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Basic Hands-on Workshop for Using the Internet In Your PracticeBasic Legal Internet Class Introduction to resources available on the internet Strategies on how to choose and use resources Overview of Browsers including great user tips Credibility, Security, and privacy issues surrounding internet sites Technological tips to best make use of your research including cutting and pasting documents Using applications and plug-ins Downloading documents 8:00 – 9:15 Resources Available on the Internet E-mail: The Internet is all about communication. One key way to do that is via e-mail. E-mail can be accessed via a dial up connection, via a network connection or via the World Wide Web Attachments An easy way to exchange computer files is to send them as an e-mail attachment. Each e-mail program does attachments differently, but you can generally attach a file through an icon with a paper clip. When sending and receiving attachments, there are a few things that you should to be aware of. First, when sending attachments, you need to think about the format of the file. Basically, the person you are sending the attachment to has to have the same or similar software as you so that they can open the file up. Another consideration is that viruses can travel through e-mail attachments. We'll talk more about that in the security section. Folders and Filtering. Most e-mail programs will allow you to organize your e-mail messages by putting them into folders. You can identify the folders by the kind of information that you will be putting into them. For example, you may have one folder for each client or for each committee you are on. More sophisticated e-mail programs can be programmed to deposit e-mail directly in the relevant folder using its filtering function. You can also use filtering to reduce the annoyance of junk e-mail. Web Based E-mail. Popular web based e-mail sources include Hotmail www.hotmail.com Juno www.juno.com Eudoramail www.eudoramail.com Findlaw's Justice.com mail.justice.com People may choose to have web-based e-mail in addition to their normal e-mail account for several reasons: Many web bases e-mail accounts allow you to check messages on your ordinary e-mail account, allowing you access to your mail wherever there is a computer; Web based e-mail can give you an alternative address when you need to provide an e-mail address and you are concerned about privacy; If your regular e-mail program goes out, you can use the web-based e-mail as a back up. Legal Research: One of the more obvious uses that a lawyer has for the Internet is legal research. The web allows access to research in several ways. Fee based sites: Lexis and Westlaw have all of their respective research power available over the Internet for subscribers. Smaller services like CD Law and Lois Law also have research resources available online. Free Sites: Much of the Internet is "free". Using the Internet in this manner, the legal researcher can gain access to: Statutes: You can easily find most state and federal statutes on the Internet. Most sites allow you to search by keyword or citation. A great starting point is the Cornell Legal Information Institute www.law.cornell.edu Regulations: You can find regulations on several different kinds of sites. One of the best ways to research regulations is on the web page of the agency in question. In addition to the actual text of the regulations, agencies tend to have guidance, policies, relevant register notices and the like. A good example is the Environmental Protection Agency web site www.epa.gov Case law: When looking for case law on the internet, remember that, for the most part, cases only go back to the mid 1990's. That was when the Internet began to really get big and people started putting this kind of information up. Most have been so busy keeping up with today that they have had neither time nor resources to go backwards. A great place for case law at both the state and federal level is Findlaw www.findlaw.com. Law review Articles: Many legal journals now post their publications on the Internet. A great central resource for law review articles is the USC Law School Legal Journal page www.usc.edu/dept/law-lib/legal/journals.html Legal News: The Internet is the perfect place for up to the minute news. If you are looking for the legal perspective on current events, try the CNN.com Law Center www.cnn.com/Law. For specific legal news, try Findlaw News news.findlaw.com. Business Research: In today's competitive climate, research often goes beyond the law to include research of businesses. The resources that you are used to are present on the Internet. Try the websites of Hoovers www.hoovers.com or Dunn and Bradstreet www.dnb.com. Contact Information: Are you trying to find someone? There are a lot of "people finder" sites on the Internet. Most of them are based on the information in the phone book, so why not go to the phone company first - www.att.net . Another big people finder site is on Yahoo! www.yahoo.com and click on "people". Notice that each site gives slightly different results. Understanding URL's A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a way to find (almost) any document on (almost) any computer in the world. It works like a combination telephone number and file folder. Support that you dial 1.206.733.5913 and ask me for a document "Internet" in my file folder marked "CLE". Easy! If I'm there, and co-operative. Instead, you could access my PC that has an "internet telephone number" or "IP address" of 206.129.200.186; then access document "Internet" in folder "CLE". Put it all together, and you are looking for document 206.129.200.186/CLI/Internet. But it is too hard to remember telephone numbers/IP Addresses, (especially since the technical people can change computers more often than phone numbers). So instead you use a "telephone directory" or "internet directory service" that converts between the IP Address and a name for my PC that is easier to remember: something like www.wsba.org. Now we can locate that document (or resource) with a simple, uniform resource locator: www.wsba.org/CLE/. Try it! If you want to dig deeper into those names, read on. They come in three parts. The last part (e.g. org) is like a last name, only we'll call it the "Top Level Domain" (TLD). It tells us what directory service controls the conversion (we'll need to know that later.) The middle part of the name (e.g. wsba) is the "Domain" which among other things lets us figure out what person or organization controls the website. The first part (e.g. www) is the name of the PC (or a virtual group of them) that we're actually accessing. So www.wsba.org refers to computer "www" within the organization "wsba' which is referred to in the "org" directory. For