Dean Peters at Heal Your Church Website has released his list of the “Top 10 Church Website Design Mistakes of 2007“.
I question calling it a list from 2007, as some of these have been around for a while. However, the list of offenses is right on — I completely agree with what he has to say on here.
Reading Time: < 1 minute(via Spatially Adjusted) Here is a slick video showing a person flying through Virtual Earth using the Wii Remote (with a Nunchuk).
The movement is strikingly smooth. He’s moving multiple directions at once (something you can’t do with the Sandio mouse
), and it almost looks on par with the Space Navigator.
I have a Wii, so I wonder how on earth you can set something like this up…
Reading Time: < 1 minuteFrank Taylor at the Google Earth Blog has compiled a list of the 25 best Google Earth stories of the year. It’s quite a good list, covering everything from Steve Fossett to the flight sim
to Darfur.
Check it out. Agree with the list?
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As reported by the Google Earth Blog, the NORAD Santa Tracker for this year is ready. You can download it from the NORAD Tracks Santa website
.
Gather the kids around the PC and watch Santa’s progress throughout the day!
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With so many people traveling over the next 10 days, I thought it would be worth reminding you about the excellent Google Maps Mobile.
The searching and directions are neat, but the live traffic is the real killer feature in this product. It saved us a good deal of time yesterday (don’t go down 75 — take 285 around) , and will likely be a big help again tomorrow.
Their latest update also included “My Location”, which is a simulated GPS using cell tower information. My phone has GPS (N95 FTW), but this is a useful feature on my wife’s BlackJack.
Bottom line: If you have a compatible phone, GMM is a must have during the holidays.
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This is one that I took a while back but forgot to post.
We were at Wal-Mart when I noticed this sign in their photo lab. What’s wrong with it? Try telling me how long it’s been up there. Do I need to wait 30 minutes for someone to come back? Or did they hang it up 29 minutes ago and they’re walking back right now? There is no way to tell.
A simple timestamp on the sign would do the job. Even better would be a sign that says something like “Photo lab will be closed until 8:15pm” or something like that.
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This one goes hand-in-hand with our recent Wal-Mart example. It’s not a bad sign, but it’s not very clear. I saw this sign on a Monday morning on my way to work. Was it left up from the previous weekend? Or does it really mean “this Friday” coming up?
This neighborhood often has outdated signs posted, so I have no idea which is correct. A simple fix would be to add “this Friday, Nov. 30″ and there would be no questions. Of course, they have these signs all over the neighborhood, so it would be a sizable task to change them all.
Reading Time: < 1 minuteGoogle has just released a new version of Google Maps for mobile today. This version includes a new feature called “My Location”. By using cell tower triangulation, it can pinpoint your location to within a few hundred meters. It’s not as accurate as GPS, but it’s pretty darn good.
In addition, it can assist with your location if you already have GPS. It will typically kick in more quickly than GPS and works better indoors.
For more information, visit the Google LatLong Blog or the Google Mobile Blog.
Reading Time: 2 minutesI’ve had the opportunity to play with the Sandio 3D O2 mouse for a few days and I thought I’d share my impressions of it with you. Before I saw the mouse, I was expecting something similar to the SpaceNavigator, but it’s not very similar at all.
To start with (and I think this is its best feature), this functions as a normal mouse, suitable for e-mail, browsing, and games like USA Casinos Online at www.EasyMobileCasino.com. The SpaceNavigator, of course, is a completely separate device. This is a pretty big deal. I don’t usually bring my SpaceNavigator with me when I travel (it’s certainly small enough to bring – I’m just lazy), but I always bring my mouse. Having both in one device is great.
This mouse has the normal two buttons + a scroll wheel. Above the scroll wheel is an analog joystick, similar to those found on game pads (Xbox, PS3, etc). On the right and left side of the mouse are two more analog sticks, and a couple more buttons. Those analog sticks are what you use to fly around in your 3D worlds.
This mouse is billed as a “gaming mouse” and I can’t really comment on that aspect of it. My main use for it would be in Google Earth and Virtual Earth, so that’s what I tried.
Once inside of Google Earth, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Part of that can be attributed to the learning curve on any new device, but it was a slow process to learn. I found the SpaceNavigator to be much more intuitive. Beyond that, there were two problems that were much more serious:
I really wanted to like this mouse. It looks awesome, with a big footprint, great colors and cool glowing lights on it. However, I just can’t bring myself to like it that much. It will probably become my travel mouse, with my generic Microsoft Mouse / SpaceNavigator keeping permanent residence on my desk.
If you’re a gamer and you’ve tried this mouse, please post in the comments and let us know what you thought of it.
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Google Maps has just added a very nice new feature – terrain view. This isn’t satellite images, but rather it is map-ish terrain views. It’s very pleasing to the eye.
To make room for this new feature, the “hybrid” button has been removed and you now are given a “Show labels” checkbox when viewing in Satellite mode.
For more information, check out the official post on the Google LatLong blog.