Legal Research

Leading By Example

Posted on March 27, 2009
File this under Very Cool. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has spent this week working in a distribution center in Lexington Kentucky, getting a perspective on how the worker bees do their job. Emphasis is on the word “working”. The Lexington Herald-Leader asked for an interview and got this response from spokeswoman Patty Smith: “Thanks so much [...

8 Hours a Day Looking At a Screen? Welcome To My World!

Posted on March 27, 2009
Today’s NY Times reports on a just-released study by The Council for Research Excellence about video media usage. According to the Press Release, here’s how the study worked: “Using handheld smart keyboards equipped with a custom media collector program developed by Ball State [University], the observers recorded - in 10-second increments - [350 subjects'] exposure to [...

If You Can Read This, Then Everything’s OK

Posted on March 27, 2009
But just in case you can’t, I wanted to let you know that we’ve been under attack by spambots over the last couple of days. That’s why you haven’t been able to connect to our Website from time to time, or to databases we offer you such as Fastcase...

YouTube Gets Smarter

Posted on March 27, 2009
Check out YouTube EDU, which features video content from colleges and universities. Right now, I’m watching the Science of Watchmen, a lecture by University of Minnesota physics professor James Kakalios, Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address, and, of course, Randy Pausch’s last lecture (viewed 9...

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It’s Never Too Early To Start Running For Reelection

Posted on March 26, 2009
Both Wired and the NY Times are reporting that the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Wyoming County District Attorney for civil rights violations in a “sexting” case. (There’s a new word for you. Sexting involves sending a provocative picture of yourself — nude, semi-nude, semi-gloss, whatever, it’s your choice — to someone’s [...

Q: What’s Worse Than Rising Gas Prices?

Posted on March 26, 2009
A: Rising music download prices. The LA Times reports that, come April 7, certain hot songs will now cost $1.29 over at the iTunes Store. Back in January Apple announced the price increase, but didn’t give a firm date. OK, I get that the tracks will be DRM-free...

Apropos Of Nothing

Posted on March 26, 2009
I was fixin’ to click off of this article because I felt it wasn’t blogworthy — despite the fact that I’ve posted about the topic before — when the full meaning of the 3rd paragraph really hit me: “In 2008 alone, traffic generated by YouTube video was more than the whole sum of traffic crossing the [...

Because Maybe You’re Gonna Be The One Who Saves Me

Posted on March 25, 2009
Got that song by Oasis running through my head right now. Why, you might ask? Google is now testing a new feature on its results page called Wonder Wheel. (Get it? Wonderwall … Wonder Wheel. Get it? Can you tell I’m on my 4th bottle of Diet Dew?) Anyway, what a great opportunity to fire up [...

AT&T Confirms Its Intention To “Observe And Report”

Posted on March 25, 2009
Cnet reports that AT&T has confirmed that it is, indeed, acting as a music cop for the Recording Industry Association of America. You may remember that back in late January the RIAA announced that AT&T and Comcast were interested in participating in the RIAA’s “graduated response program”...

Facebook Tries To Calm Down The Whingers

Posted on March 25, 2009
Responding to lots of people who need to get a life — sorry, but Facebook just brings out the worst in me, I apologize — Facebook has posted a list of upcoming changes to the site. It’s too early in the morning for me to read the teeny type, but I gather they want to [...

China Says “Bu Yao Xie Xie” To YouTube

Posted on March 25, 2009
Yesterday the NY Times reported that YouTube access is being blocked in China.  According to the article: “Google said it did not know why the site had been blocked, but a report by the official Xinhua news agency of China on Tuesday said that supporters of the Dalai Lama had fabricated a video that appeared to [...

Time To State The Obvious

Posted on March 24, 2009
The iPhone accounts for 50% of mobile Web traffic in the U.S., reports TechCrunch. Duh … with a bazillion units sold, I’d be surprised if it didn’t. And speaking of surprises: how about that T-Mobile G1 Android? Huh? From zero to 5% in like 3 months...

Stand Up to the IRS

Posted on March 23, 2009
By Frederick DailyIn Stand Up to the IRS, tax attorney Fred Daily shows you what you need to know to prepare for an audit. Daily explains how the IRS works and offers advice on everything from who should attend the audit with you to strategies on protecting your assets from the IRS...

More Than 90% of Facebook Members Are Unhappy

Posted on March 20, 2009
With the redesign of the site, that is, according to a poll of more than 800,000 members. The new layout doesn’t make any difference to me — I never much liked Facebook anyway.

Up To Their Old Tricks

Posted on March 20, 2009
OK I lied. I downloaded IE8 and installed it today. I had hopes that it would go quicker than IE7 — which cost me 25 minutes of my life plus 2 reboots — but noooooo: Download IE8: 5 minutes (16MB) Install IE8: 5 minutes (I think I can! I think I can! I think …) Restart (mandatory) Download and [...

