BoleyBlogs!

West – Smart Tools on Westlaw

West has introduced Smart Tools, a new Westlaw feature which offers alternative terms when yours seem out of context, related terms of art, and suggestions for misspelled words and acronyms. It will also suggest ways to broaden your search if your query retrieves fewer than five results.

What’s it look like?

and

Learn much more from their “quirky”-doesn’t-do-it-justice flash demo and from their Smart Tools intro page.

Source: WisBlawg (who we all owe thanks to for pointing out the demo!)

exalead

There is a new entrant in the general internet search engine category that is worth a look. exalead (it’s from France!), says that it “provides a whole new way to search the Web.”

At one billion pages indexed exalead’s database is about 1/8 the size of Google. So why give it a try?

Besides the fact that many searches benefit from the use of at least two search engines – BoleyBlogs!’ many editors tend to use Yahoo, A9, or MSN to follow up a Google search – exalead has a number of innovative features that could truly help the user expand their search horizon.

Some of the nifty features of exalead:

• Thumbnail previews of found web sites
• Previews of web sites in bottom-half of screen (”safe page preview”)
• Truncation/word stemming
• Related terms
• Related categories
• On-screen limits by geographic location or document type (PDF, TXT, DOC, PPT, RTF, WPD)
• Pre-sorting by date or relevance
• Boolean or multilingual natural language, with some auto-translation
• Spelling recommendations
• Phonetic searching
• “Real Time” indexing – supposed to keep index very current

So, does exalead replace Google? No. But, unlike many of the so-called “next gen search engines” like BoleyBlogs! fave Vivisimo, with 1 billion documents and counting exalead has some heft to their database. Combined with a commitment to creating a competitive Web search engine and a management staff dressed in the finest french styles, it may be one to watch.

Notes from the (Legal) Underground: A Law Professor Shares The Top Arbitrary Number (Turns Out to be Six) of Things Not to Do on Law School Exams

Last week, Notes from the (Legal) Underground posted Western New England College School of Law Professor Bill Child’s list of Things Not to Do on Law School Exams.

Today, Notes posts Chicago law student David Gulbransen’s reply, Inspired by Last Week’s Guest Post, a Worldly-Wise Law Student Offers Six Tips for Law Professors.

On a related note, University of Iowa College of Law Professor Tung Yin offers his thoughts on reviewing exams with professors, and the mandatory curve.

As always, law students are advised not to read about law exams until a suitable post-exam decompression period has passed.

Sources: Blawg Republic, Blawg Wisdom

LLRX.com – Law and Technology Resources for Legal Professionals, one of our most highly recommended legal research sites, has published their first new articles of the new year, including:

Deep Web Research 2005
Web search guru Marcus P. Zillman’s guide extensively documents resources that include articles, books, websites, presentations, search engines, and technology applications that facilitate the challenging task of accessing information, published in many formats, that encompass the hundreds of millions of pages comprising the “deep web.”

Research RoundUp: Business Filings Databases — Updated
Kathy Biehl’s invaluable guide for business researchers has once again been updated with the latest links to corporate and business filings available online from all 50 states.

The Government Domain: THOMAS – New Congress, A Few Changes
Welcome to this new monthly column by Peggy Garvin author of The United States Government Internet Manual 2004-2005. Peggy will focus on tips and techniques to efficiently and effectively mine the depths of information available on government websites, beginning with THOMAS, which is now celebrating its tenth anniversary online.

“Do you speak American cyberspeak?”
This commentary by Lois C. Ambash focuses on technology’s growing impact on our everday speech and writing.

Law Firm Marketing: The Transformational Role of Marketing
Andy Havens suggests practical reasons CIOs and CMOs should focus their efforts on common goals.

FOIA Facts: Making Effective FOIA Requests
Scott A. Hodes offers four concise and useful tips on how to speed up the processing your request.

A Portable PC Backup Solution – Time Well Spent
Brett Burney’s review gives the ABSplus portable backup drive a big “thumbs up.”

El Pocho Abogado

BoleyBlogs! belatedly welcomes El Pocho Abogado, by L&C Law 2L Antonio Gonzalez. Rock on!

Leiter Reports: Law Schools with Largest 10-Year Tuition Hikes

The Leiter Reports, by UT Law Professor Brian Leiter, has listed the Top-Ten Law Schools with the Largest 10-Year Tuition Hikes, taken from 1993-2003 data published in this month’s National Jurist.

And, no, Lewis & Clark is not on the top ten. Four University of California Law Schools, however, are on there.

Source: Jd2B

Conglomerate

We’ve been remiss in noting the transmutation (transformation may be a gentler and more accurate description) of our old friend U. Wisconsin Law School Professor Gordon Smith’s blog Venturpreneur into Conglomerate.

Co-blogged by Marquette University Law School Professor Christine Hurt, Conglomerate focuses on business and corporate law, but is much more than that, providing “a quirky mix of entries about business, law, Wisconsin, legal education, and whatever else strikes our fancy (including, of course, cheese for Gordon).”

Be sure to also visit Gordon’s other blog project, Law & Entrepreneurship News.

Source: Jack Bog’s Blog

Googlefone

Google has long incorporated a phonebook feature, but you had to stumble on it or remember the correct syntax. Now, Jonathan ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch has created Googlefone, a helpful little tool that provides a template for pulling that directory info out of Google.

In addition to finding a person or business (put in both name and state), you can run a reverse search by putting a number in the name box and leaving the place field empty.

Source: Stark County Law Library Blog

The Invent Blog, way back in September of last year, put together this Guide to Downloading Patent Copies on the Internet.

Why post now, oh BoleyBlogs!? As the blog says, “The USPTO has never provided the ability to download multiple page TIFF or PDF copies of patents/patent applications. Thankfully, a number of web sites and computer programs have stepped up to fill that void.”

Source: The E-LawLibrary Weblog

LexisNexis is providing – for free, no registration required – access to updated political and world news from over 4,000 sources at LexisNexis – US Politics & World News.

“Special Coverage: Tsunami Disaster” is currently highlighted; other collections of stories are accessed by name (George W. Bush, Alberto Gonales, Viktor Yushchenko…), topic (abortion, homeland security, terrorism…), country/region, or type of material (press briefings, TV transcripts).

Expanded access to LexisNexis News (searchable; 20,000 sources from 1968) is available through the LexisNexis AlaCarte! link prominently displayed on the page.

Source: WisBlawg