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Google Maps directions now offer alternative routes

June 2, 2009 By Dan Perlman 1 Comment

gmaps_logo Google Maps is a fine mapping site, in the same vein as Yahoo Maps, Mapquest and now Bing Maps (that would be the new name for Microsoft’s search).

What I’ve always found frustrating about all of them is that they only offer you one route even when you know intuitively that there is a better way. Google Maps has tried to fix that. They now offer you alternative route directions. Here are three suggested routes to get you from Coolidge Corner in Brookline, MA to Harvard Square in nearby Cambridge, MA.
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The breakout between suggested routes was two good tries and a third thrown that must have been thrown in by a mapping algorithm with a sense of irony just to make the others look good. Incidentally, none was the shortest route which you can probably track on the map with your eyes. That was the one I took every day for years.
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Filed Under: google, maps, Technology

Want to consolidate all your contact info and get it in Google search?

May 11, 2009 By Dan Perlman 1 Comment

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It’s useful to have one place on the web to which you can point your contacts towards for all the information that might need about you. I’ve started using Google Profiles for this purpose, here’s my profile. There you can find out just about everything about me that you might want to know (and I feel comfortable with you knowing).

An added plus to using the Profiles feature is that profiles will being to appear in Google search when your name is searched.

create-profile To build your own personal brand through a Google Profile, log into Google Profiles site with any Google login or create one — then fill out as much information as you’re comfortable sharing. You can also add links to your personal or business websites and social media.

Filed Under: google, Personal Branding

I like Google Chrome, I even like their commercials

May 8, 2009 By Dan Perlman Leave a Comment

I mostly use Google Chrome as my primary browser. It’s very fast and I love their minimalist approach. I also find it more useful than seem intuitive, that the search box and URL box are combined.

Anyway, it’s probably pretty lame but I like the product well enough to enjoy the commercials in their recent ad campaign.

If you share my appreciation for the commercials’ creativity, there is an entire series on YouTube made by independent studios.

Filed Under: browsers, google Tagged With: Google Chrome

Google Street View Drivers Should Get Hazardous Duty Pay

April 13, 2009 By Dan Perlman

Big, successful companies annoy people, in the past it was — IBM, Microsoft and Oracle — now Google is in the hot seat. Some of the sources of annoyance can be the ubiquity of a company’s products like Windows for Microsoft, a natural human desire to root for the underdog, or possibly privacy concerns coupled with fear of “big brother”.

No Google product seems to have such a loyal chorous of haters as Street View in Google Maps. With this feature selected in Google Maps, you can not only see a location on a map but actual see a full 360-degree view photography of the location.

The 360-degree images are taken by Google camera-mounted cars that roam streets snapping photographs. Google stirred the pot of controversy in Northern California last summer when Google Street View cars were accused of photographing on private roads in Sonoma and Humboldt counties. Since Humboldt one of the major cash crops of Humboldt County is pot, those drivers better be careful.

Now Street View is available in the United Kingdom where it recently met annoyance. in the form of an angry crowd. It seems that a Street View car was spotted in the upscale village of Broughton about an hour out of London. The village had recently been victim to a number of house robberies. The residents of the village resented being photographed without their permission and felt the pictures might aid burglars, so in a bit of volunteer civic action, neighbors blocked the road so that the Google car could not pass. The driver eventually made a U-turn and left the area. Actually Google is within its rights to take photographs with permission as long as the car remains on public roads

One of the practical uses for the Street View feature is to use it when looks for new houses or apartments – check out areas without needing to visit in person.

The 360-degree car-mounted camera used by Google.

My street in Mountain View, CA via Street View

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Google Street View Captures Dudes Peeing Together in the Middle of a Busy Highway [Pee Party] (i.gizmodo.com)

Filed Under: google, News, Technology

Drawing on Google Documents

March 26, 2009 By Dan Perlman 1 Comment

A bright new feature has been added to Google Docs. They call it Insert Drawing because, well, you use it to insert a drawing in a Google Doc.

It works in documents, presentations and spreadsheets and is simple enough for the supremely graphics challenged to use (read me). You create art objects within the drawing made up of free hand scribbles, text labels and shapes that can be resized, rotated and adjusted and then further customized.

You can create a drawing by yourself or collaborate with a friend. The tool is found in the Google doc menu, fittingly, under Insert.

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