more explanation, see the PTO's study guide: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/notices/guide299.htm For the Ultimate Authority on URLs: www.w3c.org (may be rather technical). Let's use our knowledge to check out a suspicious (but amusing) URL, such as www.mslinux.org. WSBA's Technology Page tells use where to find the directory for the "org" TLD (work through exercise). Internet Security Issues Return Address. Websites hold on to your computer address (IP address) and can use it, together with other information, to put together a profile of you. Anonomizer Service – gives you anonymity when you are moving around the Internet. It is not ethically required by the Bar. Change your IP address frequently. You can set your modem to do this automatically. HTTPS. A secured HTTP interface which scrambles information to prevent theft of online information. When on a secured page, your browser will indicate it with a little lock. Always On Connection. If you have a DSL or Cable connection, your connection is "always on". Use a filter of some sort to prevent your computer from being used by hackers. You can use a Firewall to protect yourself. Check out the WSBA website on security. WSBA's Technology Page . click on security). Also see Gibson Research's Shields Up!, a test for security weakness in your connection and helps you become aware of the information you are giving out about yourself GRC.com . Metadata. This is data about data, a code hardwired into your computer that gets captures by documents to identify which particular computer the document was creatred on. Visit the Microsoft Knowledge base www.Microsoft.com, click on Knowledgebase) to read more about minimizing metadata in Word. Woody's Office Watch http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/index.asp also has a good newsletter on problems in Office products. How to Choose Internet Resources Simple guidelines for finding things: When most people try to find things on the Internet, they fire up their browsers and enter their search query in the first search engine that presents itself. They get a million hits and the first few they look at don't get what they want, so they give up. There is a better way to find information on the web. What do you want and where would you find it? First, think about what kind of information you are looking for. Do you want a case? The latest news on an issue before the Supreme Court? An ethics opinion? Rather than searching the entire Internet, go to the places where this information is likely to be and search there. For example, if you want a case, go to places that, in the real world, would have cases. Your ideas might include the courthouse www.courts.wa.gov or a law library www.courts.wa.gov/library/. If you don't have the web site addresses for these places, search for them using your search engine. You'll find it far easier to find the Washington State Courts using your search engine than it would be to find Smith v Jones, 123 Wn. App. 456 (2000). Once you find the courts page, you'll have a much easier time searching for your case. Select your search tools with care. In home repair, you always hear about choosing the right tool for the right job. Searching the Internet is the same way. Select the type of search tool that is best. If looking for legal information, use a legal search engine like LawCrawler www.lawcrawler.com. If searching for a popular topic that is likely to yield hundreds of hits, use a directory like Yahoo to limit the range. If you are not sure what you want or how to search for it, try Ask Jeeves www.ask.com which allows you to ask questions using natural language searching. How to Use Internet Resources Credibility You can't believe everything you read. That is even truer on the Internet. Anyone can put up a web page and make it look very professional. But it is up to you to be alert and make sure the information you get is credible. Simply remembering to be alert is often enough to keep you out of trouble. But you may want to ask yourself a couple of questions as well. Why is this information here? Commercial (.com websites put up information for commercial purposes – they want to sell you something. Ask yourself whether the commercial aspect of the site influences the information you are accessing or whether it reveals a slant to information. Educational institutions (.edu) and governmental entities (.gov) are generally putting up information simply to make it available. Be careful when looking at information on .edu sites – they may be official sites of the institution or they may be personal sites of students and faculty using the school servers. How current is the information? In the legal world, it is especially important that the information be current. Yet, on the Internet, it is simple to post up information and leave it there forever. Many sites have a "last updated on" notation somewhere on the page. If you can't find any indication of how current the information is, be cautious in using any time sensitive material. You may want to double-check the information on another site if possible. Privacy. Many web sites give you the information that you want in exchange for the information that they want – your e-mail address and other personal information. Web sites then often sell this information along with your search and/or shopping preferences to other organizations that use that information to market to you more effectively. One way you can protect yourself in this environment is to have a special e-mail address that you use for registering for things. As noted above, there are dozens of free web based e-mail programs available. In addition, if websites are asking for personal information like social security numbers, credit cards and the like, the page you are entering the information in should be secure. Check the lower left hand corner of your browser to see if there is a little lock symbol there. That is the easiest way to see if you are on a secure web page. Web Browser Tips Browser Elements: Your browser is similar to your TV. It allows you to view information that is out there on the Internet. Both the TV and the Browser have tools that you can use to easily view your chosen materials. Forward and Back The top of your browser has buttons that allow you to go back and forth through the web pages that you have visited since logging on. If you want to go back to a site you visited several pages ago, you can get the list of the last 8 or 10 pages you visited. In Netscape, click the back button and hold it down to see the list or go to "Go" on the menu bar. In Explorer, click on the little downward arrow next to the back button to get the list. Bookmarks/Favorites Save your favorite sites by adding them to your bookmarks. In Netscape, click on "Bookmarks" and