Xobni – It’s Not Just for Beta Anymore

Image via Wikipedia

Lifehacker reminded me that it was time to crow again about one of my favorite free applications, Xobni. This is a fantastic add-on for Microsoft Outlook, allowing lightening-fast search capabitilities and great analytics measuring the contents of your inbox. Xobni adds a pane to the screen, which displays all sorts of information such as graphs of frequency, response time, rank, the person’s s network, threaded email conversations, file exhanges, the ratio of emails out versus in for a given person, connections to their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, and a link to Hoovers profiles for businesses. I have tried Xobni in both Outlook 2003 and 2007 and it works just great!

Lifehacker reports at the jump that Xobni is now out of beta and is even faster and still free. What are you waiting for? Go get this great tool and start examining your inbox with a microscope!

Fun fact: Xobni is backwards for Inbox. I would argue that it is backwards, forwards, sideways and diagonal for it.

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More Free & Cheap For Legal Researchers

I know I know. You don’t really want free alternatives for those costly legal research services that you have been using since Bowzer was a pup and the World Wide Web was only a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye. I know how that reassuring logo on the top of your downloaded cases, statutes and articles warms your heart and brightens your smile. I know how you have been researching for years and know all there is to know about how to get in the know.

But just in case you might want some of the free and available information of the legal variety, head on over to the Georgetown Law Library for a current list of near comprehensive proportion of free and low cost alternatives for legal research. Heck, the list even includes some low cost offerings by the Big Two. I guess if you can’t beat them, well, you know what to do.

There is a handy Table of Contents along the left side of the page and the more detailed list and tables taking up most of the right. Of course, there is case law broken up by court, state and federal constitutions, federal and state codes and session laws, a passel of legislative history, and even administrative regulations. The low cost alternatives include:

Caselex
Casemaker
Fastcase
lexisONE
Loislaw
VersusLaw
Westlaw

While these lists keep popping up from time to time, it is always worth taking a look. Resources change as fast as Lindsay Lohan’s hair color on the web and you never know what new link might debut.

And if you are looking for some tips on how best to employ these tools in the most cost-effective manner, head over to the ABA’s Law Practice Magazine for a great article on 10 Ways to Stretch Your Research Dollars – How To Get The Facts On A Dime. The tips include: ways to access the Big Two in a more tailored way; employ advanced search functionality on the Web; use alternative resources for public docs like court decisions; perform competitive corporate research; use sites like JDSupra to assist in preparing your own court documents; use the Web to help with off-line research; and, verify that what you find on the Web is the best source for your purposes. This is a fantastic collection of suggestions that are sure to hone and refine your skill set.

Hat tip to the Legal Writing Prof Blog and to the Ross-Blakely Law Library Blog, which never fail to come up with the goods.

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Is the Rule Of Law Best Administered by Concurring Opinions?

A very interesting read indeed, Paul Lomio at Stanford’s Legal Research Plus blog cites to an article by James Fowler and Yonatan Lupu called The Strategic Content Model of Supreme Court Opinion Writing. The authors, professors of political science at the University of California, San Diego, posit that the better supported or “grounded” opinions are concurring opinions. The article examines how the content of judicial opinions is as important as the outcome in terms of long-term impact and that concurring opinions tend to offer a more developed discussion and greater insight into the underlying reasoning employed.

Apparently, the position of the median justice has a greater impact on citations in the majority opinion than the majority justice’s own agenda. This suggests justices are more responsive to each other than to their political motivations.

It makes sense to me that concurring opinions produce better reasoning and support. There is little incentive to flesh out a unanimous decision. And a dissenting opinion creates the type of “either or” mentality that raises roadblocks rather than constructive discussion. Perhaps the more congenial “concurrence” encourages dialogue and exploration, which in turn facilitates a well-thought-out analysis. So read those concurring opinions closely – there may be more than meets the eye.

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What the iPhone 3.0 Software Can Do For Your Business

Image by Victor Svensson via Flickr

The iPhone blog has a breakout of all of the new features in 3.0 (coming this summer to an iPhone or iPod Touch near you) that directly relate to business interests. Recent past enhancements include Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync compatibility and remote wiping and other-enterprise oriented tools.

While these prior changes favored the enterprise, new 3.0 features appear to include treats for both the business user and the enterprise. While I recommend you hit the jump for greater detail, the article lists the following: anti-phishing in Safari; more detailed call-log; capability of creating meeting invitations; encrypted profiles; more languages; better business directory access; iPhone – Mac notes sync (Windows apparently is coming); over the air profiles; support for proxy servers; certificate revocation; and, on demand access to your VPN.

