hobolog :: Mashups

Bruce at bioneural.net proposes a standard icon for geotags. I might have to start using it with my geo mashup wordpress plugin.

These maps have been public for a while from the Perry-Castañeda Library of the University of Texas at Austinj, but this Google-map index of them make finding the one you need much easier.

(Via Free Geography Tools)

Mostly for myself: a nice script that displays all of Google’s map icons. They’ve added some nice ones.

The Google Maps API and GeoNames are two of the most potentially useful web services for outdoor stuff, and the SOLMETRA PHP library makes use of both – something I need to check out.

Looks like a visit to Sydney, Australia provides a climber with a wide variety of locales.

The new “outdoor trips” layer in Google Earth has led me to trimbleoutdoors.com. This company is selling navigation tools for cellphones, and compiling an outdoor trips database. Not huge yet, but seems to be good quality.

Google has again managed to generate impressive buzz with it’s new “My Maps” feature at Google Maps. I happy to see it, because I hope it will save me from having to write a map editor for my software. Instead I just import a KML file, which can be created or edited with Google’s tools.

I haven’t tried it yet, but GPS Tracks has nice, simple, utilitarian interface for uploading and viewing GPX files on a Google map.

This is a nice outdoor activity mashup for Southwestern Pennsylvania. Quite useful if you live there, I’d imagine.

If you have a blog that refers to outdoor places, my map site theoutdoormap.com has something new to offer: automatic links back to your blog posts. Take a second to consider it.

We often name outdoor places when we write. Maybe we link the name to one of a great number of web sites relevant to the place. I think we could reap many benefits by sending these links to the location pages of The Outdoor Map:

• If your link comes from a blog with an RSS feed, The Outdoor Map will scan the feed and attempt to add a link back to your post from the location page. (Here’s an example). This will create a chronological list of blog posts relevant to the location, including yours. All it takes to accomplish this is:
  1. Search The Outdoor Map to find the location.
  2. Copy the URL for the location’s detail page.
  3. Use the URL in your post to link the location name.

  That’s it – you don’t even have to have an account at The Outdoor Map.

• I’m committed to gathering the best online resources for outdoor locations available for every location.
• If you are a member, you can add relevant links to the location detail page, and rate existing links.

That’s a brief summary. There’s more there, and I’m always working to improve it. You can help me just by using it. If something is preventing you, please tell me what it is. Thanks!

A mashup of outdoor routes for “rock and ice climbing, caving, canyoning, hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, mountain biking”. Most of the points are in Europe currently. I like the idea of quick map access to route diagrams, but none of the “route diagram” links I tried actually contained any diagrams. Maybe it will get better.

This is a travel map mashup for Australia that lets you add your own markers and notes.

An index of schnazzy new web sites, including many mapping sites.

The American Canoe Associations hosts an online database of water trails. No maps or anything, but the first resource I’ve seen for paddlers.

(Via The Adventure Blog)

This makes for a nice way to browse outdoor locations. That would be a good layer to have for the Outdoor Map.

(Via Google Maps Mania)

This is another “share your trip” site. The interface seems to offer a lot, but after playing with it a bit I’m not really sure what it delivers. Not intuitive. It does have one distinction, though – it’s a completely open-source project, hosted on SourceForge. It will be interesting to see which tactics win out in the end.

A site that aggregates information from individual traveler’s blogs, among other traveler features. There’s a new mapping feature as well – not sure if this creates a map automatically from your blog’s geoRSS feed, but that would be cool. I think blog aggregration is a technique that’s going to start popping up everywhere.

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been fiddling my own outdoor website called The Outdoor Map for almost a year now. My vision for it has changed, but I still use it all the time myself for finding places, keeping notes and links for them, and general map investigation. I had hoped that the site would support itself through advertising, but I never promoted it, and now the hosting bill is coming around. So, even though I still have many unrealized plans for it, I invite you play with the site a bit and see if you find it as useful as I do. Any comments you may have would be welcome.

Another online trail site joins the pack: trailchaser.com. It has a nice looking interface. Tracks, photos, waypoints, and elevation profiles are done well, but some key features like topo maps and printing are missing. One thing it does have that others don’t is the ability to draw a trail if you don’t have a GPX file.

A new outdoor map-sharing website hits the scene: EveryTrail.com. This one looks like it has some money behind it. At first glance it seems to have many desirable features covered: topos, elevation profiles, markers, photos, GPX import & editing, map embedding for your blog, Google Earth interface. It may be lacking good printing and search options, but there’s definitely enough there that I’ll be playing with it some more.

(Via Two-Heel Drive)