My Favorite Google Maps Hack
Since Google Maps exposed their API (translation for non-techies: published a way for programmers to interact with the Google Maps site), lots of sites have come out with "hacks" or "mods" to the Google maps interface. There was Frappr , which enjoyed a splurge of popularity earlier this year that seems to have died down a lot. It allowed you to create a map around a common interest or site, where members could put themselves up as if putting a thumbtack on the map with a note with their name, picture, and whatever else they might deem to add. There are all kinds of interfaces which showed various points of interest, and of course there is the housingmaps.com site, a fusion of Craig's List's housing classifieds in various metro areas with Google maps - so you can graphically browse a map and see what houses are for sale at what price on what street. There are even sites which came about whose sole purpose was to catalog these various mods to Google Maps, including Cool Google Maps and Google Maps Mania .
For a long time with a mapping program I've wanted the ability to figure out exactly how far something was from me. I try to walk for exercise when I can, and we also sometimes walk to nearby stores instead of driving when the weather is nice, we have the time, and we're not exhausted from the myriad of chores and duties that keep us busy most days. Using a standard mapping interface like Google Maps itself doesn't quite cut it. For one thing it means knowing the address of where you are coming from and going to, which is not always known, so you have to spend extra time looking this information up, and it might not even be completely accurate (for example, according to most mapping programs which use the same data source, my house is actually almost a block from where it says it is!). Secondly, there's no guarantee that the mapping program will design a route that is the same as the way you walk. It often chooses some other route that it deems faster by car. Of course, this doesn't even account for some routes which cars simply can't traverse because of a road that's one way in the wrong direction or even no road at all! I've always wanted something akin to a graphics program where you draw a polymer by clicking multiple times to form the shape. In my mind, the lines would automatically stick to the roads that were closest to them.
More recently, I've been trying to get more exercise in during the day, and since it's been so nice and unseasonably warm here this week, I decided to skip lunch and just walk around the neighborhood. I was wondering how much I walked, but other than the amount of time and a vague sense of how fast I was going, I really couldn't gauge much. So I thought I'd start looking for something akin to what I've described above and maybe, just maybe I'd find something. Well, I was shocked that I found something perfect almost immediately!
Gmaps Pedometer is the site/hack, and it is great for anyone just wanting to know how far it is from one point to another on a map, to someone who wants to get detailed information for a walking program, a cycling route, etc. You can very easily create a walking path and Gmaps Pedometer will show you dynamically not only what the distance is, but even how many calories you will burn on this path. I'm not sure about how accurate the calorie count is, though, since my 3-mile path I created around my office was rated at 368 calories, which seems a bit high. Gmaps Pedometer even gives you a graphic of the elevation levels your path is traversing, but as much as I'd like to believe it, I don't believe elevation is taken into account for calories. The only forum message from the author about this on the site mentions not wanting to use the elevation markers for anything else because elevation data is not available everywhere - it seems to be available mostly for the U.S.
If you can time your walk, and Gmaps Pedometer gives you an accurate measurement of the distance, you can figure out your speed and then you can plug that, the time, and your weight into some other tool to get a more or less accurate representation of you calories burned. I tried to find such a calculator on the web, but all the ones out will only let you plug in pre-specified numbers for your pace, like 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, etc. mph. I did find one shareware application you can download that does seem to have the degree of flexibility I was hoping for.
In addition to what I've mentioned so far, Gmaps Pedometer also lets you save a given route, so for example, this is one route I created . Also, it lets you export to GPX format with a third party bookmarklet . GPX is a format for sharing GPS data, so potentially you could load this into your GPS and use it as a way to navigate. This might be very valuable for hikers, or just walkers or cyclists who are unfamiliar with an area and want to make sure they are taking the right path. Theoretically, one could use Gmaps Pedometer to design city walking tours and make those available for people to download, along with a set of MP3's for each of the points of interest on the path. Really, the possibilities are endless with this thing!