3monkeys

Just as any good parent, I am very cautious about my daughter. While browsing the web some time ago, I ran across a resource that every parent should have at their disposal, MapSexOffenders.com. The site is a Google Maps mash-up, that locates sex offenders in 45 of the 50 states.

The purpose of this site is to inform the general community of sex offenders in their area in a straightforward way. Sex offender registries have been on the Internet for many years, but they are hard to find and even more difficult to use. MapSexOffenders.com is simply a map so that the data can be easily viewed. Each sex offender is highlighted on the map and you can zoom in to view the offender, address, and other information. The map also links to the state registry for additional information such as the vehicles offenders drive and their convictions. Parents concerned about their neighborhood or those who are moving can use this free service to make sure they are in a safe neighborhood.

Parents can use this tool not only to check their neighborhood, but those of ex-spouses, the child’s friends, school and daycare areas. Some areas will also allow you to view additional details of the sex offenders case such as:

• Weight
• Height
• Eye Color
• Hair Color
• Pseudonyms
• Dates of Birth
• Detail of Offenses
• Recent Photos

Here is a link to a random example from Dallas, TX. Please share this site with your friends with children.

Update

HardSide on digg provided an additional resource http://www.familywatchdog.us, which shows not only offender home address but work address as well. The site also allows you to sign up for alerts.

Related story: Seven sex offenders arrested with MySpace data

Until next time.

-3Monkeys

Popularity: 44% [?]

Happy Holidays all. This is a very busy time of year for me, as I suppose it is for a lot of you as well. I have not had the time to post any articles in the past few days, but I have started some research on a planned series of articles entitled “OpenOffice vs MicroSoft Office“, a series of article that will explore at first the technical aspects of the two, and may later look at usability, adaptation and long term prospects as well.

I look to post the first in this series on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Again Happy Holidays.

3Monkeys

Popularity: 4% [?]

Howdy! My name is Stacy Doss, also known as 3Monkeys. I am probably best known at the moment for being one of the top 20 diggers. You may also know that there have recently been issues with digg and how they are treating the community. It started out with me being banned, then a short time later another top digger, supernova17, was banned. Shortly after that, snipehack was banned. In any case, digg has generally lost its appeal to me. I’ve considered blogging for sometime, and now seems to be the perfect time to start.

So what can you expect from me? Well, you can start by looking at my submitted stories over at digg, dzone and Netscape. Another article that may be of interest is the article Differences in Open Office .odt vs Microsoft Word .doc. I am active in Open Source and EDA as that is my day job at Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2). I also have strong interest in Linux, programming of all sorts, and XML technologies (especially ODF). Occasionally, I’ll post about astronomy or other hard science subjects, and sometimes a fun or offbeat story that grabs my attention.

Whether or not you agree with my opinions, I hope that you will find my observations insightful and thought provoking, or perhaps just entertaining.

Until next time-
3Monkeys

Popularity: 3% [?]