Google Mapping Mania »
Every once in a long while, something really cool will come along and catch everyone by surprise. Google Maps is such a beast. The application in and of itself is simply awesome, and the surprise is that it's easily usable by just about anyone - you don't have to be a geek to appreciate it. Using some nice Firefox options, I make use of the application regularly.
But even those tweaks aren't the limit of what can be done. The Google Maps API allows you to build excellent interactive maps, such as this Boston Subway Station map. A free service called myGmaps allows any old tinkerer to set up their own maps, and the very sweet Gmap Extras script for Greasemonkey gives you some neat integrated functions like saved locations.
Update: And lest you think that's it, think again! The Find the Landmark site is a great geography game - though it helps to be able to rapidly maneuver through the country on the Google Maps! If that's not enough, check out the Google Maps Mania site, which has all sorts of fun stuff on a regular basis.
Update: Just installed the UPS Tracking script. At first, it didn't seem to work - but it does. It just adds an unobtrusive link to the appropriate Google map after the "Package Progress" line. Very cool.
Comments (3)
One of my favorite recent pastimes is finding Google satellite images of all of the places I've traveled to. I need to start collecting them and publishing them. :-)
Posted by Peter | July 11, 2005 3:48 PM
Definitely cool, but I think the geo-tagging of photos is an even neater idea. Of course, I have a whole lot of work to do on that front, and coding past photos is probably never going to happen (if future photos are unlikely, past photos are just this side of never). But man. It's cool.
Posted by Chad Everett | July 11, 2005 3:51 PM
Yeah, geo-tagging looks cool. But to go back and geo-tag all 11,000+ of my photos? Eh... I don't even have *captions* for most of them, which I'd consider to be even more important. :-)
Once my camera has a GPS built-in, and it inserts my coordinates into EXIF data, I think I'll be all set. :-)
Posted by Peter | July 13, 2005 4:04 PM