Category Archives: Information resources

City website down because of expired registration

Instead of the City of Berkeley, visitors see Register.com

It’s a bad dream for a lot of web-based organizations: someone forgets to renew a domain registration and you face days — or perhaps permanent — disruption of your service.

That seems to be what has happened to the City of Berkeley, at least for people who visit its cityofberkeley.info domain. Visitors to that site today find a standard page for Register.com, where the old domain was registered. A WhoIs search for the cityofberkeley.info domain suggests that someone in … Continue reading »

Information resources

Berkeley block by block

Masters degree or higher in household

Just how diverse are different Berkeley neighborhoods? What percentage of households earn under $30,000, or over $200,00? Where do a large percentage of mortgages consume more than 30% of household income?

The treasure trove of data in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey can tell you those answers and more. But to extract the data you need to be a bit of a wonk, navigating the Census Bureau’s site and finding the right information for the right place. The … Continue reading »

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UC Berkeley

Gear up for the Big One with help from friends

San Francisco Neighborhood Emergency Response Team kit, courtesy of Flickr user luxomedia

The basement below Barrows Hall was buzzing with activity this morning, since it served as the command center for UC Berkeley’s annual campuswide disaster drill. At University Health Services Tang Center, volunteers simulated having injuries ranging from abrasions to a severed arm, allowing the clinic staff to practice triage and treatment.
The university police and fire departments and hazardous waste teams also established command centers  on campus. Continue reading »

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Information resources

BP oil spill from Berkeley

Gulf oil spilll

If you need to bring home the scale of the BP oil spill, have a look at Andy Lintner’s In Perspective. He updates the map with the latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and uses Google Maps to let visitors center the map wherever they want. Needless to say, we wondered what it looked like centered on Berkeley (above).

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Journalism

Berkeley tweeters part 2: They’re out there

Twitter

Earlier this month we took a look at well-known Berkeley tweeters. We identified those who do — among them Dave Winer and Markos Moulitsas — those who sort of do, such as Michael Pollan, and then we compiled a wish-list of noted Berkeley people who we hope will take to the Twitter-waves.

Of course, our readers then weighed in with many good suggestions of Berkeleyites to follow on Twitter, as well as adding a … Continue reading »

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UC Berkeley

Berkeley is number one for Internet speed

Broadband speed

Sometimes a story seems too good to be true. According to the latest State of the Internet report from Akamai Technologies, Berkeley has the fastest average Internet speeds in the world.

In most surveys of Internet speed, the U.S. fares badly compared to South Korea or Sweden. But when Akamai focused in on individual cities the top three cities in the world were Berkeley (18.7 megabits per second), Chapel Hill, North Carolina (17.5Mbps) and — ha! — Stanford (17.0Mbps).

Continue reading »

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News

Documenting those “only in Berkeley” elements

photo

Because Berkeley is Berkeley, it was only a matter of time before someone launched a blog about Berkeley being, well, so Berkeleyish.

“Go Back to Berkeley” documents random elements that make Berkeley what it is, be it an altered street sign (pictured above) or environmentally friendly initiatives which, in the blog’s view, belong firmly in “that city in the East Bay“.

“Go Back to Berkeley” is run by Adam Singer and Chelsea Pearl, and … Continue reading »

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News

We all know those “so Berkeley” moms

mom is so berkeley

It started out as a joke at work, but little did Roberto Santiago (known as Berto) realize the resonance those two words, “Berkeley mom”, would have.

Last week Berto’s Facebook group, “Your Mom is So Berkeley”, welcomed its 1,000th fan (today the number stands at 1,062).  Berkeleyside discovered the group back in December and has been hooked ever since.

Some recent entries testify to how rich this seam is for rib-tickling memories:

My mom is so Berkeley my … Continue reading »

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Information resources

Berkeley’s climate progress seen (sort of)

Berkeley climate site

I’d love to be enthusiastic about City of Berkeley see it! (not my exclamation mark). There are many good intentions in the interactive website, designed to present both the city’s Climate Action Plan and progress towards realizing its goals. But the site has one of the worst user interfaces I’ve encountered in a long time. It’s fussy, over-designed, filled with infojunk and prone to leading users up blind alleys.

If you make the mistake of clicking to … Continue reading »

Information resources

Berkeley residents donate more on-line

Berkeley donates more money via the Internet than any other city in California, according to a recent report. It also has the nation’s seventh highest donor rate per capita.

The average resident donated $10.64 on-line to charities, according to Convio, a Texas company which organized Internet fundraisers. It has an office in Berkeley.

How does San Francisco fare? Read here to find out.

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