Caddickisms

National Sex Offender Registry

Familywatchdog.us is a pretty impressive site. Not only does it provide an extremely important service, but it is a great use of technology. It also shows how a little information can be used to make your life very public.

The purpose of the site, as you might guess, is to let you know whether any registered sex offenders live or work within a certain distance of the address you enter. The point would be that you could use that information to help safeguard your children. I put in a few addresses of places I’ve lived or have relatives, and was pleased to find that there were few sex offenders nearby — though concerned to find the ones I did.

Technically, the site is also very impressive. It uses information gleaned from the national sex offender registry, in combination with Google Maps, to pinpoint your address, and any offenders and school addresses in the local area and display them in a easy-to-use format. Offenders are even color coded by type of offense. Clicking on a colored flag launches a new window with a picture and details about the offender. This is a huge leap forward from the Megan’s Law websites I’ve seen run by the state police, which provide information in list format.

Technorati Tags: sex offenders, children, safety, Google maps, AJAX

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[article no longer available]Thomson Announces Strategic Realignment of Operations; Company to Sell Education Businesses - MarketWatch

Thomson NETg and SkillSoft have been trading 1st and 2nd place in the enterprise e-learning space for years. Yesterday, SkillSoft announced it is purchasing its biggest rival for about $285M.

NETg Sale Agreement Signed
* Thomson has agreed to sell NETg, a leading provider of continuing corporate education and training, to Skillsoft PLC (SKIL) for approximately $285 million. The sale is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2007.

This is a huge deal in the enterprise content provider industry. By combining the market share of these two companies, SkillSoft is positioned to have an unbelievable lead on the remaining competition.

Also, I’ve seen both companies’ systems from a client perspective. They both have excellent technologies. Combining these two powerhouses is a potentially huge win for their clients. Once they sort through the redundant course content, they can begin to think about how to integrate their delivery and administrative systems. Once they do that, assuming they do it well, they’ll have a very impressive set of tools.

I really think there is a lot of potential for serious gain for clients of both companies.

Technorati Tags: Thomson NETg, SkillSoft, enterprise e-learning, mergers & acquisitions

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