Andrew Bidochko

I’ve found a very interesting post about mashups and Google Platform.

The online mapping arena is changing so quickly, and I obviously am not able to cover the details of all these changes. Nonetheless, it’s helpful to speculate on what I believe to be the long-term trends in this area as a way of priming yourself for future changes.

• I think that you’ll see a migration of many features found in typical full-fledged GIS system — e.g., shading of layers — into programmable web applications. (e.g., Pushpin Multi-layer map server)
• Not surprisingly, we’ll see the platform players (such as Google Maps) incorporate functionality started off as extensions to the platform into the platform itself. For example, sites such as mapbuilder.net provided a user interface for building Google (or Yahoo!) map before Google made it easier to build a Google Map via its “My Maps” functionality. Google’s My Maps doesn’t exactly duplicate mapbuilder.net but it’s bound to win a major audience by virtue of its tight integration with Google Maps.

MapBuilder.net has a little hack which allows you to see users map via Yahoo! Maps Web Service.
How to check this? Just open any existing map through Booming Maps page (for example this Arizona Golf Courses map) and click on the ” View Map using Yahoo! Maps Web Service ” link.

MapBuilder.net Updates
I would like to inform you about recent Mapbuilder.net updates.
A lot of requested features have been implemented:
- MapBuilder supports unlimited number of maps per user account.
- Added geocoding feature (for US cities) only.
- Added “Quick Navigation” feature to navigate quickly between
Countries/States.
- Interface has been redesigned to be more convenient.
- Added icon selection feature for the locations.
- Added more fields (location caption and address) to describe
location.

Hope you will continue to use MapBuilder.net for your map
development and location sharing.

Due to recent requests when MapBuilder anonymous (not registered) users close browser window and lost all locations I decided to force users to Sign In or Sign Up before previewing map or source code. This will allow you to SAVE your locations. Is this annoying? Let me know.

Right now you can save MapType to your map configuration (Map. Satellite, Hybrid) and generate your map for desired MapType as well. To check this feature goto to MapBuilder’s home, set desired map type and hit “Save Center, Zoom & Map Type(map, satellite, hyprid)” button. After that check map’s source code, preview or your map @ mapbuilder…whatever you want.
See http://mapbuilder.net/UserMap.php?UserName=Andrew as a example what can be done with MapType option.

Booming Maps page continues to be very popular page on MapBuilder. I like it

“Map Implementation” page(available for registered users only) extended with 2 more ways of map implementation: “Source Code to Your HTML Page - Keep You Map Live” and “Source Code to Your HTML Page - Copy & Paste”.

So actually we have 3 ways how to share a map created @ mapbuilder.net:
1. Put button or link to your site like this
2. Get html source code which will grab live map from mapbuilder.net
3. Get static html and paste it to your web page

Recently I’ve added couple featues to MapBuilder.net:
- “Shared ! Locations” are available. This is unique map which shows all ‘none private’ users locations. This is the great spot for new map community. So hurry to share your locations. Note, only locations of registered users are available for sharing. Also right now I’m experience some problems using this map in Internet Explorer. FireFox works well.
- RSS Feeds XML support has been added to MapBuilder as the part of “Shared ! Locations” functionality.
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MapBuilder.net
“MapBuilder lets you tag locations on a map and publish it on your own site.
Mapping is now easy than ever. It’s free.”

I’m pretty excited again of Google Team.
Today (Apollo 11 30th Anniversary) they realeased http://moon.google.com/. It’s sweet.

Quote from NASA Site

On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of all time when a human first set foot on another celestial body.

Six hours after landing at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (with less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining), Neil A. Armstrong took the “Small Step” into our greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, named “Eagle,” onto the surface of the Moon, from which he could look up and see Earth in the heavens as no one had done before him.

He was shortly joined by “Buzz” Aldrin, and the two astronauts spent 21 hours on the lunar surface and returned 46 pounds of lunar rocks. After their historic walks on the Moon, they successfully docked with the Command Module “Columbia,” in which Michael Collins was patiently orbiting the cold but no longer lifeless Moon.

Tonight I’ve completed coding for anonymouse/authorized functionality. Also system has been tested and looks stable.
As well couple of features were added to map generating process (see “Map Controls” tab):
- MapControls received some images for controls visualization.
- User can set up Zoom Level for generated map
- User can specify Width and Height for the map.

And finally “Save Center and Zoom” button has been added on the home page. After adding locations just centre your map and press the “Save Center and Zoom” button. Your generated map will be centered almost in the same center position.