Apparently Google has done one of their shifty updates without telling me personally about it. I am not sure if I appreciate that they didn’t inform me. I guess if they had, I probably would have blocked the email to the spam folder in my Gmail account….

The update that I am discussing is the new feature hidden under the “link to this page” link in the Google Maps site. It used to just link you to the page, so you could send someone the link and show them what you are looking at too. Now, however, they are giving bloggers, and more especially programmers, a leg up by providing the HTML for embedding the map directly into a website. This makes life alot easier when you are creating a web page that is just going to give directions from one place to the other, and doesn’t necessarily need to have the Google Maps API. Oh life is made one step easier for me!

Here is an example of what it looks like:

View Larger Map

This of course if from my favorite Sushi place in Chicago to Navy Pier, a place I have never been.

There are some problems with the new features, as I was not able to embed a map from the Lego Store in Chicago to Lego Land in San Deigo. It said I did not have permissions to view that link. Also, when I was playing around with it, I was not able to do the custom options with

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From the google page:

“Interactive Polyline Encoder Utility: Polylines in Google Maps are formed as a set of latitude/longitude pairs. In addition, for each point in an encoded polyline, a level can be specified indicating that the point should appear on that level and any level higher (i.e. any decrease in zoom.). “

You can use this tool to help you build your google map polylines. It will visualize the lines for you and even save the points as you go. The other useful thing is that if you just need the latitude and longitude of a single point on the earth you can get it quickly and easily. And, you know what it will look like, because you find it using a google map!

Interactive Polyline Encoder Utility AKA: LatLong Finder

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From the Google Maps API website:

“The Google Maps API lets you embed Google Maps in your own web pages with JavaScript. You can add overlays to the map (including markers and polylines) and display shadowed “info windows” just like Google Maps.”

Want a map on your website? Get with the google maps API, it is free and there are new features all the time. Websites all over the Internet are using google maps API for some amazing mapping features.

Google Maps API

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