Google Fever!

If you use the Internet at all then you will have heard of Google.  If you ever need to find anything then http://www.google.com is the place to start out.  Google's home page is deceptively simple;  a nice colorful Google logo and a text box waiting patiently for you to enter your keyword.  Press ENTER and away you go.  The page is refreshed and by the magic that is Google, your best choices are listed in priority order.

Google is so canny that I very seldom need to go past this first page when I am searching for something on the Internet. When Google went public there was a frenzy of share purchases the like of which has not been seen for many years (if ever).  Internet companies are notorious for their instabililty and many people have lost money on "dot.bombs" as they have rather cynically been refered to.

Let's have a look at some interesting things that Google have come up with recently...

Google Earth:

If you haven't got into Google Earth yet, I suggest you open another Internet Explorer page up and go immediately to:  http://www.google.com/downloads/ and download the free copy.  In fact if you have time, check out the other free Google stuff there as well.

To use Google Earth effectively you will need a fast Internet connection as the data streams from the Internet.  Google has excelled themselves with this program.  After installing and opening Google Earth, you will be presented with a map of the globe.  Keep an eye on the numbers in the lower right corner, they tell you the distance above ground level you are (starting point is several thousand miles above the surface).

Simply use the scroll wheel on your mouse to start the zooming process.  If you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, you can right click and drag the mouse up and down to zoom in and out.  If you live in outside the US of A, rotate the Earth by clicking and dragging in either direction.  If you get to your place of interest and find that everything looks upside down, use the "Reset North" button in the control panel at the bottom of the screen.

The detail is stunning, and while the whole planet is not able to be zoomed down to at such detail, there are most of the world's populated and touristy areas in such detail that you can see cars on roads and houses clearly and sharply defined.  Of course, it wouldn't be a Google contraption without a search bar somewhere ( in the upper left corner).  To see where I come from, type: "New Zealand" (without the quotation marks) and press ENTER.

The Earth spins around and zooms in on little old New Zealand.  I live in the larget city which is Auckland.  To see it you will need to locate the top quarter of the North Island and zoom in until the labels pop into view (about 96 miles high).  When you see Auckland, double click on the red dot and it will automatically zoom down to the lowest detail level which is about 3,000 ft above see level.  Unfortunately this main centre of Auckland has not been mapped in the same detail as the rest of Auckland so it looks a bit blurry.  Zoom out a fraction and drag the map down with the mouse.  The waterfront area comes into view and our creaking under the strain harbor bridge with its "Nippon Clipons" as we call them here, which were added by the Japanese when it became immediately obvious that suddenly everyone did want to live on the North Shore and didn't have to drive for an hour from the city around the harbor to get there.

I live about ten minutes drive from the bridge on the North Shore side (we like to think of it as the sunny side of Auckland) and across to the left.  If you follow the harbor around the left side of the Harbor Bridge (make sure you are looking North) past Little Shoal Bay,  and find the first major inlet, I live up there on right hand side (which is where I am typing this article from).

One of the amazing features of this program is that you can "tilt" the view and show contours of the deatiled bits.  For some of the major cities in the States, there is even a 3D overlay of the major buildings.  Click "reset tilt" to get back to the default vertical view.

Have fun with Google Earth; my kids have a ball.  You can create your own points of interest by pinning a flag to a spot.  Google Earth saves this location to "My Places" so you can double click from anywhere to return there.

Google Moon:

Not content with just the Earth, Google have also launched Google Moon.  Go here: http://moon.google.com/  It shows all the Moon landing sites from the 1969 Apollo 11 landing to the last Apollo 17 site.  Try zooming as far as you can go!  At least Google have a sense of humor :-)