CAS Frappr Map
January 16, 2007 | 1 Comment
CAS is by far my favorite Web ISO solution. In the past I have posted about it’s popularity at other institutions.
Along those lines is this cool Frappr map of CAS deployments worldwide.
Tags: authentication, cas, frappr, frappr map, google maps, identity management, maps, sso, web iso, web sso, webiso, websso, yale cas, yalecas
Google Maps API: Risk
November 12, 2005 | 2 Comments
Mike D recently pointed me at GMRisk by TehDiplomat. This interesting use of the Google Maps API created a fully playable version of the game of Risk played on top of the satellite view of the world provided by Google’s Maps.
Unfortunately, you cannot play this multiplayer across multiple computers. If you want to play an actual game here, you need to huddle a pile of friends around a single computer for hours to play. With this in mind, I find the idea interesting, but the implementation short of actual fun. There’s no AI available, so you can’t play by yourself either…
I’m also not sure what playing on an interactive actual map gains you other than novelty. There isn’t any real great reason for zooming in or panning around. If there were new innovative features that too this into account that would again make this a lot cooler.
Tags: api, boardgame, games, gmrisk, google, google maps, google maps api, map, maps api, risk
Google Earth, an Eye on Katrina
September 10, 2005 | 59 Comments
On
If you don’t have Google Earth yet, go get it. This is one of the coolest
The following are some fantastic related sites that have sprung up since the inception of Google
Another great must see site is
I’ve also recently been turned on to Google Earth Hacks. This site has a lot of great downloadable features to work with Google Earth specifically.
The Google Earth KML Tutorial has information about how to create
Finally gCensus has combined census data with Google Maps to produce some fantastic results as you zoom in. This is a very useful resource.
Tags: cnn, desktop applications, Earth, google, Google Earth, Google Earth Plus, google maps, Google Sightseeing, googleearth, googleearth.com,satellite,map, imagery, iraq, katrina, KML, maps, New Orleans
First Impressions of Salt Lake City
August 8, 2005 | Leave a Comment
As we flew into Utah the first things we could see from the plane were Bingham Copper Mine and Utah Lake. Next we made out Salt Lake City, and then specifically our hotel. Clearly I’ve been spending too much time in satellite view in Google Maps… Soon the Great Salt Lake became overbearingly apparent. The plane also passed over Farmington Bay as we came in for a landing. From the air the “bay” appears more to be salt marshes and flats than an actually useful body of water.
As we left the airport Sara was very pleased by the giant mountins all around us. Finding the Hilton Hotel took mere minutes. I already began to get the impression that finding my way around Utah was not going to be difficult.
After getting settled into the hotel we took a quick trip into the city, only about a 7 minute drive. The city is layed out in a simple to follow grid pattern, however, the street names are a bit rough to get used to. Take a peak at them on Google Maps. You’ll see that most street have to directions in them, ex E 900 S or S 900 E which are entirely different roads. Also there are about 3 major streets named Temple. It’s a tad more confusing than say New York City where numbered streets run one way and avenues the other, or DC where numbers are one way and letters the other. You get the point.
Overall this seems like a cool place, it should be fun.
Tags: Bingham copper mine, farmington bay, google maps, great salt lake, mountains, salt lake city, scenery, Utah
Google Confirms: Moon Made of Cheese
July 20, 2005 | 3 Comments
A long standing debate amongst the pseudo-science community has been ended! The moon is in fact made of cheese. Google today released a Google Maps version that gives satellite imagery of the moon in recognition of the first moon landing which took place on July 20th, 1969. If you use the zoom bar and get in real close it becomes obvious that the moon is in fact made of cheese.
Another source has long speculated this based on seismographic activity from the Apollo landings, he explains his hypothesis here: Is the moon made of green cheese?
Although outsider organizations like NASA have provided rudimentary evidence to the contrary, I think the satellite footage speaks for itself. Thank you Google for finally answering this age old question.
Tags: apollo, google, google maps, google moon, moon cheese, NASA, satellite
Google Maps API
July 10, 2005 | 63 Comments
Casey turned me on to the Google Maps API and I’ve been looking for an excuse to play.
On Friday I went to UNH in the morning, back to Plymouth late in the day, and then drove up to Waterville, ME that night. Basically 7.5 hours of driving. I was curious how far apart these points would look when plotted on a map. Check it out below:
I would really like if they had a feature in the API allowing me to draw lines along the route I took. Maybe version 2.
The other mildly annoying thing about the API is having no really easy way to get longitude and latitude points when you need them. I ended up writing a little alert(point.x); alert(point.y); on points I was setting on click (based off a simple mod to an example. The other solution is to use something like geocoder.us
As for Casey’s annoyance about the specifics of the license key to a directory, I just registered a key generically for nosheep.net, assuming I could use it anywhere, simple solution. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, couldn’t put API pages in any subfolders… So, iframe solution for me as well.
Update: It turns out this isn’t working in IE. I guess I need to fix that… On a lighter note Safari loves it!
Update 2: A-ha! I had a line break in my key code and apparently IE couldn’t handle that… fixed now, good to go as best I can tell.
Update 3: I’ve been getting a lot of incoming traffic looking for Google Earth, for more actually about that, Google Earth, an Eye on Katrina
Tags: api, google, google maps, google maps api, mapping, maps