[Taxacom] Google Maps again

[Michael Denslow]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the interesting post.

*SNIP*

> (2) Finding lat/longs
>
> On Google Earth, you can get the lat/long of a point by hovering the cursor over it. The lat/long appears in the status bar at the bottom of the screen (or grid reference if UTM is selected in Google Earth Options).
>
> Google Maps doesn't have this feature, but you can get nearly the same thing by first clicking on the tiny green lab flask at the top right of the Google Maps window, just to the left of the 'Help' and 'Sign In' links. A new window will appear, displaying the apps under development at Google Maps Labs. The two apps we're interested in are Lat/Lng Tool Tip and Lat/Lng Marker. If you enable the Tool Tip and save changes, Google Maps will now display the lat/long of the point under the cursor, in decimal degrees.
>
> The Lat/Lng Marker works this way: hover the cursor over a spot, then right-click. At the bottom of the context menu is 'Drop Lat/Lng Marker'. Choose this, and a marker appears at the spot, again with lat/long in decimal degrees.


I just want to point out that I frequently used Google maps/earth in
this way until I learned that extracting coordinates for use outside
of Google products violates the terms of service. See section 10.12
etc. I am not apposed to using google products, but there are some
great truly open geospatial initiatives that the biodiversity
community can make use of. For example, Open Street Map, the National
Map Server (U.S. only), Geonames etc.


Michael

-- 
Michael Denslow

I.W. Carpenter Jr. Herbarium [BOON]
Department of Biology
Appalachian State University
Boone, North Carolina U.S.A.
-- AND --
Communications Manager
Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections
sernec.org

36.214177, -81.681480 +/- 3103 meters