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(More customer reviews)The Google Maps API lets developers embed Google Maps in their own web pages with JavaScript. You can add overlays to the map (including markers and polylines) and display shadowed "info windows" just like in the maps section of Google. "Google Map Hacks" shows you how to use the power of the Google Maps API to perform useful tasks via your web pages. A key is required to use the API, and a single Google Maps API key is valid for a single directory on your web server, so the key you get will be good for all URLs in that particular directory. You must have a Google Account to get a Maps API key, and your API key will be connected to your Google Account.
The book starts out with a simple "Hello World" map application and moves on to show you how to map local weather conditions, find the best prices on a particular product, share pictures with your community, and add interactivity by causing a map to pan or zoom in response to user input. There are a total of 70 hacks that are actually map projects rather than just tips, which is often the case in other O'Reilly Hack books. I particularly liked the set of hacks in chapter 4, "On the Road". Since I live in the uber-congested Washington DC metro area, it is helpful to have hacks that tell me how to avoid traffic jams and how to find out "why my cell phone doesn't work there". Because using the Google Map API depends on inserting the correct code into the Javascript of web pages, the reader should already be familiar with HTML and with Javascript in order to get the most from this book. Amazon does not show the table of contents (list of Hacks) so I do that here:
Chapter 1. You Are Here: Introducing Google Maps
Hack 1. Get Around http://maps.google.com
Hack 2. Find Yourself (and Others) on Google Maps
Hack 3. Navigate the World in Your Web Browser
Hack 4. Get the Bird's-Eye View
Hack 5. Driven to a Better User Interface
Hack 6. Share Google Maps
Hack 7. Inside Google Maps URLs
Hack 8. Generate Links to Google Maps in a Spreadsheet
Hack 9. Use del.icio.us to Keep Up with Google Maps
Chapter 2. Introducing the Google Maps API
Hack 10. Add a Google Map to Your Web Site
Hack 11. Where Did the User Click?
Hack 12. How Far Is That? Go Beyond Driving Directions
Hack 13. Create a Route with a Click (or Two)
Hack 14. Create Custom Map Markers
Hack 15. Map a Slideshow of Your Travels
Hack 16. How Big Is the World?
Chapter 3. Mashing Up Google Maps
Hack 17. Map the News
Hack 18. Examine Patterns of Criminal Activity
Hack 19. Map Local Weather Conditions
Hack 20. Track Official Storm Reporting
Hack 21. Track the International Space Station
Hack 22. Witness the Effects of a Nuclear Explosion
Hack 23. Find a Place to Live
Hack 24. Search for Events by Location
Hack 25. Track Your UPS Packages
Hack 26. Follow Your Packets Across the Internet
Hack 27. Add Google Maps to Any Web Site
Hack 28. How Big Is That, Exactly?
Chapter 4. On the Road with Google Maps
Hack 29. Find the Best Gasoline Prices
Hack 30. Stay out of Traffic Jams
Hack 31. Navigate Public Transportation
Hack 32. Locate a Phone Number
Hack 33. Why Your Cell Phone Doesn't Work There
Hack 34. Publish Your Own Hiking Trail Maps
Hack 35. Load Driving Directions into Your GPS
Hack 36. Get Driving Directions for More Than Two Locations
Hack 37. View Your GPS Tracklogs in Google Maps
Hack 38. Map Your Wardriving Expeditions
Hack 39. Track Your Every Move with Google Earth
Hack 40. The Ghost in Google Ride Finder
Hack 41. How Google Maps Got Me Out of a Traffic Ticket
Chapter 5. Google Maps in Words and Pictures
Hack 42. Get More out of What You Read
Hack 43. Don't Believe Everything You Read on a Map
Hack 44. You Got Your A9 Local in My Google Maps!
Hack 45. Share Pictures with Your Community
Hack 46. Browse Photography by Shooting Location
Hack 47. Geotag Your Own Photos on Flickr
Hack 48. Tell Your Community's Story
Hack 49. Generate Geocoded RSS from Any Google Map
Hack 50. Geoblog with Google Maps in Thingster
Chapter 6. API Tips and Tricks
Hack 51. Make a Fullscreen Map the Right Way
Hack 52. Put a Map and HTML into Your Info Windows
Hack 53. Add Flash Applets to Your Google Maps
Hack 54. Add a Nicer Info Window to Your Map with TLabel
Hack 55. Put Photographs on Your Google Maps
Hack 56. Pin Your Own Maps to Google Maps with TPhoto
Hack 57. Do a Local Zoom with GxMagnifier
Hack 58. Find the Right Zoom Level
Hack 59. Show Lots of Stuff-Quickly
Hack 60. Make Things Happen When the Map Moves
Hack 61. Use the Right Developer's Key Automatically
Chapter 7. Extreme Google Maps Hacks
Hack 62. Find the Latitude and Longitude of a Street Address
Hack 63. Read and Write Markers from a MySQL Database
Hack 64. Build Custom Icons on the Fly
Hack 65. Add More Imagery with a WMS Interface
Hack 66. Add Your Own Custom Map
Hack 67. Serve Custom Map Imagery
Hack 68. Automatically Cut and Name Custom Map Tiles
Hack 69. Cluster Markers at High Zoom Levels
Hack 70. Other Cool Ways to Use Google Maps
Click Here to see more reviews about: Google Maps Hacks: Tips & Tools for Geographic Searching and Remixing
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 Mapstech leads, Jens and Lars Rasmussen.
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