Legal Research

Good News/Bad News for Bill Gates

Posted on March 13, 2009
Here’s the good: Bill (net worth: $40 billion) is now the richest man in the woild again. Now here’s the bad: The only reason why he’s #1 is that his net worth declined less ($18 billion) than last year’s #1, Warren Buffett (who lost 25 bil)...

Google. Eggs. Basket. (Yet again)

Posted on March 12, 2009
Google has announced Google Voice, which gives you one phone number that will ring on all your phones — mobile, landline, whatever. It’ll do the same for text messages (send them to one or all your phones, that is.) It’ll even create text-based voicemails automatically...

Patient Involvement Helps

Posted on March 12, 2009
A recent study shows that the participation of patients in the use of electronic health records (EHRs) might improve the effectiveness of the system.   The study was conducted by Harvard Medical School, Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (abstract of study, fulltext not available without a subscription)...

Jefferson’s Rolling Over in His Grave

Posted on March 12, 2009
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter...

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The Broadband Gap (The Sky Is Falling, Again)

Posted on March 12, 2009
Saul Hansell of the NY TImes has just finished a three-part series comparing U.S. broadband Internet with the rest of the world. Here’s my executive summary: Part 1: Why is theirs faster? It’s all about population density. DSL speeds vary by distance, so the closer that people live to the phone company equipment, the faster the [...

How Do You Define “Interesting”?

Posted on March 11, 2009
In a post titled “Making ads more interesting“, Google today announced the launch of “interest-based” advertising: “… as a beta test on our partner sites [those sites running AdSense advertisements] and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest — say sports, gardening, cars, pets — with your browser, based on the types of sites [...

Just Another Thing To Nag Me

Posted on March 11, 2009
During the course of my day, I got the wife, the kids, the cat — she’s the worst, come feeding time — and the boss (’nuff said), all yapping at me. Do I really want to add an iPod to the list?

Put Yourself In The Jurors’ Box

Posted on March 11, 2009
Let’s say you’re a juror in a criminal trial. The perp got caught with a gun after running from the cops. Open-and-shut case, right? Not so fast. Listen as the defense lawyer reads a comment that the arresting officer, Vaughan Ettienne, posted on his Facebook page a couple of weeks before the trial: “Vaughan is watching ‘Training Day’ [...

For Discriminating Collectors: An Early iPhone Prototype

Posted on March 10, 2009
An early iPhone prototype dating from December 2006 has been listed on eBay, according to iLounge.  The phone can make calls, surf mobile versions of Websites, take pictures, and receive text messages, but you can’t type on it. Current bid: $1,625...

Pennsylvania Central KeyRules, 2009 ed.

Posted on March 09, 2009
By West, A Thomson Reuters businessThis book contains an outline of the applicable rules of practice, timing requirements, filing and service requirements, hearing information, checklists, and other pertinent documents related to pleadings, motions, requests, notices, and applications in the Pennsylvania Central courts...

Justice For “Joe The Plumber”

Posted on March 09, 2009
Judicial Watch has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against 3 former employees of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services for performing unauthorized searches of 3 state databases in order to dig up dirt on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. Mr. Wurzelbacher, you may recall, had his 15 minutes of fame during the election of [...

If Anybody Finds My Resume, Would You Please Send It Back To Me?

Posted on March 09, 2009
Last week Google acknowledged they had a security lapse with their Google Docs service.  In “an isolated incident affecting less than .05% of all documents,” some people got access to text files and presentations that they weren’t authorized to read by their owners...

Microsoft Finally Decides To Cut Down On Lawyers’ Workloads

Posted on March 09, 2009
After more than a decade of legal battles with the U.S. Justice Department and the EU, Microsoft has rather quietly decided to give everybody what they want: Windows 7 will allow you to uninstall Internet Explorer, as well as other apps such as Windows Media Player...

CD Turns 30, Vital Signs Are Failing

Posted on March 09, 2009
Gizmodo reports that yesterday, March 8, was the 30th birthday for the CD. It may be on the way out, but during its heyday it sure made the music labels a ton of cash.

It’s Opposite Day For Web Browsers

Posted on March 04, 2009

A Library Blog Post About — Wait For It — Books

Posted on March 04, 2009

Microsoft’s (yawn) New (yawwn) Search (yawwwwn) Engine

Posted on March 03, 2009

The Lazy Man’s Guide to Web Design

Posted on March 03, 2009

Senator Gives Into His Anger … It Makes Him Stronger

Posted on March 03, 2009

Social Security, Medicare & Government Pensions: Get the Most Out of Your Retirement & Medical Benefits

Posted on March 02, 2009

I Don’t Want Jeff Bezos Taking My Back In a Bar Fight

Posted on March 02, 2009

Awwwwwwwwwww!

Posted on February 27, 2009

Only 90 More Friends To Go and I’ll Make It To “Average”

Posted on February 27, 2009

The World is Still Full of Mystery

Posted on February 25, 2009
Google Earth didn’t discover Atlantis after all — it was simply noisy data: “For the patch of ocean that drew so much attention last week, there was a discrepancy in the readings collected from satellites and the higher-resolution echosounding data collected by boats at water level...

Netbooks, Revisited

Posted on February 24, 2009
Netbooks are all the rage. I’ve blogged about them before. I haven’t followed up on that original post, because most of the articles I’ve been reading are written by propeller heads who argue about cache speeds or screen refresh or some other esoteric thingie that 99...

Google Gives Up On Saving The World, Decides To Make Information Look Really Cool Instead

Posted on February 24, 2009
Yesterday Google.org announced that its Chief, Dr. Larry Brilliant, will now be its Chief Philanthropy Evangelist.  At the same time, Google.org is redefining its mission: “During our review it became clear that while we have been able to support some remarkable non-profit organizations over the past three years, our greatest impact has come when we’ve attacked [...

Safari 4 Is Out And It Looks All Chromey

Posted on February 24, 2009
Today Apple announced that the beta version of Safari 4 is available. I installed it on my work laptop — hey, for any app the installation is half the battle! — and have been playing around with it for about a half hour. Aside from the placement of a couple of buttons, it strongly resembles [...

Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Strategies for Success from Multicultural Women Attorneys

Posted on February 23, 2009
By Commission on Women in the Legal Profession, et al., SponsorsDear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Strategies for Success from Multicultural Women Attorneys is a unique, inspirational collection of letters from 44 experienced women attorneys of color to the next generation outlining various roadmaps for success in the legal profession as a minority woman attorney...

Google Earth Discovers Lost City of Atlantis, However No Sign Yet of Bermuda Triangle

Posted on February 20, 2009
Must be a slow news day. Multiple sources are reporting that something resembling a grid of streets has been spotted off the coast of Africa. This is consistent with the supposed location of the Lost City of Atlantis. To see for yourself, fire up Google Earth — it must be version 5, which has the ocean [...

IE6 … The Jason Voorhees of Browsers

Posted on February 20, 2009
Internet Explorer 6 is just like a certain fictional film star — it simply won’t go away. According to Wired, between 10-20% of all Internet users worldwide are still using the creaky old browser released in 2001. There’s a groundswell to get people to upgrade to IE7 — no spring chicken itself, as it’s been out [...

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