Google Map Hacks: Tips & Tools for Geographic Searching & Remixing

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.

CONTENTS:

Foreword
Credits
Preface
Chapter 1. You Are Here: Introducing Google Maps
       1. Get Around http://maps.google.com
       2. Find Yourself (and Others) on Google Maps
       3. Navigate the World in Your Web Browser
       4. Get the Bird's-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
Chapter 2. Introducing the Google Maps API
       10. Add a Google Map to Your Web Site
       11. Where Did the User Click?
       12. How Far Is That? Go Beyond Driving Directions
       13. Create a Route with a Click (or Two)
       14. Create Custom Map Markers
       15. Map a Slideshow of Your Travels
       16. How Big Is the World?
Chapter 3. Mashing Up Google Maps
       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?
Chapter 4. On the Road with Google Maps
       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 Doesn't 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
Chapter 5. Google Maps in Words and Pictures
       42. Get More out of What You Read
       43. Don't 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 Community's Story
       49. Generate Geocoded RSS from Any Google Map
       50. Geoblog with Google Maps in Thingster
Chapter 6. API Tips and Tricks
       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 Stuff-Quickly
       60. Make Things Happen When the Map Moves
       61. Use the Right Developer's Key Automatically
Chapter 7. Extreme Google Maps Hacks
       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