google earth

The Arthritis Foundation's Heartland Region office serves Americans with arthritis throughout the upper midwest.  Arthritis affects tens of millions of Americans each year - the second most common chronic condition after heart disease.  When your organization's constituent base is that large, it's important to make sure that you're offering services to as many people as possible and to make those services as accessible as possible.  In this article, we'll examine how the Arthritis Foundation is using mapping technologies to meet those requirements!

The Google Earth blog today included several links to near-real-time maps of the California wildfires, visible in Google Maps and Google Earth:

• The LA Times created this Google Map (Google Earth version) of the fires in the LA region
• The US Forest Service has this Google Earth file (based on NASA satellite data) of near-real-time fires for the entire continental US

For those of you without access to Google Maps or Google Earth, CALFIRE (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) has plenty of up-to-date information on the fires, including frequently-updated incident maps covering the entire state.

Sometimes you get tired of "armchair mapping" -- working exclusively with digital tools from the comfort of your home or office.  Sometimes you want to go ride bikes through the Yosemite Valley, marveling at the waterfalls and cliff faces and rushing rivers.  Sometimes your friend Alan gets a new Garmin Oregon 400t handheld GPS unit and you want to go play with it.  Sometimes all three of these things happen on the same day PLUS it's your birthday so you can totally feel justified to take the day off to go do it as long as you blog about it later!