Using the google maps api I made a map of all geocaches that I’ve found, centered on my home town. I’m pretty pleased with it so far. It requires the gpx of my finds uploaded to my webspace, the html page and a google maps api key.
I now have this at the top of my geocaching blog and would have it in this post if I could work out how to get an iframe to be displayed inline on a blog entry.
Google Earth has been released (at last).There is a free version (unlike keyhole which was a 7 day trial) and a plus version which supports gps imports. The funny thing is that if you have keyhole installed, earth detects it, says it MUST be uninstalled and offers to remove it. I said yes, uninstall and it then said it couldn’t uninstall and that I should uninstall it later and did I want to continue with the installation of earth? A bit weird if keyhole MUST be uninstalled. Hopefully I can have both installed as I like the facilities of keyhole that I have at the moment and hope earth has these too (the import of kml files (geocache points) is a must have for me.
Update It’s funny how the streaming is always at 99% complete! It also supports kml files which is great 🙂
1) Go to http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.862577,-77.001771&spn=0.16,0.16
2) Click on “local search”
3) Enter “stupidity” in the search field and click “Search!” [via Glimpse of a Grrl]
The funny thing is that if you switch the search to idiot you get a funny result too. I’d love to know how they are working this one out as the number 2 result for stupidity near us is Ohio State University!
Got my first piece of spam delivered to my inbox at gmail today. Not bad in just under a year of use (I signed up 1st July 04). In that time I’ve also not had a false positive either. The only spam that I have had to the email address has been some sort of “working under pressure” mailing list that somehow got my address from somewhere. Seeing as though I am careful about who I give the email address to I know I didn’t sign up for it and it also looks like gmail is more resilient to the mailbombing antics that yahoo and hotmail seem to face.
Google have released a Web accelerator, otherwise known as smart caching software. Google Web Accelerator uses various strategies to make your web pages load faster, including:
- Sending your page requests through Google machines dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic.
- Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.
- Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.
- Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.
- Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.
- Compressing data before sending it to your computer
Doesn’t this sound like something that should be happening anyway?
A useful links of google map hacks
If you have a google account for groups or gmail then if you sign into the account and then go to the SearchHistory page then it will record the searches you have done for your later perusal. It also changes the google.com page to include the searchhistory results as a link. Very handy if you are using multiple computers and know that you found the answers on one of them during a google search.
From the email that google sent me, here is how to remove Google Desktop by hand:-
Thank you for your note. If you’re unable to uninstall Google Desktop
Search through Add/Remove Programs and/or “Start” > “Programs” > “Google
Desktop Search” > “Uninstall Google Desktop Search,” you can remove it
manually. To do so, edit the Windows system registry and then delete the
appropriate program files. Here’s how:
TO EDIT THE WINDOWS SYSTEM REGISTRY:
Note: editing the Windows registry is an advanced process. You may prefer
to contact your system administrator.
That said, you should be able to solve the problem by deleting the
following registry keys:
– Hkey_Current_User\Software\Google\Google Desktop
– Hkey_Local_Machine\\Software\\Google\\Desktop\\InstalledNTUserName
– Hkey_Local_Machine\\Software\\Google\\Desktop\\InstalledUserSID
Restart your computer so this change can take effect, and then remove the
program files for Desktop Search. Here’s how:
TO REMOVE GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH:
Open C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME-THAT-NO-LONGER-EXISTS\Local
Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Desktop Search. Delete all the
files in this directory.
If you need further assistance, please let us know.
Regards,
The Google Team
Apparently you can’t uninstall the desktop search if you installed it as another user as you get the error message “Google Desktop Search was installed on this machine by a different user, DOMAIN\Username. To uninstall Google Desktop Search logon as that user” This is not necessarily possible if the domain doesn’t exist anymore (and therefore you CANT log on as that user)
The funny thing is that if you enter the error message into Google it asks if you meant login and not logon. (and there are no results for either of the two options.
I’ve logged an error report with Google, so we’ll see how long it takes for some action on this.
Update Working instructions on How to manually uninstall Google Desktop are posted here.
Apparently, Google now downloads the first result in a search before you click on it if you are using firefox which should speed up searching (although half the time my first result is never the one I click on).