SOS web site

The Ohio Secretary of State's web site has been refreshed with a new design. A few kinks still need to be worked out; some of the site's text has to be reconciled with its Adobe content. Otherwise, the site has a tighter organization and uses Adobe Acrobat more for its publications. The site retains the main business search tools (Corporate, UCC and Nonprofit filings) and all the campaign finance databases. The site also has a Minister License search and a Notary search tool.

Appalachia

The Appalachian Regional Commission web site provides a portal of information about the states lying in the 200,000 square-mile region "that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern New York to Northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of 12 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia."

Regional data can be easily located using the site's database and will retrieve information on the population, income, unemployment, poverty, education, economic status and geography.

iPods and courts

The U.S. District Court in Toledo is allowing the use of iPods by defense attorneys and their clients in a federal drug case. The Toledo Blade article ("Defense to use iPods to review evidence ..." Jan. 17, 2006) details the practical reasons for bringing iPods in for listening to over 100 hours of evidence:

13 CDs of wiretaps are condensed and downloaded into the iPods

defendants are in scattered locations but can easily access the information

the devices are easy to use and ensure that the recordings cannot be reproduced, a concern of the court

access to the devices are controlled out of the clerk's office in the federal court

the cost to the taxpayer is minimal as compared to other methods of formatting information

State Constitutions Project

Update on the NBER/Maryland State Constitutions Project: the web site has a new web address: http://www.stateconstitutions.umd.edu/index.aspx.

New Ohio judges

The November 2005 election brings a group of new judges to the Ohio bench. The Ohio Judicial Conference has conveniently created a web page that tracks the new judges starting their positions in January 2006.

Tax amnesty

The State of Ohio has declared tax amnesty days for Ohioians from January 1 through Feb. 15, 2006. The Tax Amnesty Web Site describes the whole process for the taxpayer and the tax professional. See the Tax Amnesty Check List to see if you qualify or not.

Columbus Dispatch online

The Columbus Dispatch has decided to allow free online access to some of its newspaper content again, without a subscription. Hurray! There are still subscriber levels that provide access to more features, but basic access is no longer blocked. The Dispatch web site has a new design as well. According to a Dec. 29, 2005 story in The Other Paper this move will help improve web traffic to the Dispatch site which had earlier introduced a new search feature. Powered by Planet Discover, a search on the Dispatch site will also include stories from over 400 other news sources including sites from the Dispatch family of web sites, Central Ohio business sources and many other Ohio news sources.