After a first look at Quikmaps, I spent a bit more time yesterday playing around with it and am even more impressed. Description boxes accept html and you can easily imbed things like video and pictures into the description boxes. A guide to the Quikmaps editor can be found here.

Technorati Tags: maps, necc, necc06, necc2006prep, quikmaps, San Diego

QuickMaps is a web based tool for creating and annotating Google Maps. It is by far the easiest interface I have seen for annotating and marking up Google Maps. Markers, lines and free form “scribbles” can be added by dragging and dropping and by drawing with the mouse. You can easily include the map on your own site and also export the information into Google Earth. A very impressive tool.

Technorati Tags: Google Earth, google maps, quikmaps

The new Intel based Macs come with a remote control unit that allows the user to control iTunes, iMovie, iDVD and iTunes. Sofa Control is a piece of software that extends the remote to other applications. Use it to control Keynote or Powerpoint presentations, or to open and close applications.

Technorati Tags: intel macs

With family and friends taking part in summer travel, I am once again interested in tools for tracking flights. This morning I did a bit of searching and found one that will that will track flights in Google Earth. The flight’s relative position to the ground is noted and the flight’s information and position is automatically updated every minute. It takes advantage of Google Earth’s layering features to place the plane graphic “above” the ground.

Technorati Tags: Google Earth, flight tracking

Second Life

“Although this metaphor will probably offend anyone remotely connected to Second Life, the most accurate way of describing the whole experience is that it’s like playing with dolls.”

Eamonn Sullivan has an interesting post/introduction about Second Life, the 3-D Virtual world, owned by Linden Lab. I found the quote above pretty funny. I’d only add that the dolls all seem to be very fit too…

Technorati Tags: Eamonn Sullivan, Second Life

I finally got around to registering with Google Analytics. This is a service that Google offers to allow web site owners to track and monitor visitors information. The screen shot to the left is one of the many dashboard type looks at visitor data. The example here is from my lewiselementary.org site.

Notice that this view includes a map which plots visitor locations. This being Google you would think they would have a way to view that kind of data in Google Earth. Well, since they don’t yet, Jake Cord of Scurvy Jake’s Pirate Blog has created a web tool that will convert Google Analytics geo data into a .KML file that can be loaded up in Google Earth. With a few simple steps you can export the data from Google Analytics and view it in Google Earth.

Technorati Tags: Google Analytics, Google Earth, Jake Cord

Valery Hronusov has been looking at publicly available data from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and has produced several Google Earth data layers based on this data. These include visualizations that note cell phone tower density (example above) and TV towers per state. Another interesting way to look at data. You can read more about Valery’s work over at the Google Earth Blog…

Technorati Tags: Google Earth, data layers, valery hronusov