge assignments, and more. The Opinions/Orders page has a lot of useful information, with advance sheets, judicial advisory opinions, and unpublished opinions.

U.S. Statutes at Large
I have to admit I'd never heard the term "Statutes at Large" until I found this site. It refers to the permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of the U.S. Congress. However, on this page you can only search for laws from a limited numbers of Congressional sessions - currently, only the 108th and 109th sessions of Congress (up through 2006) are available. When you perform a search, you'll get the text, PDF, and summary versions of each law.

OCR Terminal
Okay, this isn't a research site, but you'll likely find it useful nonetheless. It allows you to convert scanned images into searchable text, using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. It will convert PDF, JPG and TIFF files into Word so you can manipulate and search the text. The service is free for up to 20 pages per month - then you'll have to pay for more pages, on a per page or subscription basis. If you don't have OCR technology in your home, firm or office, this might be a good alternative for small volumes of documents.

Finally, some fun and useful sites to help start off your week:

Looking for a gift for a bookworm? Check out the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2009, and you're sure to find a great title.

Gravitex is a cool gravity-based game, where you compete with planetary forces to get your ball into the black hole.

Well, that’s it for Issue #350 – 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

Now available: The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell

Listen to The Kennedy-Mighell Report, available at The Legal Talk Network or in iTunes.

For the latest legal technology, e-Discovery and other great links, visit the Tom Mighell Linkstream.

Subscription Information: Visit Inter Alia to manage your email subscription. 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.