Tara Calishain is the co-author of Official Netscape Guide to Internet Research, 2nd Edition, and author or co-author of four other books. She is the owner of CopperSky Writing & Research.
In This Issue:
ScanSoft Announces Online, E-fileable Forms
New Features From Martindale-Hubbell
Bankruptcy.com Launches “Bankruptcy Week”
Auto Demographics Service Debuts at NADA
Free Access to Back Issues of the Texas Register
Forbes Starts A People Tracker
Canadian Magazine Search Engine Launched
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ScanSoft Announces Online, E-fileable Forms
ScanSoft, Inc., has announced OmniForm, online legal forms in Web-fillable format, available on the American LegalNet Web site at uscourtforms.com. Currently, federal and state court forms in Word, .pdf and XFML format are available for designing, editing, and completing online. In the future, OminForm XFML technology will be used to allow the forms to be e-filed directly to the appropriate court. The licensing fee for the OnmiForm is $149.99 You can get more the press release for this site at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010129/ma_scansof.html or go straight to the site at http://www.scansoft.com/ .
New Features From Martindale-Hubbell
Martindale-Hubbell has announced new features and searching capabilities on its Web site at http://martindale.com/ . The Lawyer Locator is now accessible from the home page. It allows a search for lawyer by a variety of variables, including areas of practice, state, country, language spoken, law school, and firm size. There are a variety of tabs, allowing for different types of searches (there’s a search for lawyers affiliated with government agencies, for example.) When searching, you can use a variety of the variables or use a single one (and if you’re curious, searching for lawyers who speak Sanskrit works on this search engine.)
Additional features include the CLE Online, for searching continuing education courses, and a legal digest, entitled LegalBiz Online, will be launching February 15. For additional information, be sure to check out the Professional Resources section, which includes a meeting and conference calendar, a listing of law schools, and a listing of professional associations for legal professionals.
Bankruptcy.com Launches “Bankruptcy Week”
BankruptcyData.com has launched a weekly newsletter on bankruptcy filings with contact information, industry trends and major bankruptcy cases. “Bankruptcy Week” will feature statistical looks at trends and current interest topics. A first issue sample is downloadable from http://www.bankruptcydata.com/Bankruptcy_Week.htm . Subscribing will cost $50 a month or $500 a year, and includes “silver membership” to the premium services of BankruptcyData.com.
Auto Demographics Service Debuts at NADA
Experian and SRC, LLC, plan to debut an auto demographics service at the National Automobile Dealers Association conference in Las Vegas. http://auto.demographicsnow.com/ can deliver statistics on vehicles like make, model and year. Demographics on households in relation car dealerships are available, as well as information about the households including how many there are, income levels, occupants ages, and whether they have children.
Comparison studies will be offered when two areas are entered into the database. Maps and reports in various formats deliver a “visual picture of the data.” Cost for the service can be as high as $2,495 a year for reporting and demographic mapping capabilities, or as low as a monthly rate. There’s also a free demo available, but it requires a rather extensive registration.
Free Access to Back Issues of the Texas Register
I n an agreement between the Texas Secretary of State- Texas Register office and the university of North Texas, back issues of the Texas Register going to September 1991 are now available at http://texinfo.library.unt.edu/texasregister/ .
The main page of the site has several pop-up windows that active as you move your mouse. You can browse sites by year (some years are text only, some years have text, HTML, and PDF, and the last couple of years are HTML and PDF only.) You can also search by keyword (I recommend the search tips page for more information.)
There’s plenty of information here, but it might take you some time to find it, as there’s a lot. A quick option to search only within a certain year would be helpful. I know you can narrow it somewhat by putting the preferred year in your query, but it doesn’t work completely. (Do a search for +1991 +dairy. The fifth result is from 1999.)
Forbes Starts A People Tracker
In what looks like kinda like Celebrity Sleuth, Forbes has started People Tracker at http://www.forbes.com/peopletracker/ . The site claims to track over 120,000 executives and rich and famous people. Once you register (free and pretty non-intrusive; it asks for a name, password, title, and zip code) you can start searching.
In my ongoing quest for unusual search examples, I looked up James Linford, CEO of Gardenburger. And hey, he was there. Clicking on his name provided his name, title, and city and state of his company — not much other information there. There were links to other Gardenburger executives, though, making this a good jumping-off point if you were planning to do research on a single company. (You can do a people search on a stock symbol, too, making it very easy to search for company officers.) The CEO of General Electric had lots of information, with cross-references using links on the left side of the page (for example, you could find other conglomerate executives who are 64 years old, etc.)
This is certainly a different mix of people than you’ll find over at Celebrity Sleuth, and presented in a less “fluffy” manner. If you like that you’ll probably want to try this. Worth a look.
Canadian Magazine Search Engine Launched
A Canadian magazine search engine was recently launched at http://www.magomania.com/english/ . According to the press release, the site contains information about over 300 Canadian magazines, as well as an archive of freely-available articles. Articles can be keyword searched, and the search can be done on the entire database or limited to one of several categories.
Results appear in a (slightly annoying) pop-up window. Unfortunately, the results I viewed were not dated — there was no way to determine when they’d been published merely from the article page. This is an odd and unfortunate oversight. In addition, a few of the articles I read were not formatted properly. This is a good idea, and there’s plenty of good content in place here. Hopefully as this site grows some of the wrinkles will get ironed out.