Saturday, June 2, 2007

The world is in your hand

A few years ago, it was difficult to me to find a location where I have never been to in Thailand. I've been staying here for 6 years and it's so useful to buy a mobile mapping device like PDA to find direction. Imagine people do not speak English with a foreigner like me, what can I do when I want to ask for direction. I've decided to buy a PDA embedded with maps and directions to common places in Bangkok city. Of course there are different versions of such PDA with different cities and provinces but I selected Bangkok, where I've been staying. A device like that costed me 500 USD and it's not interchangable.

Updating the device is also a problem because the system is close to a novice like me. What I can do is switching it on and start searching for a place when I need it. Sometimes the target does not appear because it is not in the database. Sometimes it is there but I know for sure at the time being, the name of the shop is not the same. The groccery has been turned into a 7-Eleven some months ago.

I found Google Earth so useful since it was launched. A new interface, user-friendly, interactive and enriched with information is what I need. I can easily find my place without spending a satang (100 satang is equivalent to 1 B - Thai monetary). I can also add the places of interest into my own database on the PC, so that I can view it anytime without searching for it again. Beyond my expectation, Google Map is so wonderful. Since I've been doing programming with Visual Basic, I've embedded Google Map into my application and manipulate it so well. It seems I have created my own mapping system on the desktop. Reading more API, I could put my thematic maps onto Google Earth. The service now is not just only one layer of satellite image, but also with many layers of my own maps. It's so wonderful.

From the community, I found so many links to download interesting locations, 3D-model, bookmarks and so on to decorate my Google Earth map.

Imagine, just save it into a file, send it to your friends with some words "find my place by double clicking on this file from Windows Explorer...". We've been exchanging information that way. Even we were dating to new restaurants by sending Google Earth link to everyone to find locations. The system now is not close anymore.

I moved forwards to Microsoft Virtual Earth because I heard it interesting also. It was, my friends. Unlike Google Earth, a sort of thick client to your desktop, you can just view MS Virtual Earth with your web browser without installing any package like Google Earth. I moved the view to Florida, USA. Wow, it was so wonderful to see the streets so clear in detail. I could even see a so-called "hybrid map", a combination of road networks and aerial photographs. Street labels can be displayed on top of the other layers makes it so comprehensive. Unluckily, this wonderful thing, plus the details of map are not available in many countries, including Thailand. I hope Microsoft will soon cover their high resolution images and maps to other countries further than United States.

If you wish, you can try Virtual Earth with following link:

http://www. virtualearth.com/

The last one I would like to mention here is a hybrid product between Google Earth and Wikipedia. They, the dictionary company decided to creat a new toy for web community by putting Google Earth map into their site. The different thing between Wiki map and Google Map is they can overlay more vector layers on Google Map (and image) to make it customized. Providing a search engine, Wiki map helps the find their location of interest easily. Users can also add their locations onto Wiki map and share with others. This things is different! For Google Earth, he or she can add more vector layers but that data cannot be shared interactively with the others. To do it, the users has to public their links into a forum so that the others can download into their PC to view. Wiki map does it in an easier way. Once you have put your labels on their map, you've done! Everybody can see it, use it and enjoy it. You can question to me if they put something wrong onto the map and how to verify it. My answer is once you have joined the community, you don't want to do it. Once you have decided to use it, you will be responsible to your decision. However, I do believe nobody would intend to harm the other that way.

The cyber world always has it's dark site. If we think of it, we will not feel happy. Let's forget about it and enjoy the technology.

Every product that I have mentioned in this post is completely free of charge. Even though, the owner company encourages you to use their product and give them your feed back. I'm just sharing with you some information because it's so useful and playful to me.

This is Wiki map that I have mentioned. I really like it.

http://www.wikimapia.org/
Posted by Mystical Orient

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