Google Maps

It took me forever to get around to doing the actual exercises for Thing #25: See the world and be seen using Google Maps, because I use Google Maps all the time anyway. I like the ability to switch between map view and satellite view, because map view makes a cleaner printout, while satellite view makes it easier for me to make a mental map of landmarks to guide me. When street view is available, that's better still. After looking at the satellite and street views, I know what the building looks like, which side of the road it's on, and what's around it, so even a place I've never visited before looks familiar.

I'll admit I've never really used terrain view, but this is Nebraska, and most of the places I go are relatively flat, so it hasn't seemed as useful. Now, when I called up the terrain view around Mount Fuji, Japan, there was something worth looking at.

The traffic view was new to me. I guess I just never noticed it before. It could be useful in helping to find the main streets in a strange city. I had also never explored the "more" options before. While there are lots of photos downtown, there are none in my neighborhood. There is one photo of a statue pinned to the wrong part of the city. (I know, because I recognize the statue, and the marker is about 20 blocks away from the actual location.) However, that does not seem to be editable data, so the error will have to stand. The Wikipedia flags are pretty cool. There's an article for a church about a block and a half from my home. It was kind of fun seeing what other historic buildings are around my neighborhood.

"Explore this area" was also new to me, and enabled me to watch a video of a police chase through my city three years ago. Seems like Google Maps is littered with fun and interesting Easter eggs.

Assignment Part 1. The state capitol building is at 1445 K St. 68509. It looks pretty cool in satellite view. You can see the Golden Sower, even if you can't make out any details. Even at maximum zoom, the cars are tiny. However, just a guess, but it looks as though on the day the picture was taken, there was a white car parked illegally on H Street, just in front of the capitol entrance on that side. I can't guess why; there were plenty of open parking spaces mere yards away.

The street view of the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, was pretty cool. I love that you can shift the camera angle upward to see the tower. The random street in Japan was fun. Love the Hello Kitty billboard. Because I wanted to see if other areas were as well defined, I checked out a street view over in Akihabara, Tokyo, and found it to be likewise clear and detailed, although not as entertaining, because I ended up looking at the underside of an overpass. But much of Japan is not rendered in great detail. When I tried to look at the town of Nemuro, I couldn't even get a decent, clear satellite view. It would not be very helpful if I were traveling there.

Regarding the kangaroos in Australia (which were cool to look at), how did the lesson planners find this place? Searching "kangaroos in Australia" didn't lead me to the same location.

By the way, since this lesson mentioned the satellite view of Carhenge, did you notice that there's a street view from the nearby highway? You can see a nice, if a little blurry, landscape view of Carhenge that way, too. It's also fun to back off from Carhenge a little to look at the crop circles. No, not the "unexplained mystery" kind, but the center-pivot irrigation patterns, our polka-dotted Nebraska landscape.

Assignment Part 2. Our library comes up with a basic name search, without needing the city, state, or university info. That's nice. The marker for the Criss Library pointed to the middle of a parking lot south of the UNO bell tower. However, I could not edit the map to move the marker to the actual library, because the listing had been claimed by someone else. Oh well. At least it's reasonably close. If someone gets to that parking lot, they can see the library easily. And one of my coworkers put a second marker directly on the library building, so that also helps.

All the other information on our marker is complete and correct. Looks good!

Assignment Part 3.

I was unable to do anything with regards to my library's listing, as it had already been claimed, but whoever did all the work did it well and was fairly thorough. We already have a Google Map embedded on our library website.

I did not try creating a customized map, because I have nothing to map at the moment. But if the Paraprofessional Section is able to continue broadcasting its spring meetings to remote sites in the future, it might be useful to create a map of all the confirmed meeting sites across Nebraska. I may think of other uses as need arises.

I use Google Maps more than other mapping services primarily because of ease of use and familiarity. I have never had a mapping failure from it yet. However, other mapping services also have satellite views, and when I look at the satellite view of my apartment complex in MapQuest, the image is considerably newer than the view in Google Maps. Google Maps shows a garage that was torn town years ago, and some half-completed roof construction. The MapQuest image shows the completed roof as well as the parking lot that replaced the garage. Likewise, when I check on the Midwest Crossing construction site, Google Maps shows the old buildings that no longer exist, while MapQuest shows an early stage of the construction. (What's really funny is that the Google Maps street view is considerably newer than either site's satellite view, although still far from current.) So while Google Maps has more bells and whistles, it may not always be the best mapping service if you are looking at an area that may have undergone some recent construction.