Sometimes I wonder about things and ask myself, why is this not easier? Sometimes when I am surfing the internet looking for a phone number. I find it, then I have to dial it on a phone or in Skype. Which is one extra step I don’t want to have to do. I just discovered that there is a callto:// URL where one can specify a phone number in HTML. I figured there had to be some easy way to tag phone numbers so that they can be a clickable link. Everyone should do this to allow for easier connection via web to phone. Yet getting everyone to adopt a new idea generally takes time.

So, considering every web master in the world is not going to jump up and edit all of those pages with phone numbers. It would seem possible that maybe a grease monkey script would be able to recognize phone numbers and turn them into callto: links. Well someone has all ready created this. Callto Linkify (for Skype)

Gotta love the internet. Thanks to Aaron Boodman (you have saved me soo much time!) for Grease Monkey and Boris Yim for this handy Skype-ification!

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I am looking forward to going to the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin. So much has been going on this past week and I have yet to pack. I have been poking around on crowdvine.com and looking at the other people that are going to be at the Expo. Crowd Vine looks to be better than MyFace and oriented towards meeting people. I have never been to an Expo using such a tool in advance. It seems to make so much sense. I am interested to see how the social networking changes now that google is stepping in to the market. Will this be the end of privacy as we know it?

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Southern California Fires.

With all of the information at my fingertips if baffles me how finding up to date information on the spread of fire throughout San Diego County is still still in the dark ages in terms of disseminating information across the population. Yes I can call five different people and get 10 different perspectives. That of what they know form there own experience and what they are aware of through there extended experience. What they have heard through there information network. I was listening to the news last night when I heard the man on the radio say that they were resorting back to index cards to track information.

How does one process information from various sources, in various forms and assess a situation? Especially when there is no central repository.

On another radio station the host said something to the effect of “it is our listeners that are our eyes and ears that provide us with information.” and I found this statement to be pretty much true. I myself am vaguely familiar with the north east county of san Diego and i had an idea of where things were moving when I heard information.

Now it has been a few hours since my last update and I imagine that a lot has changed. There are many media streams to tap into yet they all provide a more detailed account of what is going on in specific locations. Which still does not paint a broader picture of the extent of damage across the North County of San Diego.

With all of these reports of information on the progression of fire across San Diego, obtaining a vague sense of what is going on where from a geographic perspective is almost impossible. I find it difficult to imagine that no one has create a google maps plug in to process this information and to create a dynamic model of the progression of fire across the Southern California updated by users.

I spoke with our developers here at Jupiter Labs and discussed the idea. We also discussed the possibility of pulling it off, yet we realized that we are strapped on time to finish our current projects. We simply lack the resources to construct such a project.

The idea is simple. Simply take information from initial reports and allow people to input information and plot points on a map that is shared. Although there are some maps that display information in greater detail than what is conveyed through other means. So for those of you interested in the details of this I have collected some details below.

Here are some resources I have found to provide information on the progress of the fire until now.

http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/

http://map.sdsu.edu/

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

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