^^yea, once it hit V2, it went stable and from there on out you could stay working without updating to new API revisions.

I just spent a LONG time reverse engineering the maps before the first API release, and even after it, I had to reverse engineer the API release to do what I needed (hybrid map overlay addons). It took a shit ton of time, and everytime they updated something, they broke it, which took another huge amount of time to fix.

The api now is pretty damn awesome. Had I known at the time Google would go this route (because really, no one expected them to at all) I would have just waited until it had the features I needed and was stable.

7/23/2007 6:25:38 PM

you can extract hCards from Google Maps now
http://googlemapsapi.blogspot.com/2007/06/microformats-in-google-maps.html

[Edited on July 31, 2007 at 3:11 PM. Reason : .]

7/31/2007 3:11:32 PM

http://delta.ncsu.edu/about/research_initiatives/3d_ole/google_sketchup/

7/31/2007 7:24:40 PM

^ wow - very cool.
I saw the 3D campus contest a couple months ago, and wondered if NCSU was going to do one. I figured Standford and MIT would dominate, but the NCSU models are very nice. .... at least judging from the video. I couldn't find a link to the actual models?

7/31/2007 9:53:25 PM

i couldn't find a link either unfortunately - i was hoping someone could

7/31/2007 9:59:34 PM

anybody have a "Join our Gmail video!" link in the upper right nav in their gmail? I heard about this video thing a while back, but didn't recall seeing the announcement in gmail itself

8/3/2007 1:04:34 AM

yeah, it's there. i still haven't watched any of the videos

8/3/2007 7:04:03 AM

news cities in Maps Street View - San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando.
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/08/more-street-view-cities.html

8/7/2007 10:45:00 AM

They put a few of their NCSU models in the 3D Warehouse. I had no idea anyone had done such a thorough job though. If anyone knows anything about the 3D mapping of NCSU please let me know.

8/7/2007 11:52:47 AM

ah yes - here's 3 buildings uploaded from the NCSU DELTA team
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?uq=01632339457160731034

and a couple others
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=b39365044612467dfa240b1b9980a474
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=71f70d81c9900f810fe073a29dd2417

8/7/2007 11:59:02 AM

Quote :

"yeah and i wish you could change the proportions just like NCSU file storage, between all the different services. so if you never use picasaweb or only needed like 1gb in Gmail, you could use the remaining 2-3gb for file storage, etc."

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/08/pay-for-more-gmail-storage.html

Quote :

"While not many people need more than 2.8 GB for storing mail, the unified storage could be more useful because you can manage it dynamically, like a virtual hard drive."

getting closer...

8/9/2007 7:46:13 PM

Google Business Referral Program

http://www.google.com/services/local-business-referrals/repfaq.html

Quote :

"Google Maps allows business owners to add and edit their businesses helping them to connect with potential customers in their communities. However, Google thinks that relying merely on business owners is not efficient enough to 'organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible'. Therefore, they would like to pay US residents to help them add in more listings by being a Google Business Referral Representative. The details of the program is listed in form of a FAQ below. What do you have to do? You would have to visit local businesses to collect information (such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, etc.) for Google Maps, and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords. You'll also take a few digital photos of the business that will appear on the Google Maps listing along with the business information. How much will I be paid? You can earn up to $10 for each approved and verified referral. $2 when a business referral is approved by Google; and $8 when an approved business verifies that the information you submitted is accurate. Who is eligible to join the program? You must be authorized to work as a contractor in the U.S., be at least 18 years of age, and be able to complete an IRS Form W-9. When would you get paid? If you earn at least $25 a month, you'll receive a monthly check. Does that mean I'm a Googler? Sorry, but no. Google Business Referral Representatives are independent contractors to Google, not employees."

