Recently I designed the website for AdamsBlock.com. There was a feature in today’sDanville, Kentucky newspaper, The Advocate Messenger.

Garrard web designer eyes San Francisco

LANCASTER – A freelance Web designer in Lancaster is helping the public watch over one of San Francisco’s grittiest neighborhoods with the hope of making it a more peaceful and livable place.

Gypsy Nicole Betty completed the design of a Web site for her friend, Adam Jackson. The site, called Adam’s Block, can be found at www.adamsblock.com.

Using two Web video cameras, it documents activities that take place at the corner of Ellis and Taylor streets, showing violent acts such as street fights, break-ins and high-speed chases. The views shown are from Jackson’s apartment in the Tenderloin district.

“It’s a gritty dose of reality from what Jackson calls one of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco,” Betty said.

According to a posting on the Web site Saturday, Jackson has received death threats and has suspended broadcasting images from his cameras on adamsblock.com. He said he may have to move from the neighborhood for safety reasons.

The site, which also has an interactive chat section, launched Dec. 1 and had 80,000 views and 25,000 visitors in its first three days. Forty percent of the site visitors were from outside the United States.

Betty found out Jackson was looking for a Web designer in late November when she was reading a news article about Web cams. The article identified Jackson’’s Web cam as one of the top in the nation and Betty was able to connect with him in a chatroom shortly after reading the article.

Betty, the mother of two young children, said she and Jackson discussed ideas for the Web site and she compiled it quickly, “while my kids were sleeping.”

Jackson decided to use the widespread publicity the site has received to hold a 24-hour Internet fundraiser Saturday for Glide Memorial United Methodist Church (www.glide.org), which sits on the corner of Taylor and Ellis streets.

Jackson and Betty hope to raise $5,000 for the church, founded to help San Francisco’s poor and marginalized populations overcome the barriers of poverty, violence and addiction.

In addition to having his own site, Jackson is willing to help others in San Francisco put video of their blocks on the Internet.

Copyright:The Advocate-Messenger 2008
[Source: amnews.com | Full Article]