Margaret Berkland is the president of Data Vision Design, Inc., which has provided applications development, business process design, and other IT services to the legal industry since 1989. Prior to becoming the president of DataVision Design, Inc., Margaret was the Info. Resources Technology Specialist for McKenna & Cuneo, where she still performs those duties on a contract basis. Margaret designed and maintains the firm’s internal homepage of Internet links, and manages the links, link annotations, and article content for McKenna & Cuneo’s Web site.
CompletePlanet
http://www.completeplanet.com/
CompletePlanet searches the “deep” web. The “deep” web “is defined as content in searchable databases that only appears dynamically in response to a direct query.” “CompletePlanet presently contains 19,000+ search sites organized into more than 4,000 subject headings.” Most search engines create their repositories of information by spidering or crawling “surface” web pages. These search engines cannot “see” or retrieve content in the deep web. Because of this, the deep web has previously been hidden. “Approximately 13,000 of the estimated total 100,000 “deep” Web sites are presently listed on CompletePlanet.”
disAbility.gov
http://disability.gov/
disAbility.gov is a comprehensive website that seeks to bring “information on U.S. Federal Programs, Services, and Resources to Americans with Disabilities and Their Families.” There is a HOT TOPICS section with links to the current topics of highest interest and links to the White House, U.S. House and Senate. Coverage includes Children and Youth, Civil Rights and Protections, Disability Statistics, Employment, Housing, Recreation and Travel, and Technology to name just a few.
FindSounds
http://www.findsounds.com/
FindSounds is a search engine for finding sample sounds and sound effects on the Internet. You may search for a specific sound or use a partial directory of sounds to begin your search. Variables available for a search include various file formats like .wav, mono or stereo, subject of the sound, and resolution to list a few. You may use the Find Sounds Like This One button once your search is complete to locate as many as one hundred audio files on the Internet that closely match your original search results. There is a free downloadable Comparisonics Audio Player on this website. It provides a colored sound wave image of the sound file. You may highlight all or part of the image and search for matches on the web.
FreeTranslation.com
http://www.freetranslation.com/
FreeTranslation.com claims to be “the fastest web-based translation available.” It provides the “gist” of foreign language text and web pages. It attempts to translate entire phrases rather than translating word for word. It also translates more words than other existing translation websites. Languages translated are English to French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Norwegian and French, Spanish, and German to English.
SearchBug.com
http://www.searchbug.com/
On SearchBug.com you can find companies by name and/or type; view salary data by industry and job function; search over 40 auction sites at once; and find the best deals on credit cards! They claim to have over 500 useful searches listed by topic. Currently there is a list of 17 categories with links to searches under each category. SearchBug.com was named by PCWorld as one of the top 5 lesser known search sites.