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:
Government Pulls Sensitive Information
Intellectual Property Contacts
LLRXBu zz Tour of 50 State Web Sites
LLRXBu zz Archives : April 3, 2000 – Present
The Latest on Legal Research
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Dialog has released its new subscription service providing business research. Dialog Company Profiles offers information about almost 500,000 global
companies, both publicly and privately held.
Searching by company or industry retrieves information sorted under nine specific tabs. Research can be narrowed or expanded with options on the opening page, such as industry code or personal name. According to
Dialog’s president and CEO, there are no set commands to learn when searching this database.
Profiles include a synopsis of the company including history, parent company and subsidiaries, executives, contact information and more. You can get more information from the press release at:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011108/82493_1.html.
Rhode Island has a searchable database of corporations posted at http://www.corps.state.ri.us/. Searching guidelines are neatly listed at the top of the page. Active and Inactive Entities can be searched by name, entity number or name of corporate officer or agent.
The interesting thing about this particular database is that the active entities can also be searched by a word within the company’s purpose statement. Unfortunately the search term must be at least four characters long — searching for “cow” won’t work. Searching on Internet, however, did work with over 200 results.
Results come in a table that includes name, charter, incorporation type, and incorporation date. The names are hyperlinked. Click on them and you’ll get a
detailed listing, including contact information, agent information, and officer information. Oh, and the statement of purpose, too.
Government Pulls Sensitive Information
U.S. government agencies have removed some information available on public-access Web sites for security reasons after the events of September 11, 2001. Of particular concern was the heavy traffic to Nuclear
Regulatory Commission information about operating nuclear plants.
Other agencies removing information are the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency. Also military sites have removed information pertaining to ships and troops.
These self-censorship steps are being taken, according to a government official, so not to aid a potential attacker with information “courtesy of the U.S.
government.” Get the ABC News story at:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/doe_netsecurity011106.html
Meanwhile, The security-sensitive information removed from the Internet was detected by POGO, Project on Government Oversight. According to POGO in a letter the Secretary of Energy, government agencies providing detailed maps of nuclear facilities appear “to be irresponsible” especially after the events of September 11th. (http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1101/111201j1.htm)
More information about POGO and its latest projects can be obtained from its Web site at http://www.pogo.org/. In addition to Energy, it is also investigating Defense and Public Welfare.
Intellectual Property Contacts
The World Intellectual Property Organization has posted a directory of global intellectual property contacts at
http://www.wipo.int/news/en/links/addresses/ip/. Nations are listed in alphabetical order, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Regional organizations are
listed also.
Each profile includes the agency’s name in English and French, followed by the address, executive names with titles and multiple phone numbers, and the last time information about the agency was communicated. For those who prefer to use the Internet, urls and e-mail contacts are listed when available.
In its first meeting since September 11th, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers have began to look at ways they can share information and protect infrastructure systems. In the words of the organization’s president, it’s time to think and prepare for the unthinkable.
By mid-December, they plan to have developed a blueprint of procedures for sharing best practices of security and protecting such systems as banking,
communication, electricity and water. The group also wants to educate lawmakers, both state and federal, by providing security and technology issues in “layman’s terms.”
At the meeting, which was closed to the media and public, they discussed business and emergency management during times of crises. They also looked at security policies and cyberterrorism. Speakers included Newt Gingrich and the directory of Critical Infrastructure in the Office of Homeland Security.
Get the whole story at:
http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2001/1112/web-nascio-11-15-01.asp.
Search engine FAST (http://www.alltheweb.com), which with Northern Light belongs in the “good but less known” groups of search engines, has revamped its site and rolled out a new look with new features and an
exciting news search engine….
http://www.researchbuzz.com/articles/2001/FAST1113.html.
Opera Browser Goes to 6.0 Beta
Browser software company Opera has announced the release of the 6.0 beta, which you can download now at http://www.opera.com/download/download.cgi?id=191.
I’ve been using this version for most of a day, and it seems pretty stable. Some impressions:
1) For the first time you have a choice between Multiple Document Interface (many screens within one window, traditional Opera) or Single Document Interface (one window per screen, the way Netscape or Mozilla does it.)
2) The new buttons for determining security, toggling images on and off, etc. are not good. (Sorry, Opera.) They’re pretty and all, but hard to read. Luckily you can get skins and new button sets. If your eyes are as poor as mine, download the blue button set and your troubles will be solved.
3) The panels on the side can now hold panels with dynamic information (RSS feeds!). I made one with a local news feed. Handy, but it’s going to take some experimentation to make the most of it. Opera has a (small) list of available panels at http://my.opera.com/customize/ (You can get the blue
button set there too.)
4) Double-click a non-hyperlinked word and you’ll be presented to several options, including several search options, a dictionary link, encyclopedia link, and translation link. Pretty sweet, though I’ll probably forget to use it.
5) Some JavaScript problems I was having in Opera 5 seem to have been resolved. However, there are some page-rendering problems occasionally which I’m not enough of an HTML jockey to define. I’ve have so far been able to resolve them by toggling to the user mode, which removes a lot of page formatting.
If you’re a registered user of Opera 5.x, you can upgrade to 6 to free. If you’re a registered user of 4.x, you can register Opera 6 for a discount. As
always, there is a version you can download for free but it’s supported by ads. Worth a look.