Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Thing 32: Google Maps and Mashups

Well, I was a little "anti-Google" when I started this (surprise, surprise.) I'm not a big fan of Google taking a picture of my house and posting it on the internet without my permission. Yeah, I know, I could opt out. But my husband believes in this stuff, so I err on his side. But I ask you, if this had been a government agency going around taking pictures of people's houses, and posting them in a public place, don't you think people would be up in arms? Why is it perfectly fine when a company does it?


Anyway, I've tried to use Google's mapping a bit, since I've gotten mislead a few times by MapQuest (I don't know what it is, but there directions are just plain wrong sometimes. We've gotten lost.) I have never been able to figure out the zoom out/zoom in symbols, much less how to go east, or north, or whatever. It always does what I don't want it to do.


So you won't be surprised when I tell you that my browser crashed while I was making my Google map, will you?



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At least when it crashed I didn't lose the whole thing. "Google My Maps is easy to use." Ha! After spending too many minutes trying to get the map to do what I wanted (sometimes there's an "undo" link, sometimes not), I realized that I should have tried my initial thought, "a map of my daily commute." It's easier to make a map of streets that you're very familiar with (at least, I assume it would be.) So I've only got two places marked on my map, but I really can't spend any more time on this today. I'd like to put in a picture, but the pictures must still be on the camera (they don't seem to be on our website yet.)


Let's see if the link to
View

View
Mike, Marianne, and Ellie go to San Francisco 2009 in a larger map'>Mike, Marianne, and Ellie go to San Francisco 2009 in a larger map'>our San Francisco trip works. I hope so! (Yeah, I know, it's not displaying correctly. But I've been messing with it for 10 minutes, and I'm fed up.)


Other maps/mashups that I found interesting: the various ZIP code maps, since we get regular questions about ZIP code boundaries (too bad the maps had disclaimers about not necessarily being accurate); the World Bank's mashup of ease of business in different countries. We have Google map things on our library websites. I'd really like to spend more time doing this - it could be fun, for creating work-related things, maps of vacations, etc. But I'll have to do this later - gotta get back to work.


1 comment:

Mikey said...

Hmmm... Well, it at least shows us in the right city. Hotel is actually at the corner of Post & Jones, and the Orpheum Theater is at the southwest end of the block with the UN plaza. I think we walked down Jones to Market to get there, but back to Powell to return, rather than walk thru the Tenderloin late at night.