May 2006 – woowoowoo

Round-tripping geocodes from Flickr to Google Maps

I love Flickr. I love Google Maps. Like a lot of people, I’d like to combine my love for these two tools by accurately geocoding my photos and then being able to see where geocoded photos were actually taken. I was frustrated that all the tools to do this either required GPS equipped devices, or clunky and less than intuitive interfaces.

I also like bookmarklets. Little bits of JavaScript code that you can just click on to do things. So, I created these two bookmarklets that allow ’round-tripping’ of geocodes to and from Flickr and Google Maps. Hope you like them!

Mapping Australia – spoilt for choice?

Just a few months ago, Australians had no ‘new generation’ web street maps, now we’ve got three! By ‘new generation’, I mean smooth dragging, ajax/javascript driven, feature loaded maps – not the old point and click clunkers like whereis (though quite good in their own right, people want more these days).

Now that I have all these choices, I find myself skipping between them, with the natural comparisons that brings. So, at the risk of boring others, in the hope of kicking off some discussion, I thought I’d post my (very unscientific) ‘findings’, about the comparative features of each and how well they map my neighbourhood.

Get on your bikely!

Thanks to treadly for the heads-up. This is a really neat little tool. Bikely allows you to map your bicycle route as a google map overlay. It’s so easy, admittedly, I have a very short commute (5.5km.), but it only took me a few mintues to map it on bikely.

It would be nice if you could add photos to make it a full on ‘tour’ – and it doesn’t look all that scalable at the moment (no searching or filtering), but still lots of fun.

franco cozzo’s big incentive

From the ‘Moreland Leader’ newspaper, May 22, 2006. Franco Cozzo is threatening to give each socceroo a limited edition ‘Venziano’ bed if Australia wins the world cup. How can they lose?

I’m sure, his heart is in the right place, though if you’re familiar with him spruiking his furniture on tv, you’d realise he’s always got an eye on cheap publicity. Still, you’d have to say he’s made a pretty safe bet.

I must drop into the store on the weekend and see exactly what a ‘Venziano’ looks like – stay tuned!

Google Maps street maps for Australia and New Zealand!

From Google Maps Mania, I was alerted to the (as usual) unheralded release of new content in Google Maps. This time, it’s maps for us and the kiwis.

The maps are excellent in coverage and detail though the hybrid view shows up a little bit of inaccuracy in my suburb at least, though this is not uniform across Australia.

The biggest problem seems to be with searching, something in common with the Euro maps, that the search only allows very general searches. It doesn’t even respond to suburbs, let alone streets. I can see this severely limiting the number of mash-ups we see, at least until there is a reliable way of geocoding street addresses.

tatty going in circles

This is Tatty. She’s growing up, but obviously still very much a kitten. Here she’s whoopin’ it up with her very best toy ever… her tail. Her (adoptive) mother thinks seems to think it’s a sign that a young cat that still chases it’s tail might be a bit backward, but I reckon tail chasing is a perfectly acceptable way for kitties of any age to spend their time. Don’t you?

the enlightenment?

How long is this Vatican Astronomer going to keep his job? He is quoted by Scotsman.com, dismissing Creationism as ‘a kind of paganism’ and Papal infallability as a “PR Disaster”. In fact, he makes a lot of sense, as opposed to the Creationists, who tend to make very little sense. Found via Boing Boing