Ajax Girl

Vision 20/20 offers a free web based mashup of sex offender data and Windows Live Maps.

Users simply add their address, city and/ or zip code to the Vision 20/20 site, and then the locations of sex offenders in the immediate vicinity are displayed over a map. Clicking on each sex offender leads to a profile which includes the name, address, and crimes of the sex offender, as well as a mug shot.

It does seem like a rather logical use for a maps mashup, and it functions well. According to Vision 20/20’s publicity there is 650,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, now everyone can find out where they live.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/148278158/

To round off the weekend, here’s a very cool Prototype-based solution for creating context menus:

Description

Proto.Menu is a simple and lightweight prototype-based solution for context menu functionality on your page
Features:

• Lightweight: ~2 KB (~1.5 KB minified)
• Unobtrusive: Plays nice with JS turned off, uses its own namespace
• Cross-browser: Full A-Graded browsers support (Opera is supported through Ctrl + Left Click)
• Fully customizable: Menu styling can (and is intended to) be easily defined in external stylesheet
• Fast: Menu container is rendered on page load, and only changes position on click

Specification

• Requires: prototype.js 1.6.0_rc0
• Tested browsers: Firefox 1.5+, Internet Explorer 6+, Safari 3+, Opera 9+, Netscape Navigator 9+
• Last modified on: 8/22/07
• Latest version: 0.5
• Author: kangax

It’s lightweight, cross-browser and looks very easy to implement. If kangax can throw in some more default themes, that would be very sweet! Overall, me likey!

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/148157278/protomenu-prototype-based-context-menu-solution

Good find over at Go2Web2 - Tubecast.tv is a new Internet video startup that, like others, is building a user interface layer on top of the online video services like YouTube, Veoh, etc.

For the most part the site has grabbed a lot of content from those sites and organized it into channels ranging from music videos to martial arts. Videos are shown on a schedule like normal television, although you can skip ahead.

What’s cool about it is that you can watch videos full screen with a click, and browsing to new content is much easier than using the video sites directly. This isn’t for searching, but it’s an excellent time waster if you want to browse pre-selected content.

What I like best about sites like this is that they are completely browser based and no download is required. I’m thinking Joost is going to have to move in this direction eventually. They can offer lower quality video via the browser, saving the higher definition content for the P2P application

The site’s blog is here.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/148134978/

Whilst Fake Steve Jobs has gained the most attention in the fake personal blog scene, a number of other fake blogs have been launched this year. Here’s a quick run down of a few that might be worthy of adding to your feed reader…or maybe not.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
No list of fake blogs would be complete without the master. Although the blog may have lost its edge since Daniel Lyons was outed as the writer, the site still maintains a strong following and Lyon’s way with words still makes for delicious reading.

The Secret Diary of Steve Balmer
I’ve been reading this fake blog longer than most on this list, and I’m yet to unsubscribe. It’s not as well written as its Steve Jobs equivalent, but it has the occasionally side splitting post. Probably the closest of the bunch to being a direct clone of Fake Steve.

Larry Ellison’s Fake Blog
A decent read, if it times a little heavy, but in context it works. Fake Larry made a brief guest appearance on Fake Steve a little while back, so it’s not inconceivable that the author is Daniel Lyons as well, or someone else who perhaps works with Lyons.

The Secret Diary of Jonathon Schwartz
As the header reads: “Dude, I was the first CEO to even have a blog.” Of course the real Schwartz does maintain his own blog. The way this is written tone wise makes it sound just like Schwartz.

The Secret Diary of Bill Gates
Unfortunately what could have been the best of the bunch is a let down. Poor context and tries too hard to be funny; the difference between clever satire and stupidity is lost on fake Bill Gates. Some may disagree though.

Moving away from corporate heads, there are a number of other fake blogs out there, here’s a couple

Fake Scoble
To quote the about page: “Scoble himself is so unintentionally hilarious that this site is superfluous –but hey it will be fun. Fake Scoble is about low hanging fruit. Actually, it’s about the fruit beneath the tree. Obvious jokes are going to be the rule of the day.”

The Secret Diary of Brad Stone
“I outed Fake Steve Jobs. Have you heard of him?” Hit and miss, but has its moments. There must be something ironic though about there being a fake blog for the person who outed the most famous fake blogger of them all.

There is even a blog dedicated to news about fake blogs: I am not Fake Steve.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/147982225/