About
Hello! I'm Adrian Holovaty, and you've stumbled across my Web site.
Boring formal professional bio
(I get asked for this from time to time, so I'm pasting it here for convenience.)
Adrian Holovaty is a journalist and computer programmer in Chicago. He's the founder of EveryBlock, a neighborhood news Web site. He has worked as a Web developer/journalist for washingtonpost.com, Lawrence.com and LJWorld.com, and he is probably the best-known industry advocate for the burgeoning discipline of "journalism via computer programming."
His 2005 project chicagocrime.org, one of the original Google Maps "mashups," was developed by reverse-engineering Google's map technology. The site won the Grand Prize in the 2005 Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism, but, more importantly, it played a small part in influencing Google to open its mapping infrastructure for all to use.
Adrian co-created Django, an open-source development framework that makes it fast and easy for programmers to build database-driven Web sites. It is used by tens of thousands of people around the world. Adrian cowrote the Django Book, published in late 2007.
He graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 2001. For fun, he plays gypsy-jazz guitar and posts YouTube videos.
Other random stuff
- When I worked at the Lawrence Journal-World, our work got covered by The New York Times, NPR and IT Conversations.
- I'm particularly proud of the fact that my "All Music Guide" fixer was the inspiration for Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey rocks!
- I enjoy spending time with my wife, hacking, playing gypsy-jazz guitar and collecting obscure 1960s pop/rock recordings.
Disclaimer
My comments are entirely personal and do not represent the views of any past or present employer.
In other words, everything I post on this site is my opinion only. I speak only for myself.
Supporting this site
If you enjoy reading this site or use any of my projects (Django, chicagocrime.org, etc.), consider buying me something from my Amazon.com wish list.
Other information
All dates and times on this site are in U.S. Central Time.