Google Maps: The Road Map to…Everywhere
Well, a glance at the ole calendar tells me it’s been more than a month since my last post–so much for keeping it updated I guess. In my defense though, I’ve had to make some adjustments this past month, what with juggling my private classes with a part-time position and all. But I have had a couple of posts in mind for a bit, so with luck I will get around to those this week.
This post is mostly for dad, incidentally, since most other readers won’t be very interested in maps. Anyone who has downloaded and tried Google Earth knows that it is pretty impressive, providing detailed satellite imagery of the whole world, pretty much. But it has its limitations, too. It doesn’t provide very useful information for traveling, despite road map functions, and navigating all of the functions can be a pain. Well, that’ s where Google maps steps in to fill the void. It’s simple and easy to use. First, go to www.google.com. It will look something like this, but they change the Google banner often.
At google.com you can see a “maps” link in the top left-hand corner. Clicking that takes you to Google Maps. The page should look something like this:
I’ve highlighted the full-screen and satellite view buttons. Google maps combines the detail and accuracy of satellite imagery with scaled road and terrain maps. The information detail and type varies with scale too, so the whole thing is seamless. There is a print button as well, so that you can print out just the area you expect to need a map for. A road map of the whole world. It is just as useful here in Korea as it is back home. In fact that is how I found it. I usually use a couple of online Korean maps to navigate here, but they are not well updated and I heard Google maps was good, so I gave it a try.
From the perspective of someone who knows what blogging is about, and how difficult it can be to integrate info online, Google has done a great job of making this platform versatile. I can provide links to specific locations in my text, so you just click once to be brought to the appropriate location on the appropriate kind of map.
But, even better, I can include Google Maps itself in my post so you don’t even have to leave my blog to use it:
View Larger Map
How about that?
It’s a rabbit.