8/9/2007 8:37:15 PM

you could clean up doing that - great for HS/college kids

8/9/2007 9:11:17 PM

^^^ here's more info on the Shared Storage program.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/simple-way-to-get-more-storage.html

My first thought is that the prices are pretty steep, especially for Google - the first company to give away 1-2GB of free space when others were giving away 10MB, the company to give away high-end apps like Keyhole//Google Earth and SketchUp.
Also considering you can use a webhost like 1and1.com and get 250GB for $60/year, why would Google, a couple synonymous with nearly infinite capacity and free products, charge $500/year for the same amount?
My suggestion? Save your money and wait until they give away 10-20 or 100GB for free, or at least wait until they release a GDrive so you have more ways to access and use the space.

direct link to your own account
https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageStorage

8/10/2007 12:39:24 AM

because google will ensure redundancy, uptime, etc. You get none of that with any webhost.

8/10/2007 1:01:45 AM

google is not immune to downtime. there was a 2-3 month span not too long ago where my gmail didn't work at least 1/10 of the time.

8/10/2007 9:27:00 AM

gmail also isnt a premium paid service. big difference

8/10/2007 10:01:39 AM

is gmail out of beta yet?

8/10/2007 10:04:04 AM

nope

8/10/2007 10:18:15 AM

Quote :

"google is not immune to downtime."

of course not- nobody is
however considering the scale of the network and services provided, I think they do a pretty bang up job. gmail availability/perf has certainly improved over the past few months, but even with that said, I think your statistics were atypical of the average user.

8/11/2007 11:33:40 AM

you're working for them now, right? how do you like it? or can you not talk about it

8/11/2007 1:15:47 PM

I dunno how old this is, but you can drag your route on google maps.

I had to take my sister somewhere this morning, and found out my accident that you can tell gmaps to take a certain road - in this case, Hwy 70 instead of going out the back of my neighborhood.

8/11/2007 1:41:24 PM

that came out end of june. i <3 it. if not for it's practical uses, it's fun to drag around and see the routes it comes up with :p

8/11/2007 1:44:27 PM

yeah, the really nice/amazing thing about the Maps drag and drop is that the route is recalculated and shown in real-time, as you're dragging it. Even MS Streets & Trips doesn't do this, and the Streets & Trips route dragging and recalculation somehow even manages to be slower than Google Maps

8/11/2007 3:14:31 PM

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/08/google-pack-adds-staroffice.html

what the crap is this garbage? not that anyone uses google pack anyways, but what in the world possessed them to add staroffice.

8/11/2007 4:19:21 PM

All your medical information are belong to Google
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-14-n43.html

To preempt the privacy hounds' cries - this would be completely voluntary and opt-in. google would not go scour your medical history. if you choose to put in your medical data, though, you will get the benefits of the service.
Me? i'll be happy to use a service that can easily and efficiently store medical history and contact information.

8/14/2007 9:19:16 AM

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/update-on-google-video-feedback.html

see, this is why i love google. what other company has the guts to say we goofed, and then give you a refund of twice the value of what you bought.

8/21/2007 9:56:44 AM

^ along the same line, last year when I tried Google Checkout for the first time via buy.com, the order was completely FUBAR'd. it took me several weeks to get the order officially canceled and refunded. Complaining to buy.com did me nothing, except to shift blame to Google Checkout. Complaining to Google, though, got me a full refund plus $100 cash (or, $100 credit added to my card)

8/21/2007 10:05:54 AM

you can now embed Google "My Maps" into other websites with code that Google Maps provides
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2007/08/embed-your-google-my-maps-into-your.html
unfortunately, the feature is, yet again, buried under a link that previously did a different operation with no visible change in the link on the main page. this was just what they did with the My Maps link, and therefore many people will never see this update.....

Google, in their overzealous efforts to maintain clean and simple websites, are making it harder on themselves to introduce users to new and useful features

8/21/2007 10:14:43 AM

I just discovered the "recent:yourname@gmail.com" trick for POP access if you use multiple Email clients.



Man, gmail rocks.

8/21/2007 10:16:48 AM

There's a new "Sky" feature in the newest version of Google Earth.
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/08/sky-final-frontier.html
let's you explore the universe just like you can the Earth.

8/22/2007 7:52:20 AM

^^Since you neglected to include any sort of details at all about your discovery, I'll include the link that you should have.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=47948

8/22/2007 9:31:37 AM

I thought everyone knew about it already...it's been an innovation for a long time. I just started using it with my iPhone.

