July 2005
- Geotagging Roundup
- Geotagging comes in many flavours. First, let’s take a look at Tagzania, a web site where you can add keywords to specific geographic locations, and track that keyword via RSS. I’m not sure how scalable this concept is; imagine the…
- New Site Design
- This morning I uploaded a new design that I’ve been working on for a few days. I hope you like it; some of you had expressed a dislike of the old olive-green-and-yellow colour scheme. I was beginning to feel it…
- Texas Bird’s-Eye Views
- Texas Bird’s-Eye Views presents 59 bird’s-eye views of 44 Texas cities in the late 1800s, and provides some background on the genre and the itinerant artists who moved from city to city offering their services. (Thanks, peacay.) See previous entry:…
- Tracking Hacks
- Just try and keep up with all the new Google Maps hacks. Come on, I dare you. I’m so far behind it’s ridiculous; Google Maps Mania, on the other hand, is doing a first-rate job. (It helps that they’re specialized;…
- Google Maps Hacks of Live Events
- Who says the data you mash up with Google Maps has to be static? Some of the best hacks are ones where the data is frequently updated, whether it’s daily or by the minute. For an example of the former,…
- Google Maps on Mobile Devices
- Getting Google Maps onto mobile devices is a natural step: when we’re going somewhere, we tend not to leave our maps behind, after all. One project was a hack to get Google Maps running on Series 60 Nokia phones, combining…
- Comparing Online Mapping Services
- Last week, Robert Scoble asked whether anyone was doing a comparison of the online mapping services. He got a couple of capsule reviews in the comments, but I’m not aware of any major review. Reviewing the “big four” in online…
- Enclosures in Berkshire
- For someone who claims he’s not a map aficionado, peacay’s awfully good about sending me excellent links to map sites. His latest submission is from a site that looks at the process of enclosure in Berkshire in the eighteenth and…
- Mapping Tokyo: Everest Without Oxygen
- I don’t usually post press releases, but this one had a line that brought a smile. Yesterday Streetwise announced their Tokyo map; here’s an excerpt from their press release: “It had to be done,” says Michael Brown, President of STREETWISE…
- Traffic for Treo
- Palm has released an application called Traffic for the Treo 600/650 that provides, for a monthly fee, live traffic data and maps for 10 U.S. cities (via Palm Infocenter)….
- Vintage Imagery from Virtual Earth
- By now you’ve no doubt heard the one about MSN Virtual Earth “deleting” Apple’s headquarters. But it’s obviously not a case of Microsoft editing out its rivals; Microsoft is simply using very old imagery. For another example, the World Trade…
- MSN Virtual Earth Launches
- Scoble was dropping hints Saturday that the launch of MSN Virtual Earth (previous entry) was coming up. The official launch is, in fact, mere minutes away as I write this. But, thanks to some last-minute testing, Virtual Earth was live…
- Question: Cartography as Career?
- One question I’ve received more than once (and that I know nothing about) is about maps as a career. According to last spring’s survey, most of us are amateurs rather than professionals: 68.3 per cent of you identified yourselves as…
- Maps at the New York Public Library
- The New York Public Library’s Map Division has literally hundreds of thousands of maps and thousands of atlases in its vaults; hundreds of them are available online through the library’s Digital Gallery. Holdings include the Slaughter Collection of English maps,…
- Google Maps Hybrid Mode
- Google Maps has introduced a so-called hybrid mode that overlays a street grid, names and route numbers on the satellite/aerial imagery. I have to confess that I’m awfully impressed by this; it really renders moot the question of switching between…
- London Underground Line Closures
- Feòrag’s London Underground map (343 KB JPEG) edits out the lines that were closed due to yesterday’s bombing incidents. Via Boing Boing….
- Hand Made Maps
- Hand Made Maps is a London-based commercial art studio that specializes in maps; the site is an extensive portfolio of their recent work for various clients. Some really nice stuff there. Thanks to Clare Lyons for the link….
- Russian Geodetic Datum Point Preserved
- Russian cartography enthusiasts have managed to save what I think is a geodetic datum point, used in the mapping of Russia during the 19th century, the St. Petersburg Times reports. Such points were the basis around which topographical maps were…
- Question: Best GIS PHP Module?
- Marco Fioretti is looking for GIS PHP modules. He writes, “I have an urgent project to work on which includes processing GIS data with PHP, and I’d really like to start with something which is already tested.” My original post…
- Augmented Maps: Combining Tech and Paper
- Brandon writes in about this New Scientist article about “augmented maps,” where real-time information is projected onto paper maps: This was an interesting article on combining multimedia and advanced technologies with hard copy maps for emergency situations. Having been involved…
- Question: GPS and the Mac?
