Customizing Google Maps - Cool Google Mods
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Chicago Crime (chicagocrime.org) website locates exactly where all police crime reports happen. It includes as much as possible to show prospective home buyers what kind of neighborhood they may be moving into, or show residents what pool halls might be best avoided. The map has a legend of crime types, which determines what color pushpin is used on the map. The website allows you to filer the crimes by a few criteria: the type of crime committed (armed violence, bribery, homicide), types of locations (CTA Bus, Pool Room, Warehouse), district of Chicago, and finally the date and time of the occurrence.
Chicago Crime
Florida Sexual Predator (floridasexualpredator.com) shows where sex offenders live throughout the state. Not all areas work, but the metropolitan areas do: Orlando, Miami, Pensacola, and St. Petersburg. Yellow pushpins are where sex offenders are. Red ones highlight sexual predators. Clicking on the pushpin bring up an image of the offender, personal information, and a notation of whether the victim was a minor or not. The site harvests the information from public records, and it posts the information to the map.
floridasexualpredator.com
(the image has been altered for use on Developer Shed,
but the actual website shows all information clearly)
Google Sightseeing (googlesightseeing.com) is a site dedicated to people posting links to Google’s satellite imagery of well known lad marks and historic building, such as pyramids and the Eiffel tower. The top-down view aerial view gives a much different perspective than you may be used to seeing in magazines and photographs. The site is quite a bit of fun, and uses the slogan, “Why bother seeing the world for real?” Yep, just one more reason you don’t need to leave your house.
Google’s Maps are even being used by personal blogs. “My Childhood Seen by Google Maps” (website) is basically an interactive map. The blogger took satellite imagery from Google of places he used to live. The he implemented a mouse-over system so that when a person rolls their pointer over certain buildings or areas, text bubbles pop up. The text bubbles have little pieces of personal history relating to the area.
My Childhood Seen by Google Maps
Apple’s OSX Dashboard also has a widget for Google Maps (Google Maps Widget). The widget allows Mac users to connect to Google Maps via their desktops instead of needing to open a web browser. Although it appears not to have driving directions integrated into it, it does give users the choice of viewing the maps or the satellite imagery.
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