Of course, Apple’s opening of the API and SDK to developers will yield more applications, both business and personal. And it will be interesting to see how developers take advantage of the new features to craft functionality across the software spectrum. Unfortunately for me, my enterprise is still not biting. But I keep hoping. And asking. Because if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Writing: A Tiger’s Eye View

Who doesn’t love Calvin & Hobbes? I stumbled upon this great strip about learning how to write and where it will get you and I just had to share it. You could easily insert “legal profession” for academia in the last panel and get the job done equally as well. Enjoy!

The E-Reader Lowdown Showdown

Are you tempted by e-readers? Then get thee to Wired’s Gadget Lab for a great article on the current crop of e-readers and their respective pros and cons. While the article is focused on Samsung’s latest, the Papyrus, author Priya Ganapati lists all the readers, with quick descriptions of what is “wired” and what is “tired” about them. Prices range dramatically from $260 to over $1,000 (and possibly beyond for my personal fav, the not-yet-priced Plastic Logic reader). Some of have touch screens and some do not. Some support cards and some do not. Some can get the goods wirelessly and some cannot. Hit the jump for a handy crash course on the options and start plotting, planning and saving your pennies today.

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Interactive State Law Maps Now On-Line

In keeping with the motor vehicle risk management perspective shared by all insurers, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS has now made available interactive maps of all fifty states’ laws concerning motorcycle and bicycle helmets and automated enforcement (red lights and speeding cameras, etc.). Helmet laws can be found here and automated enforcement laws can be found here.

Even if you are not immediately called upon to use these maps for a client, you may want to consult them before your next road trip. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Hat tip to the Resource Shelf.

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New, Improved Searching in IE8

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Are you using the all new Internet Explorer 8? Of course you aren’t. But, just in case you are, Alex Chitu at the unofficial Google Operating System blog sets out some new search features in IE8 that make it just a little more “spayshul.” Check out the link for screenshots and more detailed explanations. However, if you just want the quick lowdown, check these out:

• prefix a query with a “?” in the search bar to find results from your default search engine;
• see previously visited pages matching your typed text (titles and URLs only);
• use as search engine direclty without typing the query in the IE search box;
• find matches of the query in search results, using “find”;
• automatically apply distinct colors to tabs to facilitate identification;
• employ “search provides” to familiar sites, such as Wikipedia, Yahoo, Live Search and Amazon;
• use “accelerators” to secure added useful information about selected text on a page, such as address mapping, translation and bookmarking from a little menu overlay;

Nice for IE8 – these tweaks get it a bit closer to the competition, which is still enjoying a commanding lead.

Hat tip to Lifehacker.

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More Semantic News: Woz Takes The DeepDyve

Image by Mark Coggins via Flickr

Everyone who is anyone in tech or an afficianado with respect to Dancing With The Stars knows Steve Wozniak, the Segue-loving, polo-playing, ever-smiling computer genius co-founder of Apple. Apparently Steve still knows a good thing when he sees it: he has just accepted a position on the advisory board of the research engine DeepDyve.  DeepDyve is a semantic search engine that scours the elusive deep web. I touched on it in an earlier post on semantic search engines and I have used it several times with decent results.

The deep web is as vast as our own ocean depths and, like the depths, is not easily accessible. Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb estimates that 99.8% of the web consists of this elusive data.

I didn’t realize this, but DeepDyve’s search algorithm was developed by scientists that originally worked on the Human Genome Project. DeepDyve uses similar pattern matching and analysis across large amounts of data in a very unique and effective way.

Another unique quality: Perez notes that the more text you enter into the search box, the more relevant the results. This is contrary to the usual experience with search engines, where more text tends to skew results in unintended ways.

The biggest complaint about DeepDyve to date appears to be its user interface, which is less than compelling. Never fear, though, as Woz has been tasked with improving the DeepDyve user experience.

How cool is that?

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Google Boards the S.S. (Semantic Search) Web 3.0 – Bon Voyage!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

While Google apps like Gmail and Reader seem to get all the love and press, Google has been tweaking its search function in little ways and is testing the semantic waters with its big toe. There are two new features that the casual researcher may notice. Google searches will now yield longer “search snippet” results when more complicated queries are submitted. More importantly, Google will now offer semantically-related results for some search queries. The bottom of the page will include suggested searches that are related to your original search. When you follow the links, you may secure even further related searches at the bottom.

How will these tweaks aid you, the humble searcher? The more specific your search query, the more likely the related semantic searches will yield additional research fruit. And the more context your complex query affords, the easier it is to find results that fit your parameters.

Good for you, Google! Welcome to Web 3.0!

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