Wired is carrying a story about a wiki of sorts that is being used to convey information about conditions in the aftermath of Katrina. A couple programmers have taken the Google Maps API and built a Web page, Scipionus.com, that allows people to add markers to the maps of New Orleans and other affect areas showing the extent of damage, depth of water, or persons located. The main programmer claims that he put it together in a couple hours. Isn’t it amazing that a programmer who’s not even there can provide a service to share information that’s great than what FEMA can accomplish? Maybe not given their performance over the last week.
Tag Archives: google
Easy long/lat lookup for geocaching
I’m hoping to get a little geocaching in this weekend on a brief camping trip. My first step was to head over to geocaching.com and search for any geocaches near where we’ll be camping. Of course there were, but it can be difficult sometimes to know exactly how close they are if you only have a zip code to go from. If you know the latitude and longitude for the place you’re staying then you can do an advanced search at geocaching.com for caches in that vicinity. (Hint: From the advanced search choose “By Coordinate” and then “Decimal Degrees.”) You get much more precise results and you can more easily tell if a particular cache is within easy range.
But how to get the latitude and longitude you need? Google Maps to the rescue. Begin by doing a search for the approximate area. We’re going to be in Lake Elmo Park Reserve. Here’s the trick: as soon as you start clicking and dragging around on the map, Google starts including the latitude and longitude in the URL which you can see by clicking on “Link to this page” in the upper-right part of the screen. Just center the map on your point of interest by double-clicking on it and you’re all set. You’ll get an URL something like:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=lake+elmo,
+mn&ll=44.981010,-92.908115&spn=0.031606,0.052104&hl=en
where you will find the latitude and longitude which in this case are 44.981010 and -92.908115 respectively. (Watch the plusses and minuses. Positive is for N and W, Negative is for S and E.) Once you’ve got those numbers, you’ll all set to do your search. I’ll think we’ll give Bring It Around, Elmo 1 2 3, and What Comes Around… a try.
Google Maps made easy
Phillip Torrone over at Make: Blog has found a site with instructions for making customized Google Maps the easy way. Well, relatively easy anyway. You’ll still need to know something about HTML, but Chris Houser‘s “How to Use Google Maps EZ” makes it about as simple as possible until someone creates a point-and-click application to do it. Unfortunately, making a map of my district’s schools is still languishing on my to do list.
Technorati Tags: googlemaps |
Google News gets RSS
Google is now officially supporting RSS feeds for its news service. Besides feeds for their news categories, you can generate a custom feed for any Google News search. This was possible before, but my understanding is that it was a 3rd party solution and not officially supported. It’s nice, if not a bit late, to see Google embrace this. I’ll continue to use Technorati to track what the blogosphere has to say about particular topics, but this will be a handy way to follow the same stories from the traditional press viewpoint. And you can be pretty specific. I could, for example, subscribe to a feed of New York Times articles that mention renewable energy (RSS). Any search you can construct with their advanced search can generate a feed. What teacher couldn’t find a use for this?
Technorati Tags: google news | rss |
A collection of Google Maps hacks
Tim points to a post at O’Reilly Radar that has a nice summary of about 15 Google Maps hacks. I predict an explosion of these types of hacks now that Google has released an official API. (I’m really sticking my neck out on that one!) 
More importantly, we need to have some tools to make it easier to create annotated maps. I want to make maps with pushpins stuck in points of local historical significance. I want to have students create maps to accompany the perennial “what I did on my summer vacation” essays. I want to use Google Maps to show me where I can find free wi-fi in my city. And I don’t want to have to edit a raw XML file to do it!
Technorati Tags: hacksgoogle | googlemaps |
Google releases API for its map service
It’s about time. Google is now officially supporting external use of its maps.google.com service by publishing an API that makes it possible to embed Google Maps in any Web page. My first application will be creating a page that has all of our school locations flagged. That will make it easy for site visitors to find each school and generate driving directions too.
Google Earth relaunched as free service
Google purchased a company called Keyhole a while ago and everyone has been wondering how they would incorporate the technology. Now we know. They’ve just launched a new version of the Keyhole software called Google Earth which is available for free. This will make a great addition to any geography teacher’s toolkit. Unfortunately, for now, it only runs on Windows. There are also “Plus” and “Pro” versions available that add other features like GPS support.
Technorati Tags: googleearth | gps |
Homebrew document management system
I’ve been using Apple’s new OS 10.4 for over a month now and my initial impression was corrrect: the best new feature is Spotlight, Apple’s desktop search system. Since buying a Brother 7820N laser printer/copier/fax/scanner a couple weeks ago I’ve realized that if I can find decent OCR software I have the tools available to build my own document management system. Document management has been on my mind a bit lately since seeing a demonstration of a very large and powerful document management system at work a few months ago. If you get frustrated trying to locate files that are buried 10 folders deep in your Documents folder, desktop search may be the solution. It’s the “googlization” of your computer.
PC users have had desktop search ability for a while longer. Google and Yahoo! both have desktop search products for Windows users. Word on the street is that Yahoo!’s product, based on a piece of software called X1, is the better tool. These search products, Apple’s included, will search not just the name of files, but their contents too. Now I can search through MS Office documents, email messages, PDFs, chat logs, etc. and usually find what I’m looking for in seconds. This feels like a real improvement in computer usability and not just the standard feature creep.
There’s a missing link though. If I’m going to have a true document management system at home I need to be able to scan and OCR bills and other household documents so their contents can be indexed. And there’s the rub. The built-in scanning and OCR software that came with my printer is pretty bad and commercial OCR software is pretty expensive. If you’ve got Adobe’s Acrobat software I discovered a couple days ago that Acrobat has OCR built in and it seems to work very well. (Check out educational pricing for Acrobat. It’s a big discount.)
Time will tell, but I look forward to having my own little Google at home and much quicker access to the information I need.