8/22/2007 9:47:24 AM

damn nacho, not every post has to have a link. what's the deal, man? seems all you do lately is whine

8/22/2007 10:27:03 AM

Sorry for the negativity if it comes off that way. Gargs really is a plague on this website (and in Tech Talk specifically), and I would like to personally make it my mission to annoy, pester, and abuse him at every given opportunity until he goes away. Honestly, I've been holding back a lot from making a lot of the comments I'd like to, and I really did feel the post I made up there was somewhat warranted, as he was half assed discussing something that hadn't been discussed before in this thread and didn't give out the relevant info. I try to target any negative feelings directly towards gargs (or other people that are lowering the quality of this site), but of course, as you indirectly pointed out, any negative feelings or actions aren't going to help the situation any and are actually making things worse.

In my mind gargs is the problem and all I'm trying to do is help the situation. Of course, as you pointed out, all I'm doing is making matters worse. Believe it or not I've been trying to cut it out lately, but obviously not succeeding that well. I do sincerely apologize to anyone that has been affected by my negativity here. Also sorry for taking this topic even further off topic with this rant. This will be my last post on this particular topic. Any further discussion can be done through PM, but I figured that since I was publicly negative, I should make a public apology to the people I inadvertently affected by trying to pester gargs.

8/22/2007 11:22:44 AM

I hope you realize you fail at every attempt.


[Edited on August 22, 2007 at 11:40 AM. Reason : .]

8/22/2007 11:25:01 AM

Just found this out:

http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic/

8/24/2007 7:55:24 AM

^ that is pretty neat, although I don't have my fonts installed correctly.

does hindi translate word to word correctly to english?

8/24/2007 1:57:59 PM

It's doing the transliteration, not translation.

8/24/2007 1:59:46 PM

ah i see that now. thanks.

8/24/2007 2:03:17 PM

Yeah, Hindi to English translation is so immensely complex that I don't know if there's any program out there for it. Kinda like Arabic to English. It requires a lot of machine learning.

8/24/2007 2:07:03 PM

ahhh, now I get why they put that line trough the transliteration.

[Edited on August 24, 2007 at 6:08 PM. Reason : .]

8/24/2007 6:08:03 PM

HOLY CRAP GOOGLE READER HAS SEARCH. IT IS ABOUT DAMN TIME

and can count higher than 100

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/09/reading-reactor-or-small-google-reader.html
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2007/09/we-found-it.html


[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 1:00 AM. Reason : ok somebody on googleos found it an hour ago]

9/6/2007 12:49:24 AM

new google earth 4.2

hit ctrl+alt+A twice for flight sim

9/6/2007 1:11:20 AM

^^ they should integrate Google Blog Search as an option, in addition to searching only your own subscriptions

9/6/2007 6:35:59 AM

some nice updates to Google Book Search. ...if anyone uses that
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-06-n55.html

and a video of the Google Earth Flight Simulator
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/09/google_earth_flight.html

9/6/2007 5:36:15 PM

Quote :

"see, this is why i love google apple. what other company has the guts to say we goofed, and then give you a refund of twice the value of what you bought $100."

and people wonder why there are so many google and apple fanboys <3

9/6/2007 6:36:19 PM

Google Maps is continuing to make so many mashups obsolete as they roll more features directly into Maps. In My Maps, you can now draw lines and measure distance.
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/09/posted-by-keith-golden-software.html

i don't see why they continue to trickle in 1 little feature at a time.... couldn't they just come out with Google Maps 2.0 or something that has al these features (and a refreshed interface) at the same time?

9/7/2007 4:18:30 PM

some nice new features in G Spreadsheets - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/09/google-spreadsheets-lets-you-import.html
can import data using URLs and can use the nearly forgotten "Google Sets" service to auto-fill sets for you.


and here's a cool way to use Google Earth
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/09/help_find_steve_fosset_with_google.html
you can load very recent imagery of the South-west where Steve Fossett has been missing after taking off in a small plane last monday. You can look at the recent images in GEarth and see if you can find a plane crash site

9/9/2007 11:00:27 PM

How often are the pics updated anyways?

9/11/2007 8:46:27 PM