Google Maps is an interesting service for quite a few purposes. It can be used to get directions or take a closer look at a specific location on the planet. Many mashups extends its functionality making it without doubt one of the most popular map applications on the Internet. Google Maps does require an Internet connection which can be problematic in some situations like downloading directions from point a to point b to a computer to access it on the road where Internet access is either not available or to costly.
Offline Maps is a software program for Microsoft Windows that offers the following functionality to users and developers:
The application provides following functionality to its users:
The ability to download tiles to a folder on your computer of a given zoomfactor along a path
The ability to view the downloaded tiles in the application
The ability to draw a path on the map and save that path to a file
The ability to receive data from a GPS device and position the map at the points received from the device
To developers it provides following functionality
The ability to develop new layers with specific functionality
The ability to draw on the map using longitude and latitude coordinates
The ability to draw on the map using regular coordinates
The developer provides access to a version for the Microsoft Windows operating system and a mobile version for Windows Mobile devices. Supported are Google Maps and Open Street Maps. It is furthermore possible to load maps that have already been downloaded from either service. Several additional options are provided in the layers tab including ripping, routing and GPS options.
The software program requires the Microsoft .net Framework. Interested users can download it from the Codeplex website
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Viewer2: unique, innovative image viewing and tagging app:
Viewer2 is a free image viewing and tagging app that combines form and function into a powerful program that is a joy to use. It offers an innovative tagging process based on organizing image thumbnails and folders visually and grouping them in various ways that make it very easy to work with and tag them. Includes a powerful, versatile search function that indexes metadata as well as filenames and paths.
There are a number of good freeware image viewers/taggers out there, but Viewer2 will immediately impress due to its stylish interface and innovative functions. I would suggest that you view the video at the bottom of this post to get a sense of how this program works and feels; meanwhile here are some notes on this program:
The interface: there’s not much of it, until you mouse over to the edges of the screen, where you will find all the tools that you need to browse, view and tag your images. But note that in order to really take advantage of what this program can do you really have to become familiar with the different mouse manipulations (e.g. right-click and move to move selected sets of images around - see the video tutorials). You also might want to become familiar with the various keyboard shortcuts, esp. the ones that concern tagging images, as they will make the process super fast and easy. Note that when hovering over any command icon in the interface a text label will show at the bottom of the screen to explain it (although a tool-tip would have been better, I think).
Grouping images: Viewer2 can automatically group images visually in various "piles". It can group by name, by path, by resolution, by number views, by time/date accessed, by color, and of course by tags.
Automatic tag suggestions: for quick tagging, Viewer2 can suggest tags based on other tagging activity.
Film Strip view: right clicking while viewing images displays thumbnail view of all other images in that folder that you can quickly browse through with horizontal mouse movements. A super cool effect (illustrated in the one of the two screenshots on the top of this review).
Lasso-type tool: an innovative tool that can be used while tagging to select multiple images (alternately you can simply CTRL+click on several thumbnail to select them). In image view mode the lasso tool is there, but this time it serves to quickly zoom into the lassoed area (is that a word?).
Searching: the search function is one of the most versatile and powerful that you could hope for, offering search by tags, by name, location, size, etc. It is able to field sophisticated queries such as give me the word "bla" with "2007" in the path excluding the tag "wallpaper" as an example (see the manual section for an overview).
Navigating folders: double click on the viewed image to display the other images and folders in the same location.These will be represented visually in piles that can be hovered over (for more info) or clicked on to access. Alternately mouse over the left side of the screen to access a simple directory listing.
Customization: most everything about this program can be customized in the settings, from the size of the thumbnails to the way various elements behave.
Memory use: only 16 megs in memory, despite the nifty, visual pyrotechnics.
Technical details: IPTC data editing, full Unicode support.
A video of the program in action:
The verdict: I am bowled over by this app. Its not just because of the high coolness factor, which would have been enough to win me over, but also because the innovative interface and process actually makes it super easy to work with tags quickly and effectively. The developer who thought out and built this (and kept it at such low memory usage) did a terrific job! Download and try it you will like it.
[Thanks go to reader Anjan for tipping me off about this program!]
Version Tested: 4044
Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, Vista.
Go to the Program page to download the latest version (approx 1.59 megs).
"
6 Best Free jQuery Framework/Library
jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapidweb development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.
A lighweight JS library for adding keyboard navigation support to tables.The library provides an Excel-like navigation that can be bundled with features like on-click editing. The inline row editing feature is accomplished with the jQuery jEditable plug-in. And, KeyTable integrates easily with DataTables (see WRD post).The library works in all major browsers.
A jQuery plugin for adding advanced interaction controls to HTML tables.It can add pagination, filtering and multi-column sorting functions to tables with ease.
Ingrid is an unobtrusive jQuery component for creating very nice looking & effective datagrids.It simply adds datagrid behaviors (column resizing, paging, sorting, row and column styling, and more) to your tables.
With every display event, Ingrid sends a query to a dynamic file (ASP, Asp.Net, PHP..), which must be created by you (a PHP example exists).The query then simply returns the results in a table format "how Ingrid expects them to be". And, that's all.
jqGrid is an Ajaxed jQuery grid plugin with amazing features.As the grid is a client-side solution that loads data with Ajax callbacks, it can be used with any server-side language like ASP, PHP, ASP.NET, JSP and so.A clever feature is sub grids which shows you a sub grid when a master column is called.
tablesorter is a jQuery plugin for turning a standard HTML table with THEAD and TBODY tags into a sortable table without page refreshes.tablesorter can successfully parse and sort many types of data including linked data in a cell.Using tableSorter, you can have custom headers, sorting classes and row striping features.
Flexigrid is a feature rich data grid with resizable columns and a scrolling data to match the headers, plus an ability to connect to an xml based data source using AJAX to load the content.
Want to show off a PDF or PowerPoint presentation on a web space without having to include an obligatory link to Adobe's PDF viewer for the link-doesn't-work crowd? You can embed those documents anywhere using Google's document viewer.
Google Operating System points out an embed code that works for any PDF or PowerPoint file that's hosted somewhere, anywhere online, and can be pasted into just about any web space that tolerates frames. Here's an example of what that embedding looks like with an old 1040 tax form:
Hit the link for the cut-and-replace embed code, and check out the previously mentioned Scribd iPaper embedding for another no-software-needed document sharing solution.
IxEdit is an easy-to-use & free tool which aims to simplify the implementation of interactions on a web page, specially for anyone who is not experienced in JavaScript.
This interaction design tool is built with JavaScript & needs to be embedded into the webpage being edited. With the help of a modal-box-like interface, interactions created will be applied instantly.
Rather than totally new scripts, IxEdit generates jQuery & jQuery UI code using the parameters specified.
Interactions are stored in a local database (Google Gears), so, anything created won’t be lost even if the page is refreshed or closed.
ColorSuckr is a free online service which can extract colors from an image & generate color schemes.
It can be used in 3 ways:
by mentioning the URL of the image
via a bookmarklet
or a Firefox add-on
Once the color schemes are ready, they can be downloaded as Adobe Swatch (.ASE) files or more schemes can be listed from COLOURlovers for any selected color.
ColorSuckr also offers the results in RSS, JSON & XML formats which makes an integration with any application possible.
Google Maps is an interesting service for quite a few purposes. It can be used to get directions or take a closer look at a specific location on the planet. Many mashups extends its functionality making it without doubt one of the most popular map applications on the Internet. Google Maps does require an Internet connection which can be problematic in some situations like downloading directions from point a to point b to a computer to access it on the road where Internet access is either not available or to costly.
