Google Maps Hacks: Foreword by Jens & Lars Rasmussen, Google Maps Tech Leads

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 [...] 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

Everyone knows Google Maps. Google has gone out of its way to make Google Maps something that everyone knows about, uses, and talks about. There are blogs that are just about all the mash-ups and hacks people have come up with for Google Maps. And now, O'Reilly has released Google Maps Hacks, showing how anyone can use the Google Maps API for their own benefit, with a little help. The book starts off with a basic tutorial on how to add a Google Map to your site - if you're going to mash up, you have to have something to mash, after all! It also (in Hack 27) shows you how to use Greasemap to add Google Maps functionality to any web site (assuming you've already got Greasemonkey and Firefox is your browser). As with all hacks books, Google Maps Hacks includes some basic hacks that just about anyone can do (and points to some great places to see great hacks already done!), and some that are going to require a bit of work and some programming skill. There were several hacks in the book that I really loved. First, the book pointed me to a site promising to show me where I could find cheap gas. They've integrated Google Maps with GasBuddy to create something incredibly useful, though I wish it were updated more often. (My local station hasn't been updated since September of 2005!) To use the really good hacks, you'll need a GPS. Many of the mash-ups are best used when you're out on the road. (Hack 35 shows how to dump Google Maps data to your GPS system, and #37 shows how to reverse that process and import your GPS Tracklogs to Google Maps.) The most useful part of the book, though, is when we get to see how various mash-ups work. It's one thing to see a great use of the Google Maps API, it's another thing completely to understand how that's done so that you can do it yourself. And that's really what's valuable about the Hacks books - you're shown how something is done, so you can take that understanding and apply it to what you want to do. That's what hacking is all about - information and application of that information in new ways.

This was a tough buy for me. I wasn't sure if this book would give me any ideas that I couldn't just get from the Google Maps API discussion group or the google maps mania blog. Well, there are some ideas that I haven't seen yet and the hacks "cookbook" design is nice to read. The GPS geocoding information was especially useful with my Garmin. The "Track your every move with Google Earth" is a hack that I've always wanted to do but wasn't completely sure how to do. On the cons side this book could really use color in the examples.