Volume 4 Number 7
July 1, 2005

• Up Front

• On The Desktop

• Feature Article

• Random Links

• Site Visit

• Opportunities

• Events Calendar

• Career Guides

• JobsNW

• Resources

• Service Directory

• Lighter Side

• Eugene Indie

• PN Archives
•• Past Issues
•• Feature Pages
•• Random Links

• Proscenia Website

RANDOM LINKS:

Random Links provides an opportunity to share online web resources. Listed sites may focus around a specific topic or be truly random. If you have a collection of hot links you'd like to share please let us know (newsletter@proscenia.net).

Computer geeks have found an interesting way to combine Google Maps® with statistical databases to create new online resources that allow the tracking of sexual predators in Florida cities, finding the cheapest gas on a drive across town or the country, locating a new home or an apartment by address and seeing the surrounding neighborhood via satellite photos, or looking at safe and unsafe neighborhood locations in Chicago.
    Although these sites function without the permission of Google, there has been been made no attempt to shut them down. In fact, Google may be getting a lot of priceless advertising by being used and the press coverage being generated.
   You can read Greg Sandoval's complete article, Google Maps Make Demographics Come Alive:Discovery of How to Tinker With Google Maps Brings Demographic Data Alive, on line.

Sites Available:

Crime locations: <www.chicagocrime.org> Adrian Holovaty, 24, has overlayed Chicago Police Department crime statistics on a Google map allowing Chicagoans to "quickly learn what dangerous train stations, pool rooms and alleys to avoid."

Housing: <www.housingmaps.com> The great thing about this site is once you find the location of a particular rental, share, or sale, you can see a photograph of the property (if the site is marked in yellow), a satellite view of the neighborhood, or be sent directly to a Craigslist posting which has more information about the housing option.

Sex predators: <www.floridasexualpredators.com> Visitors to this Florida site can download maps of their communities and click on the markers to see the " name, last known address and mug shot of each offender". According to the Sandoval article, "James Brown, founder of Floridasexualpredator.com, charted the home addresses of every registered sex offender in Florida's Megan's Law database, then wrote a software program that automatically converts addresses to the correct latitude and longitude."