Phone Books Dead?

In the cross-culture life I am leading, spending my days writing about educational technology and my weekends working on family history and genealogy, I find some spots where there is overlap. I call this space, "Beyond the Horizon" and that space is filled with technology, of course. I guess this is a form of social history.

Today, I was amused, and annoyed to hear that Adobe has decided to feel the pressure of some of the online photo editing tools will provide one of their own. After being forced to use Adobe PhotoShop in one of my graduate classes, I am comforted by the fact that they at least concede that there are other applications in our known universe. I am NOT giving up my love of Picnik. Period.

I also read, on a genealogy blog, about the death of the phone book. Yes, I know genealogy is all about life and death but this notice is of great interest to me. What am I going to use for a footrest if there are no phone books? Ah, the joys of being short.

Later...btw, my phone books came today (4/16/08) tossed out the window of a car onto my driveway!

Same Location Different Era

205 Wentworth Ave.
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

This is the same house many years before the next blog entry. In fact, this photograph was taken many years before I was born about 1938 or so. It is probably the photograph that the real estate agent used to show my grandparents this lovely English Tudor house.

While learning to use "Street View" at Google Maps recently to research my grandfather's business, which was nearby, to this street, I discovered that I could actually look at the house as it probably looks today. Google Maps are not dated and are probably a few years behind today's date. But, it is exciting to use this new feature and think of it's application to learning about neighborhoods and cities in reference to learning about maps.

Go to the next blog entry to see this house in modern day.

Google Maps and Street View

Using Google Maps and the new "street view", I learned to copy and paste HTML code into this blog entry to show you the house where my grandparents lived when I was a little girl. I don't know who lives there now and wasn't sure if the house was still standing. I guess this means you can go home again!

Street View is not available for all areas. The photos are "gathered by vehicles equipped with advanced imaging technology, driving on public streets." Here's a video from Google to help you understand Street View.

For a look at the world in vitual reality, check out the Web site, 360 Cities.


View Larger Map

Geography Headaches

I admit to everyone that I did not learn enough geography. My father could put together the wooden puzzle of the United States at breakneck speed! He often said that I was learning nothing in school.

Google Earth is more amazing to me than Second Life! (It does seem as foreign to me and sort of virtual reality in nature.) With each update, I forget what I learned before and become frustrated easily. Writing this section in my upcoming book has taken days of re-learning and searching for help.

I was doing fine, reviewing what I learned before until I decided to move a placemark. The Help files say I should be able to do it like I did with version 3 but that is NOT the case. (Isn't Help supposed to be well, help?)

In steps the UK Web site and its associated blog called Juicy Geography. In the blog, under Guides are two important documents for Google Earth version 4 that are lifesavers. They are in Word format, so you can just print them out and use them. One is about navigation and the other is about making a placemark and moving a placemark. You MUST get these.

The folks at Juicy also shared this link named "What is GPS?" Some people think GPS is the name of the devices in cars and that the directions are somewhat magical.

OK, so I'm not that bad. But, where the heck is Nebraska?