INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
February 28, 2010
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #359 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

"Rename This Newsletter!" Contest Still Open
I'm still accepting ideas for the renaming of this newsletter. Because the stuff I talk about here has evolved somewhat beyond Internet Legal Research, I want to move to something more relevant and fun. Send me your ideas for a new name for this newsletter by MARCH 5; If I select one of your suggestions, I'll send you a $25 gift card to the store of your choice - Amazon, iTunes, Starbucks - you name it. Send in your ideas to tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net. Thanks!

The Open Source Episode
I'll say right up front that I'm not an expert on open-source and why it's different (and in some cases, better) than its commercial counterpart. But Dennis Kennedy is, so we tackled the issue on the latest episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, titled Opening Up to Open Source. Dennis explains the different types of open source software, licensing issues, and we discuss some of the open source products that lawyers might use. I then try to explain Foursquare to Dennis, and why it represents a new, interesting type of location-awareness technology. I'm not sure I was able to persuade him to use it, though. Give the show a listen - we had fun with this one!

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

  • I think this may be the first law blog focused on OSHA - the OSHA Law Blog provides insight and commentary on occupational safety and health issues. It's published by Brad Hammock, a partner in Jackson Lewis' Washington, D.C. office. He's discussing enforcement, legislation, and rulemaking, all having to do with OSHA.
  • Another blog from big firm Reed Smith - the Real Estate Legal Update features insight and commentary on investment property, corporate real estate issues and property development. They don't appear to post very often - hopefully they'll start posting more, because this has great potential.
  • This is the week for blogs on federal law: today's is the FDA Law Update, from another big firm with a lot of blogs - Sheppard Mullin. They're discussing current issues affecting FDA-regulated companies, including clinical trials, data mining, IP and technology transactions, legislation, and reverse payments, among others.
Help Desk

For the next few weeks I'll be discussing some common tech disasters, and how to potentially solve them. This week we'll cover something that has probably happened to a lot of people who eat/drink around their computer - spills on the laptop. Follow these steps to give your portable computer a fighting chance:

  • Immediately unplug the laptop, and remove the battery. Sorry, any open programs are toast - don't even try to save them.
  • Remove as much as you can from the laptop: cables, attachments, CD-DVD drive, wireless card, etc.
  • Tilt the laptop to get most of the liquid out the same way it came in. Keep the liquid away from the LCD screen; if some of the liquid gets on the screen, use a clean towel to dab the surface.
  • Depending on the tools you have, and how comfortable you are with disassembling your laptop, remove more parts. Use a screwdriver to remove the outer case, and remove the plastic shell to expose the internal circuits. You can even further separate individual components to help them dry. Do as much of this as you are comfortable.
  • If you just spilled water, use a towel to dry it up. If you spilled something more corrosive (coffee, soft drinks), use electronics circuit cleaner to clean the affected parts. Use rubber gloves, and work in a ventilated area.
  • Now you need to wait for the laptop to dry. Leave the pieces disassembled, or open and upside-down, for a couple of days. Don't use a hair dryer to speed it up - the high heat can damage the components. After a few days, reassemble the pieces and turn it back on. If the keys are sticky, turn the system off, and disassemble the keyboard for cleaning with the electronics cleaner.
  • If taking apart your computer frightens you, Get your laptop to a repair center as soon as possible - as in NOW!

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 the past week:

Who will win the workplace productivity suite war - Microsoft or Google? http://bit.ly/9fWspu (I still say MS, but Google's catching up)

My new favorite URL-shortening site turns your URL into something sinister and evil: http://www.shadyurl.com/

How to decline Facebook friends without offence http://bit.ly/boh5wt

A quick preview of Microsoft Word 2010. http://bit.ly/dCzRPF

Why Did Iron Mountain Acquire Mimosa, And What Does It Mean For #Archiving / #EDiscovery Industries? http://bit.ly/9r6Pel

Courts are already using the Pension Committee opinion in ruling on sanctions motions in #ediscovery matters: http://bit.ly/ampCdw

5 Little-Known Tricks for Formatting Tables in Word | BNET http://ow.ly/1bC3Y

Email still media of choice for reading blogs: http://bit.ly/aUYRGh (I don't get that - RSS readers save time AND a full Inbox)


Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet

MyFloridaCounty
This site claims to have been the first fully integrated local government ecommerce site in the nation. Unfortunately, there are only a few things you can do through this site - pay traffic citations, pay child support and view payment history, and order official records. A subscription to the site ($120/year) provides unlimited searches and services.

Federal Aviation Administration
I always like to revisit government agencies, because the federal government provides so many great research resources. The FAA is no exception - the site is chockablock with different types of aviation information. Under Aircraft, you can get information on registration and certification, airworthiness, advisories, forms, and other technical information. The Data & Research page provides resources on accidents and incidents, forecasts, passengers and cargo, safety, and more. There are also areas to research licenses, as well as regulations and policies.

Sourcebook
The Sourcebook is designed to be an authoritative resource for data about the states and the largest U.S. municipalities, as well as contact information on state and local decision makers. You can view data by region (Demographics, Economic Development, Education, Environment, Public Safety, Technology, and others) or by each of those individual topics. Unfortunately, if you want access to the Contacts Directory you'll need a subscription to Governing, which costs $19.95/year.

HighBeam ($$)
I know I have mentioned Highbeam before, but these types of services are always worth another mention. HighBeam offers over 80 million articles from more than 6,500 publications, including newspapers, magazines, book reviews, medical, nursing and psychology journals, to name a few. Once you enter your search terms, you can narrow your results to the type of publication, the date, or the relevance of the topic. Unfortunately, access to this research is not free; you can try it out for free for 7 days, but after that you have to pay. Even worse, HighBeam won't tell you how much a subscription costs. Great resources, but a little too closed for my taste.

Plagium
Plagium is a site that helps you check for plagiarized text on the internet. Simply paste in your original text, and Plagium searches the web for instances where that text is found online. You'll get a list of links where the text appears, as well as an interesting timeline of the text usage. Once you register, you can sign up to receive alerts when text you're tracking is used somewhere online. Best of all, the service is free!

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

The ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center has a great page with charts that compare different types of legal technology tools - case management, time and billing, litigation support, and blog providers. The charts are PDF files so you can download and read them at your leisure.

How well can you multitask? Well, in Multitask, you can find out. I'm not very good, as it turns out.

Well, that’s it for Issue #359 – 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.

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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.