CivicActions

On June 15th, the Great Turtle Race 2008 reached its conclusion, after 14 days of people from across the world cheering on their favorite turtles. Organized by TOPP, NOAA, and Drexel University, the Race is a Flash application that processes data from tagged leatherbacks into an animated "turtle race".

CivicActions is proud to present our latest collaborative project, which launched today... Women's Funding Network.

Our team completed the Drupal development work on this site, in partnership with The Communication Group, and our old friend and former CivicActions colleague, Karyn Gladstone.

At lunch today I had a great connection with Joe Solomon, a Social Media Consultant, who is the Project Lead of the KnowMore.org Firefox extension.

When installed, KnowMore's icons integrate into Google's search results to help users understand data from the KnowMore database.

KnowMore is community dedicated to chronicling corporate abuses, worker's and human rights, fair trade, business ethics and the environment, via a vast user-generated wiki database.

The extension is powered by KnowMore's new API which enables any developer to take KnowMore's corporate data and build web apps that empower consumers and help citizens hold corporations accountable.

The MetaVid project captures legislative proceedings and make full video streams accessible and searchable from the text transcripts.

Check out MetaVid directly or search Pelosi

Many folk don't know that the ACLU has a TV series called "The Freedom Files". Season 2 can be seen on PBS stations throughout the country. Episodes can also be viewed online at aclu.tv which we re-launched for the new season recently.

Usability testing (hereafter "UT") is getting a lot of attention in Drupal -- and rightly so IMHO. If we aim to have "100%" test coverage on Drupal's code and functionality for Drupal 7, it stands to reason we also need test "coverage" on Drupal's usability. If not, it's far too easy for bad interfaces to be developed that pass all the functional and unit tests, but fail miserably in the real world!

Jimmy Berry (aka boombatower) of GHOP fame plans to take the initial (but giant) steps in this direction in the Google Summer of code 2008.

I had the joy of attending Linuxfest Northwest on April 26 in Bellingham, WA. The weather was great (just like last year), and the atmosphere relaxed and fun.

Linuxfest is a 2-day community event, run by volunteers and free to the public. It is such a cozy atmosphere, and it is easy to interact with the speakers and the exhibitors.

Introduction

Amnesty International has been advocating for and protecting human rights and human rights legislation internationally for the past 46 years. Its reputation and the foundation of Amnesty sections in most countries also has made it one of the most recognizable names in the world.

What originally began as one man’s blog showcasing his personal collection of non-profit ads, has in three years developed into a clearinghouse for social marketing campaigns from around the globe. I was first brought to this site through another rad source of socially conscious designers I’ve been affiliated with over the years, the Graphic Alliance.

The one trick elephant, aka the GOP, wants wants to CUT taxes to provide "economic relief" to American families as a "pre-growth" strategy. I'm still waiting for my $300 "relief" check, but I have a feeling that's not going to amount to a whole lot of economic growth...

We went to Bagdhad and blew a trillion dollars we don't have. Meanwhile, the dollar is in a coma and the only way Republicans seem to respond to the economic crisis is to continue to print and spend money.