your first choice is to "Add to Bookmarks". In Explorer, click on "Favorites" and select "Add to Favorites". Both browsers allow you to edit your bookmarks as well. You may want to organize your favorite sites into folders. For example, you might want to have a legal research folder for the web sites you use for legal research. In addition, while editing, you can change the name of the bookmark. Sometimes the name the web site designer gave to a page will not help you remember it in the future. In Netscape, while in the edit page, right click on the link and select Properties. From there, you can type in a new name for the link. In Explorer, simply select "change name". Find in Page This is a great tool. Once you find a web page that supposedly has the information you want, you are stuck scrolling through the whole page, trying to find what you like. Instead, you can save time by using the "Find in page" feature. Simply go to "Edit" on the menu bar and select "Find in page". You can then type in the term you are searching for. This feature is available in most Windows programs. Setting Your Home Page You have complete control over the page that first opens in your web browser. Choose the page you tend to go to first when you get on line. To make that your new home page, go to that page. If you are in Netscape, go to "Edit" and "Preferences". In the middle of the dialog box are the Homepage settings. Click on the "current page" button to set that page as your new homepage. In Explorer, go to "Edit" and "Internet Options". The first section has the Homepage settings. Click on the "current page" button to set that page as your new homepage. History Your browser automatically keeps track of every page you visit for several days. You can access this information on the History page. In Netscape, go to "Communicator", "Tools" and "History". In Explorer, there is a "History" icon. Context Sensitive Menus In any Windows program, you can do a right mouse click and produce a context sensitive menu that allows you to quickly access commands. Print Preview In Netscape, you can go to File, Print Preview to see how many pages a web page has before you print it. Making use of Windows: The basic tools of Microsoft Windows expands your power in using the Internet. Resizing Windows You can easily make Windows bigger or smaller or change their shape altogether. In the upper right hand corner of your screen are three symbols – an underscore, a double box and an X. The underscore reduces the Window. You can expand the Window again by clicking on the button at the bottom of your screen. The double box allows you to make the Window full sized or a smaller size. If you are already in full sized mode, click on the box to make the program screen smaller. Once it is smaller, you can use your mouse to drag the screen around. You can also resize it using by moving your mouse to the edges and using the arrows that appear to resize. Click on the double box again to maximize the screen. You may already be familiar with the X. You can use it to close the program. Using multiple programs You can have several programs open at the same time while using Windows. You can easily move between the programs by using the buttons at the bottom of your screen. Cut and Paste You can easily cut information from one program and paste it into another. For example, you may want to save some text you found on the Internet in your Word or WordPerfect program. Make sure both your browser and your word processor are open. Select the text in your browser. Use "Edit" "Copy" or right mouse click and select "copy". Use the buttons at the bottom of the screen; select your word processor or whatever program you would like to paste the text into. Select "Edit" "Paste" or right mouse click and select "paste". Downloading Documents You will often have reason to download documents off the Internet. Perhaps you want to download a case, experiment with new software, or any number of reasons. Here are some tips to make it easier. Pay attention to where you save your downloaded files and to what the files are called. You don't jumble documents from different case/matter/clients together in your physical files, so you don't want to jumble documents you've downloaded for different case/matter/clients. Create a special folder for downloaded documents within a separate folder for each different case/matter/clients. This will make it easier to find the file after you have downloaded it. Make the name easy to remember, like "download". Your computer may already have a folder called "My downloaded documents". If so, use it. Don't be afraid to change the name of the file to something you will be able to remember and identify in the future. The extended file names feature in Windows allows you to put full explanations of the file. For capturing images, use your right mouse click and select the menu choice to save the image. Executable files can carry viruses. Make sure to download files from reputable sources and to always keep your virus checker up to date. There are many different kinds of executable files. Some you can identify with extensions of .exe, .shb. etc. Others are hidden inside ordinary documents. You must keep antivirus software running, update its "signature file" at least once a month, and keep frequent backups for when (not if) something goes bad. Using Applications and Plug-Ins While your browser is a powerful tool, it can be even more powerful with the use of popular add ons called applications or plug-ins. Here are some of the more popular. Adobe Acrobat www.adobe.com. The popular Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free plug-in that allows the user to read documents that have been saved as .pdf. The beauty of .pdf files is that it allows the reader to see the document exactly as it was originally prepared. This file type is very popular on government sites. Real Audio www.real.com. This is another popular plug-in that permits you to listen to audio files and streaming audio. Listen to Washington State Supreme court arguments www.tvw.org/, US Supreme Court arguments on the Oyez Project www.oyex.com, National Public Radio news stories www.npr.org or listen to your favorite NPR shows live on KUOW www.kuow.org. Windows based computers come with Windows Media Player, which also plays audio files. However, not all sites offer audio in a format compatible with Windows Media Player. Flash Player www.macromedia.com. This plug-in allows you to view short animated clips. Generally Shockwave adds dimension to sites, but it has practical side as well, as you can see on sites like Flu Watch www.fluwatch.com Shockwave www.shockwave.com is a competing plug-in that works in a similar manner to flash. Visit its website to see some great examples of this tool in use. |