Book description
Want to find every pizza place within a 15-mile radius? Where the dog parks are in a new town? The most central meeting place for your class, club or group of friends? The cheapest gas stations on a day-to-day basis? The location of convicted sex offenders in an area to which you may be considering moving? The applications, serendipitous and serious, seem to be infinite, as developers find ever more creative ways to add to and customize the satellite images and underlying API of Google Maps.
Written by Schuyler Erle and Rich Gibson, authors of the popular Mapping Hacks, Google Maps Hacks shares dozens of tricks for combining the capabilities of Google Maps with your own datasets. Such diverse information as apartment listings, crime reporting or flight routes can be integrated with Google's satellite imagery in creative ways, to yield new and useful applications.
The authors begin with a complete introduction to the "standard" features of Google Maps. The adventure continues with 60 useful and interesting mapping projects that demonstrate ways developers have added their own features to the maps. After that's given you ideas of your own, you learn to apply the techniques and tools to add your own data to customize and manipulate Google Maps. Even Google seems to be tacitly blessing what might be seen as unauthorized use, but maybe they just know a good thing when they see one.
With the tricks and techniques you'll learn from Google Maps Hacks, you'll be able to adapt Google's satellite map feature to create interactive maps for personal and commercial applications for businesses ranging from real estate to package delivery to home services, transportation and more. Includes a foreword by Google Maps tech leads, Jens and Lars Rasmussen.
Publisher resources
Table of contents
- Google Maps Hacks
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Credits
- Preface
-
1. You Are Here: Introducing Google Maps
- 1.1. Hacks 1â9: Introduction
- 1. Get Around
- 2. Find Yourself (and Others) on Google Maps
- 3. Navigate the World in Your Web Browser
- 4. Get the Birdâs-Eye View
- 5. Driven to a Better User Interface
- 6. Share Google Maps
- 7. Inside Google Maps URLs
- 8. Generate Links to Google Maps in a Spreadsheet
- 9. Use del.icio.us to Keep Up with Google Maps
- 2. Introducing the Google Maps API
-
3. Mashing Up Google Maps
- 3.1. Hacks 17â28: Introduction
- 17. Map the News
- 18. Examine Patterns of Criminal Activity
- 19. Map Local Weather Conditions
- 20. Track Official Storm Reporting
- 21. Track the International Space Station
- 22. Witness the Effects of a Nuclear Explosion
- 23. Find a Place to Live
- 24. Search for Events by Location
- 25. Track Your UPS Packages
- 26. Follow Your Packets Across the Internet
- 27. Add Google Maps to Any Web Site
- 28. How Big Is That, Exactly?
-
4. On the Road with Google Maps
- 4.1. Hacks 29â41: Introduction
- 29. Find the Best Gasoline Prices
- 30. Stay Out of Traffic Jams
- 31. Navigate Public Transportation
- 32. Locate a Phone Number
- 33. Why Your Cell Phone Doesnât Work There
- 34. Publish Your Own Hiking Trail Maps
- 35. Load Driving Directions into Your GPS
- 36. Get Driving Directions for More Than Two Locations
- 37. View Your GPS Tracklogs in Google Maps
- 38. Map Your Wardriving Expeditions
- 39. Track Your Every Move with Google Earth
- 40. The Ghost in Google Ride Finder
- 41. How Google Maps Got Me Out of a Traffic Ticket
-
5. Google Maps in Words and Pictures
- 5.1. Hacks 42â50: Introduction
- 42. Get More out of What You Read
- 43. Donât Believe Everything You Read on a Map
- 44. You Got Your A9 Local in My Google Maps!
- 45. Share Pictures with Your Community
- 46. Browse Photography by Shooting Location
- 47. Geotag Your Own Photos on Flickr
- 48. Tell Your Communityâs Story
- 49. Generate Geocoded RSS from Any Google Map
- 50. Geoblog with Google Maps in Thingster
-
6. API Tips and Tricks
- 6.1. Hacks 51â61: Introduction
- 51. Make a Fullscreen Map the Right Way
- 52. Put a Map and HTML into Your Info Windows
- 53. Add Flash Applets to Your Google Maps
- 54. Add a Nicer Info Window to Your Map with TLabel
- 55. Put Photographs on Your Google Maps
- 56. Pin Your Own Maps to Google Maps with TPhoto
- 57. Do a Local Zoom with GxMagnifier
- 58. Find the Right Zoom Level
- 59. Show Lots of StuffâQuickly
- 60. Make Things Happen When the Map Moves
- 61. Use the Right Developerâs Key Automatically
-
7. Extreme Google Maps Hacks
- 7.1. Hacks 62â70: Introduction
- 62. Find the Latitude and Longitude of a Street Address
- 63. Read and Write Markers from a MySQL Database
- 64. Build Custom Icons on the Fly
- 65. Add More Imagery with a WMS Interface
- 66. Add Your Own Custom Map
- 67. Serve Custom Map Imagery
- 68. Automatically Cut and Name Custom Map Tiles
- 69. Cluster Markers at High Zoom Levels
- 70. Will the Kids Barf? (and Other Cool Ways to Use Google Maps)
- Index
- About the Authors
- Colophon
- Copyright
Product information
- Title: Google Maps Hacks
- Author(s):
- Release date: January 2006
- Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- ISBN: 9781491909768
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