Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

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Leaky and verbose URL parameters…

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Disclaimer: this post is a rant - turn away now!

I can’t keep quiet about this any longer, its getting me more and more annoyed. Google Maps includes a “Link” function - which creates a link to the current map, which is very useful - particully as the map is estentially ‘ajax’ style, but the parameters are definitly starting to suffer rot and lack of ‘love’ in maintaining them.

For example to just display a simple KML file, you get this corker:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=http:%2F%2Fwww.geograph.org.uk%2Ffeed%2Frecent.kml&g=Any+Street,+London,+UK&ie=UTF8&ll=55.053203,-3.208008&spn=17.762194,33.793945&z=5

There are so many things wrong with this url, its unreal. The first is the source - doesnt do
anything as far as I can see, an empty (but immensely useful) geocode, etc; but somewhat ironically I have HAD to edit the url provided by the function before I was willing to post it here, see that g param - yes that’s my (now made up!) home address.

Yes thats right, if you not careful Google Maps might get you to inadvertently share your home address - seriouslly WTF!

(more…)

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Posted in Google Maps, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

A transformation?

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Looking back over the last few posts, it would seem I turning into a Google hater, I certainly seem to be finding more to fault, which seems a change from my previous fanboy antics. 

Some things from Google (mainly Geo) roughly over the last year and my reaction: (in no particualr order…)

Good

  • Static Maps API
  • Earth Plugin and API
  • Chrome Browser!
  • Map Icons in Chart API
  • Reverse Geocoding (& BBOX on forward)
  • StreetView
  • High resolution Imagry (including Wales/UK)

Bad

  • No PhotoOverlay or 3D-navigator in Earth Plugin
  • Google Installers and Updaters - a mess
  • Google Maps API Terms of Service. 
  • Google Pages shutting down (sites is NOT a real replacement atm) 
  • No Google Spell Check for Chrome (as no toolbar), and other minor irritations
  • Slow development on Google Maps - particully MyMaps (and MyMaps API)

Indifferent

  • Google Earth 4.3 a disapointment (plus no real upgrades since) 
  • Help Forums - good, but not there yet…
  • GeoWeb Search API - close, but no cigar

… so its not all bad, I guess just getting more worked up about the bad, and don’t really have anything to say about the good.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Mapping website has Gnome owners worried

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

In an announcement yesterday, Gogle anounced a new website.

OMG!

/background - this post is a bit of light relief after the serious business.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

View Planet Mandelbrot

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

… WorldWide Telescope is out…

Initial reactions, seems quite good, if a little jumpy in controls. And as noted somewhere the 3Dconnextion does work after a fashion but it quickly gets disorientated and needs to be unplugged :(

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Buffalo, New York - PhotoSpot

Sunday, October 14th, 2007

While on a recent trip to the States, took this photo, stiched together from many shots with AutoPan Pro. Traditionally I have provided a GoogleEarth model using DigitalUrban’s panorama object, however this time will simply link to the placemark as provided by Gigapan.org:

View in Google Earth (but requires 4.2+ to take advantage of the PhotoOverlay - in full resolution glory!)

View in a Web Browser (using a flash viewer)

Thanks to Gigapan for providing this really super (and quite fast!) hosting for these high resolution images…

geotagged More Links for this location

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Posted in Google Earth, PhotoSpot, Uncategorized | No Comments »

GoogleDevelDay: part 2

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

Have how been to the two ‘Geo’ sessions, nothing new to report I don’t think that can’t be got from gearthblog.com and the Google Maps API Group (where I had already heard of these), but anyway a quick round up of the main announcements (in no particular order)

  • Maps API - Can now do Directions :) - don’t yet know how flexible the API is tho, or if it even supports UK
  • Maps API - hint that the Geocoder might work (or soon) in the UK, but this could just be the questionee doesnt know yet.
  • Google Maps - Mapplets - porting a mashup to Google Maps
  • Google Earth - New KML 2.2 - as far as I gather its the KML spec only, the viewer is not released yet - but will check.
    • Support for Photo Placemarks - of particular interest to Geograph - tried something like this with models but never got it nice enough to release.
    • Add ‘atom’esque, link and author tags to Placemark
    • Update: just found the Camera tag, YAY!
    • http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kml_tags_beta1.html

    More as I find it out (I think I am missing some anyway…), I’ll also verify the facts and flesh out the features with links to more information.

    Update: forgot to mention Ed Parsons also used the Geograph Mapplet demo in his Keynote speech this morning. (see previous posts)

    Tags: ,
    Posted in Google Earth, Google Maps, KML, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    3DConnexion on 2D Google Maps…

    Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

    Thanks to Frank for letting us know about the new SDK for the 3DConnexion devices, including the SpaceNavigator, I’ve been waiting for this for a while as wanted to try it for websites like Google Maps. Even nicer is the SDK includes a Javascript demo - so makes developing for Google Maps Easy!

    Enough already, I want to see the Demo!

    WARNING: Internet Explorer - and you might have to enable ActiveX controls to run. Do so at your own risk! I won’t intentionly do anything bad, but can’t promise that 3DConnexion won’t (but doubtful they would either) - Recommend you add Nearby to your trusted sites and then allow controls to run in the trusted zone.

    Or just download the file to your local drive. (right click the above link and select Save As) and run it from a local file - didn’t have to jump thought the hoops to get it to run there!

    Todo: The zooming isn’t as slick as it could be (possibly) and would be nicer to have more control of the speed. Also the silly (depending on your point of view!) warnings from IE7, which I wonder if there is a better way of loading the objects to make it more compatible.

    Posted in Code, Experimental, Google Maps, Nearby, SpaceNavigator, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    UK Placename Gazetteer Updated

    Friday, October 27th, 2006

    Small update to the Gazetteer file hosted on the Downloads page. Rather embarrassingly the previous version missed out some large towns and cities.

    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    The server is alive…

    Saturday, August 12th, 2006

    Just a quick note to apologize for the sketchy availability of certain site functions, of late

    Basically it seems there is some sort of memory leak in Perl and/or my scripts, so they where eating away at memory. I noticed this, but all inspections showed there was plenty of memory was available, so it’s been many head-scratching hours later that realised there might be some limits imposed outside of my virtual machine, so upon further investigation have found had passed the soft-limit and steadily working towards the hard-limit on something called privvmpages, so that CGI scripts where getting very little chance to run.

    While haven’t sorted the root cause, now at least know how to check the current status can can restart the whole machine if getting close…

    Hopefully soon will get my diploma in emergency server maintenance…

    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    New Homepage?

    Wednesday, July 12th, 2006

    As the number of scripts increases on this site, the homepage has begun to become kinda unweildly, so have started thinking of a new design, better, worse?

    Now what I would really like is for a kind designer to step in an create a better version. I can do the functionality, but design skills are somewhat lacking, it’s a problem I have with many of the sites I’m involved in, making the functionality accessible but not overwhelming!

    Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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