In the heat of the summer, it’s hard to concentrate on serious subjects. For a change of pace, I thought it might be fun to discuss websites that are humorous or helpful, but not necessarily directly related to helping you practice law better. Some of these sites may sound far-fetched, but remember, someone took the time and trouble to create them. Some of my favorites are quite useful and worth exploring.

One such site is www.google.com. This is one of the best of the Internet search engines. For the uninitiated, a search engine is a site that regularly indexes information on web pages. You specify what you are looking for, such as New Jersey lawyer, and it will give you a list of sites that include that text. They will be based on relevancy so that sites with the phrase in more prominent locations will appear higher on the list. From the different search engines on the Internet, such as www.yahoo.com, www.altavista.com, www.webcrawler.com, etc., you can find all sorts of useful information. It’s always a good idea to check more than one search engine if you’re doing client-related research. You’ll be surprised at the differences among the sites since they use different criteria to evaluate web page content. Check www.searchengines.com for other search engines as well as information about how they work so you can make your firm’s website come up as the top hit when a prospective client searches for “New Jersey attorney.”

Many of the search engine sites, like www.yahoo.com, offer free e-mail accounts. Even if you already have e-mail through your office and another at home, a free account can be handy when you’re traveling or to funnel specific, more critical messages to you while you’re away.

There also are legal-specific portal sites. These essentially are pre-defined search engines organized into topics and focus, in this case, on legal source material on the World Wide Web. The best-known legal portal is www.findlaw.com.

Another favorite site is www.mapquest.com. There are several other good map sites like www.maps.com and www.mapblast.com, but I seem to get the best directions and maps using mapquest. Having basic directions and a local map help me know how long it will take to get to clients’ offices. If I’m going somewhere for pleasure, I generally check www.weather.com so I know how to pack and what to expect.

When I have to meet someone at the airport, I use the flight-tracking portion of www.thetrip.com to see exactly where the flight is and what time it’s expected to arrive. When I’m the one traveling, I often look for a bed and breakfast in the area as well as research what’s going on in that location, where to eat, etc. There are a number of good sites for purchasing airline tickets. Recently, I got excellent prices and options at www.orbitz.com. Another good resource, especially for vacation travel, is www.travelocity.com.

With two young children and a full-time consulting business, it’s hard to find the time to read the daily newspaper. One trick is to change the setting of my browser so that when I open it, it shows the front page of that day’s New York Times, www.newyorktimes.com.

There are hundreds of wonderful sites to share with children. Their age and interests will guide you to specific sites. My son loves to look at animated airplanes while my daughter is content to design her dream Barbie doll.

In recent years, I’ve begun doing more shopping on the Internet. Many of the purchases are computer and office supplies or clothing that I’m familiar with and am sure will fit. While I have not explored sites like www.ebay.com and other auction sites, several clients have been successful getting decorative or other items for their offices. Good places to start for computer-related items are www.cnet.com and www.mysimon.com. These will locate products, sort them by price, compare them to similar items and let you connect directly to make a purchase. 

One recent discovery is www.ofoto.com, which lets you share digital pictures with friends and also make a CD-ROM from your stored photo album. You also can view your photos, order prints, frames and other accessories online. Best of all, the prices are reasonable and delivery is fast.

Lively sites

I wish I could take credit for creating or even finding the following witty sites, many of which were featured in a lively program at the 2001 ABA Techshow. The panelists were G. Burgess Allison, Jeffrey Flax and Mark Tamminga. Over the years, the “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” program has been a standing-room-only affair that had the audience rolling in the aisles. For a full list of the sites they discussed and links, check www.techshow.com. It also contains information about next year’s conference and materials from some sessions of this year’s show.

Among the sites are some useful ones for computer troubleshooting like Compaq’s web14.compaq.com/falco/ and Dell’s www.support.dell.com knowledge bases. You also might want to include www.microsoft.com, www.corel.com and other software vendors’ knowledge bases when trying to resolve a problem — as long as the problem isn’t getting Internet access back!

One of the more intriguing sites is www.groups.yahoo.com, where you can either join existing online discussion groups on a wide range of legal and other subjects or you can start your own for colleagues or clients. This is one of the more interesting ways to use the Internet to market your practice on a shoestring.

If you’re looking for a diversion, you might want to check out sites like www.sodaplay.com/constructor. You can play with either their stick figures or design your own. If you’re supposed to be working on ideas for your firm’s website, take a look at www.webpagesthatsuck.com, which will give you some ideas of what not to do. Check www.earthcam.com if you’re brainstorming a trial strategy and need a diversion or want to check how much traffic you’ll hit on the way home.

If you’re at home with children, you might want to look at the Edible/Inedible Experiments Archive at www.madsci.wustl.edu/experiments. This site has lots of scientific experiments you can do with children such as making a battery out of a potato, making a volcano out of baking powder, making super soap bubbles and other fun projects. If you run out of experiments, you can always browse the Yuckist Site on the Internet at www.yucky.kids.discovery.com/flash/index.html. Ever wonder what makes you burp or how your ear fills up with wax? You can find the answer to this and other fascinating questions about the human body, roaches and snakes.

Business

If you ever felt envious when you read about these 20-something dot-com overnight millionaires, you’ll enjoy monitoring sites like www.downside.com/deathwatch.html, a catalog of companies that died between 1999 and 2000. Another similar site is www.thestandard.com/trackers/flop, which tracks the most recent companies to call it quits. This site also includes business articles and might be useful when a client calls unhappy about recommendations from a broker or brother-in-law. Depending on where you are in your legal career, you might or might not enjoy seeing what Greedy Associates have to say about the legal job market at Findlaw’s http://www.infirmation.com/bboard/clubs-top.tcl.

If you’re thinking about moving or refinancing your home, you may want to take a look at Home Price Check at www.domania.com/homepricecheck. Plug in your address and take a look at the prices houses around yours have sold for in the past few years. You also might want to look at www.hsh.com for mortgage rate information as well as a preview of your credit rating.

If your partner insists on everything being made into a PowerPoint presentation, you might want to share the slide show of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm. This might help your partner understand there are times when PowerPoint slide shows aren’t the right tool for the job.

Too weird for words is the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie Homepage at www.zapatopi.net/afdb.html. The idea of this satire is to create a cap from aluminum foil that will protect your brain from mind control. The site advises, “It can’t be stressed enough how important it is to have the shiny side pointing out. This is needed because the shiny side is most reflective to psychotronic radiation, while the dull side can actually, in certain environmental conditions, absorb it. However, as is illustrated in the instructions above, it is also wise to complement this with a layer of foil pointing shiny side in. This will keep your brain waves, which are also reflected by the shiny side, from being picked up by mind-reading equipment.” The accompanying photographs make it worth a visit. This site and several other humorous sites included in the ABA presentation convince me there are way too many computer-savvy people with a little too much time on their hands.

Looking for a new car? Check sites like Auto Trader at www.autotrader.com and the Kelley Blue Book at www.kbb.net to see what your trade-in is worth.

While legal work has slowed down, it might be a good time to think about the direction you want your firm to go. There is a wealth of good advice for small businesses at www.bizmove.com.

If you like word games, you may want to check sites like the Anagram Genius at www.anagramgenius.com.

Are you a sports addict and can’t get to games? You might want to visit www.beltsander-races.com. This site explains the origins of Belt Sander Races along with locations to see them and rules and tips for making your sander faster.

In reviewing all these sites, the scariest thing to me is that people took the time to create them, take photographs, tweak them, write accompanying text and publish them for other people to see. Take a little diversion time on the net from time to time and you never know what you’ll find!