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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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

Related articles

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

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.

For those of you that keep track of such things, Insert Drawings came from an acquisition Google did in 2007 of a startup called Tonic Systems.

They say more features will be added over time which is the Google way.

Read Google’s blog entry.

My attempt at art using Google Insert Drawing.

The catch is that your calendar will only be available as read-only and you won’t be able to make new entries edit existing entries, but you will be able to make new entries.

We could wonder why Google took this halfass halfway approach?  They usually do better.

To enable, click Offline in the upper-right of the Google Calendar screen.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

When I was kid watching old sci-fi movies on television the plots often included super smart computers which allowed the scientist (or mad scientist) to type a question into a console, lights would flash and then the computer would spit the answer.  I feel like Google is getting to be that computer.

Just typing queries into the Google search box will yield plenty of useful information, here a couple of my favorites, there are many more available.

Weather Palo Alto – type Weather and City name for local weather

time Beijing – type time and City for local time informton

5*9+(sqrt 10)^3= type equations followed by = and Google calculates the result

10.5 cm in inches – conversions between measurements

Define mime – Define and word gives you the definition

Chinese food 94040 – Restaurants cuisines and zip codes for local dining

150 Euros in USD – Currency conversion

Austin map – map of cities, states, countries

Cool, eh?  You get the idea.

More Google Queries [via 43 Folders]

PC Magazine  paper-edition bites the dust – Ziff Davis Media, publishers of the 27-year old PC Magazine will stop printing it in January and only provide it digitally.  Remember we told you about The Christian Science Monitor going the same way?

Gmail adds themes -  If you use Gmail (and why  wouldn’t you?), you can now jazz-up your Gmail reader with colorful themes.

Microsoft to give away Virus protection – Beginning in the 2d half of 2009 Microsoft is going to be giving away to consumers,  “comprehensive, real-time anti-malware protection, covering such threats as viruses, spyware, rootkits, trojans, and other emerging threats, in a single, focused solution.”  Bet Norton likes that.

Scared of Technology?  You’re Old! -  According to a Pew Study, if you’re over 30 and start to have problems with your computer, or a cell-phone kind of gadget, 52% of you will be discouraged, but not so if you’re younger – then 85% of you are confident you can fix it.  Don’t worry if you’re over 30, that’s why you read Enquiring Mimes.

Order pizza through your Tivo – A deal between Tivo and Domino means you can order a pizza and only have to get off the couch to pay the driver in cash.

Related

• Dominos can now be ordered via TiVo
• Iconic PC Magazine to shut down

Google is in the process of digitizing and hosting the entire Life magazine photo and engravings archive, that’s about ten million photos.  Ten million images and they’re all  wonderful.

I love photography and am old enough to remember the real years of weekly Life magazine.  For me, this will not be a productivity booster since I expect to spend plenty of time digging through the images.

So far about 20% of the collection that dates back to the 1750s has been digitized, all will eventually be available.  The photographs are being incorporated into Google Image Search and can be isolated in your search by including source:life in your query.

See the Life magazine search page.

Read about the collection on the Google blog.

I spent time yesterday browsing through the images, the photographs of Picasso particularly fascinated me.  Give them a look.

The picture Google chose to feature in their blog post announcement is also one of my favorites, shot by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Alfred snapped this in 1963, at the climax of Guignol’s “Saint George and the Dragon” in the Tuileries Garden in Paris. Just as the dragon is slain, some children cry out in a combination of horror and delight, while others are taken aback in shock. Every child is consumed with emotion, masterfully captured by Eisenstaedt’s camera. These amazing photos are now blended into our Image Search results along with other images from across the web.

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