- I’ve talked about using a GPS with a Mac before, and even — back when this blog’s audience was a fraction of what it is now — solicited my readers’ opinions on which GPS I, as a Mac user (or…
- Google Moon
- In honour of the 36th anniversary of the first moon landing, Google Moon, with a Google Maps interface, NASA imagery, the Apollo landing sites, and a fun gag at maximum zoom (Boing Boing, Google Blog, MetaFilter)….
- Using Google Maps to Avoid Traffic Tickets
- The story about how someone was able to get out of paying a traffic ticket by pointing to Google Maps via WiFi during his court appearance was posted all over the Web today. Cute….
- Another Look at UTM
- John Resig writes, “It seems to have been a while since The Map Room talked about Universe Transverse Mercator. I’ve written up my experences learning this alternative coordinate system along with a brief overview of how the system works. For…
- Offline for Four Days
- Shortly after my last post on Friday, our cable connection to the Internet was snapped, presumably by a passing vehicle, and we’ve only been able to get it reconnected today. (One of the disadvantages of living in a small town…
- Ordnance Survey Overlays on Multimap Aerial Photos
- Nick writes on Here Be Dragons: “I was just playing with multimap.com’s aerial photograph feature, and noticed something I hadn’t seen mentioned on here before — Ordnance Survey map overlays applied dynamically on mouseover over the aerial photo.” Nick’s example….
- London WWII Bomb Damage Maps
- During World War Two, London County Council kept maps showing the damage caused to the city by German bombs. They did it by hand-colouring Ordnance Survey maps, each colour representing a certain amount of damage. Now, the BBC reports, the…
- Antiquarian Maps at Reed College
- Reed College’s Antiquarian Maps site hasn’t been updated in six years, and several pages have presumably been “under construction” since that time. But, says peacay, who submitted this link, “there are definitely some fine maps available — with a high…
- Using MapServer with Chameleon
- Speaking of Tyler Mitchell, he’s got an article on Directions explaining Chameleon, a collection of PHP scripts that, he says, allows non-programmers to build web mapping applications using MapServer through its MapScript API….
- Book Review Roundup
- A few more reviews of recently published mapping books. Urban Cartography’s review of Mapping Hacks: “[The authors have] made a technical book that is not technical; they’ve made a manual that is automatic; they’ve made a really fun and interesting…
- Google Earth Roundup
- I’m in the awkward position of having to write posts about Google Earth without so much as being able to download it — at least, not until their promised Mac version comes out. Until that hopefully-not-too-long-off day, I can only…
- Engineering Timelines
- The Engineering Timelines Map of the British Isles assembles maps with points depicting events in the history of British engineering generated from search results. I’m having a hard time grasping the concept, much less explaining it, but play around with…
- Mapping Worlds
- Mapping Worlds is a series of maps that highlight development issues. Some maps distort countries’ sizes based on their contributions, or lack thereof; others highlight global development issues such as Third World debt, AIDS infection rates, and refugee displacements. Via…
- Google Maps for Japan
- Google Maps now does Japan in the same detail it does North America and the UK. More about this from the Google Blog and Google Maps Mania….
- Intel’s Wireless Replacements for GPS
- Intel is experimenting with using WiFi and cellular networks instead of GPS to pinpoint users’ locations, CNet reports. The problem this proposes to solve is that people in urban areas are rarely outside enough to get a clear GPS signal….
- Never Ending Drawing
- Oskar Karlin: “Every day I document my movements by drawing them on a map. From that, patterns and images appear.” Select “Projects,” then “Never Ending Drawing.” Via Things Magazine….
- Mapping Colonial America
- “Mapping Colonial America” is (1) an online exhibit on the Colonial Williamsburg site, available in low-bandwidth and high-bandwidth Flash versions; (2) a real-life exhibit at the DeWitt Wallace Museum of Decorative Art in Williamsburg, Virginia, running until October 9; (3)…
- Yahoo! Maps Hacks
- As far as official mapping APIs are concerned, Yahoo! and Google announced theirs at roughly the same time. But, thanks to the unofficial hacks and a big lead in mindshare, Google Maps is getting all the attention. This isn’t something…
- Google Maps Tools
- If you’re interested in building maps with the Google Maps API, you should be aware of the relevant Google Group. You might also find the Phoogle Maps PHP class useful: it does a lat/long lookup of a street address so…
- Google Maps Hacks: WiFi Access Points
- Computer geeks are the ones hacking Google Maps. Computer geeks like WiFi. No surprise, then, that several of the map hacks using the Google Maps API involve wireless hotspot locations. Maps of free WiFi access points are available for New…
- Google Maps Hacks: Sex Offenders
- It probably says something about our society that one of the most common Google Maps API hacks is to plot the addresses of registered sex offenders from public databases. Recent hacks include pages for Georgia, Chicago, Lawton, Oklahoma and Utah….