“You Can’t Take It Back” No Longer Applies With Gmail

Posted on March 20, 2009
Gmail has released a nifty feature: Undo Send. If you enable it via Gmail Labs, you can retract emails you send within 5 seconds. (I’d pay good money to have a “Undo Say” button for conversations with my wife.) Anyway, this is yet another reason why I’m seriously contemplating switching my primary Webmail account to Gmail...

Cornficker (Watch Yer Mouth, This Is a Family-Friendly Blog)

Posted on March 19, 2009
Regular readers of this blog — and the three of you know who you are — remember that back in January John Markoff of the NY Times wrote about the Cornficker Internet worm and used some over-the-top quotes. Well he’s back with an update: “An examination of the program [Cornficker C] reveals that the zombie computers [...

IE8 Will Be Released At Noon EDT Today

Posted on March 19, 2009
Here’s the announcement from Microsoft, which includes the link for the download. Given their recent problems with downloads, I wish you good luck if you try to get it. (No way I’m going to download it any time soon.) I wish Microsoft good luck as well, given that their browser market share has eroded of [...

“That’s a lot of complaints about one company”

Posted on March 19, 2009
The blogosphere’s buzzing (I’ve been wanting to use that in a post for awhile now) over a story in the Seattle Weekly about Intelius, the online public records site. For a couple of years now, the site has automatically signed you up for credit-protection services to the tune of $20 per month if you didn’t [...

Dude, You Are So Busted

Posted on March 18, 2009
Guy gets a job offer at Cisco. Good news, right? Especially since we’re in a scary recession. Time to celebrate, right? Now back when I was young, that would mean going out to dinner or whatever. These kids, nowadays, the first thing they do is Tweet about it: “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I [...

Wow!

Posted on March 18, 2009
IBM wants to buy Sun for $7 billion. The NY Times hints there might be antitrust issues involved since the combined companies would control more than 40% of the server market. Looks like Microsoft will have another target other than Google to plot against.

Let’s All Pile On Google

Posted on March 18, 2009
Seems like everyone’s lining up to take a legal shot at Google these days. If it’s not the DoJ, then it’s the Italian government. Here’s another one: according to the NY Times, in light of last week’s Google Docs oopsie, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has asked the U...

Everyone Has a Blindspot

Posted on March 18, 2009
TechCrunch reported yesterday about how major publishers are now posting full novels to document-sharing site Scribd. It was a wake-up call for me. In my CLE classes I’ve been limiting my discussions of electronic texts to Amazon, Google Books, and the Jenkins catalog...

iPhone 3.0 Gets Like The Most Amazing Feature Ever Invented

Posted on March 17, 2009
This summer, when you get your free iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade, you’ll finally be able to copy-and-paste. (Something my T-Mobile G1 has been able to do from day one.) “So what,” you say? Well, how about 3G tethering, multimedia messaging, a voice memo application, peer-to-peer wifi connectivity, and push notification? “Huh,” you say? Read this — it’ll tell you [...

Louisiana Criminal Jury Instructions and Procedures Companion Handbook, 2009 ed.

Posted on March 16, 2009
By Cheney C. Joseph, P. Raymond LamonicaThis handbook is designed to coordinate with volume 17 of the Louisiana Civil Law Treatise Series, Criminal Jury Instructions and Procedures. While primarily intended as a quick reference or use at trial, it is equally useful as a legal research reference for lawyers preparing for litigation and trial...

The iPhone: a Weapon of Mass (Infrastructure) Destruction

Posted on March 16, 2009
On Saturday, lots of hip, trendy, iPhone-wielding artsy types descended on Austin, TX for the annual South by Southwest festival. And they brought Austin’s AT&T 3G network to its knees. In true Gen X style, SXSW attendees turned to Twitter to vent their frustration...

The Ol’ 90/10 Rule

Posted on March 16, 2009
In a quick post, the NY Times talks about how cybersquatting — registering Web addresses containing variants of trademarked products — is up 18% over the past year, even though there are laws against the practice in the U.S. They quote the Chief Marketing Officer of MarkMonitor, a Web registrar: “Most of our customers' portfolios are [...

Old Enough To Know Better [UPDATED]

Posted on March 16, 2009
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports today that a juror in the federal corruption trial of former State Senator Vincent Fumo has been posting trial updates to his Facebook page and to his Twitter stream. Fumo’s defense lawyers have petitioned for a halt in jury deliberations and the removal of the Twittering juror...

I Fess to Numbers 1,2,4,5,7 and 8 in the Indictment

Posted on March 13, 2009
Wired has a post on the 10 Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse. I confess that numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 apply to me. I’m especially guilty of #5: Wearing obscurely geeky T-shirts to “normal” places. I actually own the t-shirt they show in the article, “There are only 10 types of [...

It Takes The Equivalent of 166 Tweets To Tell Us How We Use Twitter

Posted on March 13, 2009
Danny Sullivan has a meaty post — 23,125 characters, the equivalent of 166 Tweets! — on how we search with the Twitter “Help Engine”. Danny’s poll about whether Twitter is a search engine or not got more than 450 responses...

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