Month: August 2007

Thirteen Moons and a Thousand Suns

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Thirteen Moons and a Thousand Suns
Entertainment, Uncategorized

I just finished reading Charles Frazier’s Thirteen Moons. Next on my reading list is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Kahled Hosseini. This is one of the best literary pairings I’ve come across in a long time. The two books share many traits, beyond the obvious astronomical references in the titles. This is the second book … Read More “Thirteen Moons and a Thousand Suns” »

Google Maps Gets Even Easier

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Google Maps Gets Even Easier
Geocaching and Maps, Internet

Google was on a roll yesterday with new product releases. Google Sky took the limelight, but there was another little change that seemed somewhat inconsequential, but has far-reaching implications for the wider use of Google Maps in applications all over the web. If you go to Google Maps and enter any address, you will see the following in the upper right corner of the map…

Clicking on the “Link to this page” link brings up a dialog box with two boxes of information. The first is a direct link to the map. The second is a bit of HTML which will let you embed the map into various web pages.

Prior to this little innovation, users could either link directly to the Google Maps page, or they could go through the process of getting a Google Maps API, setting up the javascript code, then hoping that it all worked in their particular map. Embedding maps into Blogger and other hosted sites was difficult, at best. With this new application, it’s a snap. For example, if I wanted to show the location of the restaurant where I had dinner last night, it’s not problem. I find it in maps and use this new embed feature.


View Larger Map

The only problem is that sometimes the iframe HTML tag isn’t interpreted correctly within the WordPress framework. Other than that, it’s a snap.

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The pipes, the pipes are calling

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on The pipes, the pipes are calling
EdTech, Geocaching and Maps, Internet

For a couple of months now I’ve been playing with and trying to understand Yahoo Pipes. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but at least now I think I have enough understanding to write about it.

In its most basic form, Yahoo Pipes is a feed aggregator. You can take any RSS feed and view the output. If there happens to be geographic data in the feed, it will automatically parse that information and display it on a map. However, Pipes takes it a step further by providing tools for combining feeds from various sources, analyzing feeds for keywords or location data, or allowing users to input or control parameters for various feeds. For example, you could set up a Pipe to return RSS items from Craig’s List that shows red couches for sale within 30 miles of Greenville. In a stunning example of cooperation, Yahoo even plays nice with their rival, Google, and provides a link to a Google Earth KML output for any geocoded data.

Some of the most interesting items are the mash-ups that can be created. For example, one Pipe takes the feed from Reuters, parses it through the geonames.org RSS-to-geoRSS webservice, then displays the news items on a map. Another will takes the feed from the NY Times, analyzes it for key words, takes that output and uses it to find corresponding photographs in Flickr.

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Looking up instead of down – Google Sky

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Looking up instead of down – Google Sky
EdTech, Geocaching and Maps, Internet, Science

Today Google released a new version of Google Earth, version 4.2, which includes a cool new feature called Google Sky.  You can basically toggle between views – looking downward, then looking upward from the exact same lat/long coordinates for a view of the night sky.  A toggle button now appears on the toolbar that allows … Read More “Looking up instead of down – Google Sky” »