- Google Maps Transparencies
- It seems that every time I step away from the computer, I come back to several new mapping hacks using the Google Maps API (see previous entry). I’ve got some backlog to work through, suffice to say. But first I…
- Web Mapping Illustrated Reviewed
- Import Cartography reviews Tyler Mitchell’s Web Mapping Illustrated: “IT and Web professionals looking to break into geospatial and mapping work will find this book to be the ideal starting point, as will those who are graduating from Google map hacks…
- MapSouthampton Adds Old Maps
- MapSouthampton is Southampton City Council’s interacctive mapping service; it’s a Java-based map tool that allows you to view, pan and zoom several layers of data — the sort of slow, clunky web-based interface to GIS data that looks embarrassing since…
- Shark Attacks
- Ron sends along a link to these maps of unprovoked shark attacks worldwide, broken down by region, from the International Shark Attack File….
- Question: Matthaeus Seutter’s Pays de Perou et Chili
- Pablo Halkyard writes: I am trying to find out about a German cartographer, Matthaeus Seutter (1678-1757) who drew and published a map called “Le Pays de Perou et Chili” (The Countries of Peru and Chile). I am trying to find…
- Follow-ups: Wall Maps and Atlases
- We’ve dealt with the questions of where to buy a very big wall-sized world map and which world atlas is best, but these subjects came up on Ask MetaFilter recently, and you might find some of the answers useful: the…
- Explosions in London
- Click on this entry to view the maps. Update: A Google Maps hack showing the locations of the bomb blasts, via Google Maps Mania. Update (July 8): ABC News (the Australian TV network, not the Disney subsidiary) is offering an…
- Mapping Hacks Reviewed
- Not that I haven’t mentioned Mapping Hacks enough already (see previous entries: Mapping Hacks, Mapping Hacks Now Out), but you might be interested in this pretty thorough review over on Blogcritics….
- MapMemo 2
- Alexander Stengel reports that MapMemo 2 is now out. (See previous entry for version one.) It’s an interesting concept: software that allows you to geotag your files and links and display them on a map from which you can open…
- Measuring Sunlight by Satellite
- The European Space Agency’s ENVISOLAR project is mapping the amount of sunlight received around the globe. Solar radiation data is useful not only for solar energy generation, but also for agriculture, tourism, and even health care (rickets, skin cancer). Via…
- Personal World Map
- The Personal World Map’s purpose “is to give awareness of the user’s actual position in the world in relation to other places by taking into account the ‘effort’ needed to get to a certain destination.” Travel time and cost play…
- Growth of a Nation
- This ten-minute animated presentation depicts the growth and territorial development of the U.S. since 1789; with audio. It’s one of several similar products from Animated Atlas aimed at classroom use; the others, though, cost money. Via Kottke….
- Traffic Conditions Web Site Roundup
- A couple of traffic-related items to report this afternoon. Wiresoft offers highway traffic conditions for mobile phones for a dozen locations in the U.S. It’s a free service, but your phone has to be able to support it; the page…
- Summing Up Where 2.0
- Daniel Steinberg’s summary of last week’s Where 2.0 conference describes a few of the presentations (see previous entry). Via (and see also) All Points Blog. Update: Michael Higgins’s notes from the conference, via All Points Blog….
- Open Source Geospatial Tools; Web Mapping Illustrated
- I’m overdue in posting this one, which comes to us thanks to James. Tyler Mitchell, whose Web Mapping Illustrated, a guide to free mapping software, is now shipping, had an article up on O’Reilly last month that I think serves…
- Society of Cartographers Summer School
- Steve Chilton writes to announce the Society of Cartographers’s annual Summer School, which takes place in Cambridge this September. Here’s his spiel: The world of spatial data is changing rapidly. But, will things change as far as data licencing and…
- How to Geotag Photos
- MAKE: Blog has a geotagging tutorial that covers every step of the process and several different web services: taking the photo, getting the lat/long coordinates from a GPS or Google Maps, uploading the photos to Flickr, adding the lat/long coordinates…
- Wired: Map Hacks on Crack
- Today’s Wired News article, Map Hacks on Crack, covers the announcements of, rules for, and reactions to the Google and Yahoo! Maps APIs. “Both companies are hoping the new mapping APIs, or application programming interfaces, will excite developers, help the…
- GPS Drawing Maps
- Since 2002, Jeremy Wood has been recording his travels — by plane, car, bicycle, ferry and foot — with his GPS; the resulting maps, in incredible detail, are available here. Via MAKE: Blog….
- Macworld Reviews 3D Weather Globe & Atlas
- Macworld gives a glowing review to 3D Weather Globe & Atlas (see previous entry)….
